Chaboras
| Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R) |
Chabora (Ancient Greek: Χαβώρα) was an ancient town on the Euphrates, near Nicephorion, that probably derives its name from the Chaboras river.[1] Theophylact Simocatta mentions Ἀβορέων φρούριον, which is, according to William Smith, the same place.[2]
Variants
- Chabora (Ancient Greek: Χαβώρα)
- Chaboras
- Chaboras river
Jat Gotras Namesake
- Chabhar = Chabor (Anabasis by Arrian, p. 401.)
- Chabhar = Chaboras (Anabasis by Arrian, p. 172.)
Ch.16: Escape of Darius into Media.— March of Alexander to Babylon and Susa (p.170-174)
Immediately after the battle, Darius marched through the mountains of Armenia towards Media, accompanied in his flight by the Bactrian cavalry, as they had then been posted with him in the battle; also by those Persians who were called the king's kinsmen, and by a few of the men called apple-bearers.[1] About 2,000 of his Grecian mercenaries also accompanied him in his flight, under the command of Paron the Phocian, and Glaucus the Aetolian. He fled towards Media for this reason, because he thought Alexander would take the road to Susa and Babylon immediately after the battle, inasmuch as the whole of that country was inhabited and the road was not difficult for the transit of baggage; and besides Babylon and Susa appeared to be the prizes of the war; whereas the road towards Media was by no means easy for the march of a large army. In this conjecture Darius was mistaken; for when Alexander started from Arbela, he advanced straight towards Babylon; and when he was now not far from that city, he drew up his army in order of battle and marched forward. The Babylonians came out to meet him in mass, with their priests and rulers, each of whom individually brought gifts, and offered to surrender their city, citadel, and money.[2] Entering the city, he commanded the Babylonians to rebuild all the temples which Xerxes had destroyed, and especially that of Belus, whom the Babylonians venerate more than any other god.[3] He then appointed Mazaeus viceroy of the Babylonians, Apollodorus the Amphipolitan general of the soldiers who were left behind with Mazaeus, and Asclepiodorus, son of Philo, collector of the revenue. He also sent Mithrines, who had surrendered to him the citadel of Sardis, down into Armenia to be viceroy there.[4] Here also he met with the Chaldaeans; and whatever they directed in regard to the religious rites of Babylon he performed, and in particular he offered sacrifice to Belus according to their instructions.[5] He then marched away to Susa[6]; and on the way he was met by the son of the viceroy of the Susians,[7] and a man bearing a letter from Philoxenus, whom he had despatched to Susa directly after the battle. In the letter Philoxenus had written that the Susians had surrendered their city to him, and that all the money was safe for Alexander. In twenty days the king arrived at Susa from Babylon; and entering the city he took possession of the money, which amounted to 50,000 talents, as well as the rest of the royal property.[8] Many other things were also captured there, which Xerxes brought with him from Greece, especially the brazen statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.[9] These Alexander sent back to the Athenians, and they are now standing at Athens in the Ceramicus, where we go up into the Acropolis,[10] right opposite the temple of Rhea, the mother of the gods, not far from the altar of the Eudanemi. Whoever has been initiated in the mysteries of the two goddesses[11] at Eleusis, knows the altar of Eudanemus which is upon the plain. At Susa Alexander offered sacrifice after the custom of his fathers, and celebrated a torch race and a gymnastic contest; and then, leaving Abulites, a Persian, as viceroy of Susiana, Mazarus, one of his Companions, as commander of the garrison in the citadel of Susa, and Archelaüs, son of Theodorus, as general, he advanced towards the land of the Persians. He also sent Menes down to the sea, as governor of Syria, Phœnicia, and Cilicia, giving him 3,000 talents of silver[12] to convey to the sea, with orders to despatch as many of them to Antipater as he might need to carry on the war against the Lacedaemonians.[13] There also Amyntas, son of Andromenes, reached him with the forces which he was leading from Macedonia[14]; of whom Alexander placed the horsemen in the ranks of the Companion cavalry, and the foot he added to the various regiments of infantry, arranging each according to nationalities. He also established two companies in each squadron of cavalry, whereas before this time companies did not exist in the cavalry; and over them he set as captains those of the Companions who were pre-eminent for merit.
1. As to the kinsmen and apple-bearers, see iii. 11 supra.
2. Diodorus (xvii. 63) and Curtius (v. 6) state that from the treasure captured in Babylon, Alexander distributed to each Macedonian horseman about £24, to each of the Grecian horsemen £20, to each of the Macedonian infantry £8, and to the allied infantry two months' pay.
3. Belus, or Bel, the supreme deity of the Babylonians, was identical with the Syrian Baal. The signification of the name is mighty. Cf. Herodotus (i. 181); Diodorus (ii. 9); Strabo (xvi. 1).
4. See i. 17 supra.
5. The Chaldees appear in Hebrew under the name of Casdim, who seem to have originally dwelt in Carduchia, the northern part of Assyria. The Assyrians transported these rude mountaineers to the plains of Babylonia (Isa. xxiii. 13). The name of Casdim, or Chaldees, was applied to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia (Gen. xi. 28); the inhabitants of the Arabian desert in the vicinity of Edom (Job i. 17); those who dwelt near the river Chaboras (Ezek. i. 3; xi. 24); and the priestly caste who had settled at a very early period in Babylon, as we are informed by Diodorus and Eusebius. Herodotus says that these priests were dedicated to Belus. It is proved by inscriptions that the ancient language was retained as a learned and religious literature. This is probably what is meant in Daniel i. 4 by "the book and tongue of the Casdim." Cf. Diodorus (ii. 29-31); Ptolemy (v. 20, 3); and Cicero (De Divinatione, i. 1). See Fürst's Hebrew Lexicon, sub voce כֶּֽשֶֹד.
6. In the Bible this city is called Shushan. Near it was the fortress of Shushan, called in our Bible the Palace (Neb. i. 2; Esth. ii. 8). Susa was situated on the Choaspes, a river remarkable for the excellence of its water, a fact referred to by Tibullus (iv. 1, 140) and by Milton (Paradise Reg., iii. 288). The name Shushan is derived from the Persian word for lily, which grew abundantly in the vicinity. The ruins of the palace mentioned in Esther i. have recently been explored, and were found to consist of an immense hall, the roof of which was supported by a central group of thirty-six pillars arranged in the form of a square. This was flanked by three porticoes, each containing two rows of six pillars. Cf. Strabo (xv. 7, 28).
7. The name of the viceroy was Abulites (Curtius, v. 8).
8. If these were Attic talents, the amount would be, equivalent to £11,600,000; but if they were Babylonian or Aeginetan talents, they were equal to £19,000,000. Cf. Plutarch (Alex., 36, 37); Justin (xi. 14); and Curtius (v. 8). Diodorus (xvii. 66) tells us that 40,000 talents were of uncoined gold and silver, and 9,000 talents of gold bearing the effigy of Darius.
9. Cf. Arrian (vii. 19); Pausanias (i. 8, 5); Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxxiv. 9); Valerius Maximus (ii. 10, 1). For Harmodius and Aristogeiton see Thucydides, vi. 56-58.
10. Polis meant in early times a particular part of Athens, viz. the citadel, usually called the Acropolis. Cf. Aristophanes (Lysistrata, 245 et passim).
11. Demeter and Persephone.
12.About £730,000.
13. Antipater had been left by Alexander regent of Macedonia. Agis III., king of Sparta, refused to acknowledge Alexander's hegemony, and after a hard struggle was defeated and slain by Antipater at Megalopolis, B.C. 330. See Diodorus, xvii. 63; Curtius, vi. 1 and 2.
14. According to Curtius (v. 6) these forces amounted to nearly 15,000 men. Amyntas also brought with him fifty sons of the chief laen in Macedonia, who wished to serve as royal pages. Cf. Diodorus, xvii. 64.
Ch. 16 Exploration of the Caspian — The Chaldaean Soothsayers (p.400-402)
After this, Alexander sent Heraclides, son of Argaeus, into Hyrcania in command of a company of shipwrights, with orders to cut timber from the Hyrcanian mountains and with it to construct a number of ships of war, some without decks and others with decks after the Grecian fashion of ship-building.[1] For he was very desirous of discovering with what sea the one called the Hyrcanian or Caspian unites; whether it communicates with the water of the Euxine Sea, or whether the Great Sea comes right round from the Eastern Sea, which is near India and flows up into the Hyrcanian Gulf; just as he had discovered that the Persian Sea, which was called the Red Sea, is really a gulf of the Great Sea.[2] For the sources of the Caspian Sea had not yet been discovered, although many nations dwell around it, and navigable rivers discharge their waters into it. From Bactria, the Oxus, the largest of Asiatic rivers, those of India excepted, discharges itself into this sea[3]; and through Scythia flows the Jaxartes.[4] The general account is, that the Araxes also, which flows from Armenia, falls into the same sea.[5] These are the largest; but many others flow into these, while others again discharge themselves directly into this sea. Some of these were known to those who visited these nations with Alexander; others are situated towards the farther side of the gulf, as it seems, in the country of the Nomadic Scythians, a district which is quite unknown. When Alexander had crossed the river Tigres with his army and was marching to Babylon, he was met by the Chaldaean philosophers[6]; who, having led him away from his Companions, besought him to suspend his march to that city. For they said that an oracular declaration had been made to them by the god Belus, that his entrance into Babylon at that time would not be for his good. But he answered their speech with a line from the poet Euripides to this effect: He the best prophet is that guesses well."[7] But said the Chaldaeans:—"O king, do not at any rate enter the city looking towards the west nor leading the army advancing in that direction; but rather go right round towards' the east." But this did not turn out to be easy for him, on account of the difficulty of the ground; for the deity was leading him to the place where entering he was doomed soon to die. And perhaps it was better for him to be taken off in the very acme of his glory as well as of the affection entertained for him by men, before any of the vicissitudes natural to man befell him. Probably this was the reason Solon advised Croesus to look at the end of a long life, and not before pronounce any man happy.[8] Tea indeed, Hephaestion's death had been no small misfortune to Alexander; and I think he would rather have departed before it occurred than have been alive to experience it; no less than Achilles, as it seems to me, would rather have died before Patroclus than have been the avenger of his death.
1. These are what Hirtius (Bell. Alex. 11) calls " naves apertas et constratas."
2. See p. 155, note 6.
3. See p. 199, note 1. Strabo (xi.7) says that Aristobulus declared the Oxus to be the largest river which he had seen except those in India.
4. See p. 198, note 3. The Oxus and Jaxartes really flow into the Sea of Aral, or the Palus Oxiana, which was first noticed by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6, 59) in the 4th century a.d. Ptolemy, however, mentions it as a small lake, and not as the recipient of these rivers. Of. Pliny, vi. 18.
5. The Araxes, or Aras, joins the Cyrus, or Kour, and falls into the Caspian Sea. It is now called Kizil-Ozan, or Yellow River. Its Hebrew name is Chabor (2 Kings xvii. 6). Pontem indignatus Araxes (Vergil, Aeneid, viii. 728). See Aeschylus (Prometheus, 736), Dr. Paley's note.
6. As to the Chaldaeans, see Cicero (De Div., i. 1) and Diod. (ii. 29-31).
7. This is a verse from one of the lost tragedies of Euripides. It is also quoted by Cicero (De Divin., ii. 5): Est quidam Graecus vulgaris in hauc sententiam versus; bene qui oonjiciet, vatem huno perhibebo optimum." ἐμὲ τοῦτο ἔτι ἐόν, meaning, not that he had himself seen the temple, but that it existed till his time. In chap. 183 he expressly states that he did not see other things which he is describing, but that he derived his information from the Chaldaeans. He was about twenty years of age when Xerxes was assassinated. It must not be forgotten that Strabo and Arrian lived five or six hundred years after Xerxes. The veracity of Strabo is never doubted; yet in his description of Babylon this author speaks of the walls and hanging gardens as if they were still in existence, though not expressly saying so.
8. See Herodotus (i. 32); Plutarch (Solon, 27).