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Alexandria in Orietai

Background

Alexandria in Orietai was one of the seventy-plus cities founded or renamed by Alexander the Great. The town was founded by Alexander in autumn of 325 after his army had separated from Nearchus and the boats near the mouth of the Indus River. The sources agree that a town was built among the Oreitians, that the fortification was left to Hephaestion and Leonnatus be built in the autumn of 325 and that it was located near Rhambacia, the largest town of the Oreitai. The core of colonists were retired Arachosian horsemen.

Alexander probably intended the new town to be an emporium controlling the local and Indian spice trade through the passes to Kandahar. The area certainly had exotic resources for trade. Written four centuries later the Roman Periplus of the Erythraean Sea says that this area "yields much wheat, wine, rice and dates but along the coast there is nothing but Bdellium".

The exact site of the city in Balochistan, Pakistan is still unknown but several locations have been proposed. Stein locates it near modern Bela, Pakistan and this remains the most popular site. Diodorus, however, says it was on the coast. Although it is uncertain the extent to which the coast has changed in  2 1⁄2 millennia. Tarn, however, thinks no city was built here due to a lack of Greek artefacts in the area.

Sources

Diodorus 17.104.4-8

Quintus Curtius 9.10.5-7

Arrian Anabais 6.21.3-6

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chapter 38

Diodorus 17.104.8

Alexander among the Orietia, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschicht 4th Qtr., 1972

John Rooke, Arrian's History of the expedition of Alexander the Great: and conquest of Persia, J. Davis, 1813

Nigel Cawthorne, Alexander the Great, Haus Publishing, 2004

Waldemar Heckel; The wars of Alexander the Great, 336-323 B.C, Taylor & Francis, 2003

James S. Romm, Pamela Mensch, Arrian, Alexander the Great, Hackett Publishing.