MH magazine story

[hb35]

Hello, just wanted to say I've been on this site for hours. It's a great resource.
I found the site after reading a story on Alexander in Military History Magazine, June 2004. It deals with Hydaspes and the following campaign on the march back to Babylon.
I will definitely have to re-read the article after learning some background on this site. I just thought some might like to read it. I picked it up at the local Kroger's Grocery.

[marcus]

Hi John,Welcome to the site - I'm sure we're all delighted that you find it a useful resource. It's always good to have recommendations of new articles and books on Alexander, so thanks for tipping us off about the one in Military History. I don't know whether that magazine is available int he UK - but I'll certainly be looking for it!All the bestMarcus

[jona]

Thanks for mentioning the article, which is certainly not bad. There's an online version at http://www.thehistorynet.com/.However, it contains an error; it still says that the battle was fought at Jalalpur/Haranpur. This theory, first put forward by Alexander Cunningham and modified by Aurel Stein, is untenable because the Jhelum has moved considerably.About a year ago, I consulted a German palaeohydrological map of the Punjab, which was published in 1967; I've forgotten the name but the same map is used by Bosworth in *Alexander in the East* (fig. 9; 1996), and by Eggermont, *AlexanderGÇÖs campaign in Southern Punjab* (1992).Although Bosworth wrote on several occasions that the exact battlefield can no longer be found because the river course has changed too much, and always says that the map he has copied from the German original is "wholly conjectural", this much seems to be certain: there are no river sediments from the second half of the first millennium BCE at Haranpur and Jalalpur. Wherever the battle took place, it was not there.Personally, I guess that the battlefield was immediately south of modern Jhelum, which has the correct sediments and was a very important river crossing until the middle ages (the Uttarapatha from Hindu sources). It was only when the Grand Trunk Road was constructed that the main river crossing moved to its present location.Eggermont also mentions arguments from buddhist literature that Nikaia and Boukephala were in the same area, but I was unable to check this.Jona

[nick]

Hi Jona -When I visited Haranpur & surroundings in 1999 I stayed in the (I must say extremely friendly and inspirational) town of Mandi Bahauddin (because Haranpur is too smal to feature a place to stay).I noticed that just a few kms east of Mandi Bahauddin there was a very small village with the name of "Phalia". You can find it on detailed road & tourist maps of Pakistan. Of course, I was tempted to believe that "Phalia" is reminiscent of "Bucephalia", the town Alexander founded on - as I recall - the east shore of the Jhelum after the battle. Indeed Phalia is, I suppose, some 20 kms or maybe even slightly more from the present shore of the Jhelum.I once posted a message on pothos.org asking if anyone new if "Phalia" could be connected to "Bucephalia". No replies then. Maybe now?Best regards -Nick