Text
Diodorus Siculus 2.6.1-4:
Now Ninus in his campaign against Bactriana with so large a force was compelled, because access to the country was difficult and the passes were narrow, to advance his army in divisions. For the country Bactriana, though there were many large cities for the people to dwell in, had one which was the most famous, this being the city containing the royal palace; it was called Bactra, and in size and in the strength of its acropolis was by far the first of them all. The king of the country, Oxyartes, had enrolled all the men of military age, and they had been gathered to the number of four hundred thousand. So taking this force with him and meeting the enemy at the passes, he allowed a division of the army of Ninus to enter the country; and when he thought that a sufficient number of the enemy had debouched into the plain he drew out his own forces in battle-order. A fierce struggle then ensued in which the Bactrians put the Assyrians to flight, and pursuing them as far as the mountains which overlooked the field, killed about one hundred thousand of the enemy. But later, when the whole Assyrian force entered their country, the Bactrians, overpower by the multitude of them, withdrew city by city, each group intending to defend its own homeland. And so Ninus easily subdued all the other cities, but Bactra, because of its strength and the equipment for war which it contained, he was unable to take by storm.
Source (list of abbreviations)
Diodorus Siculus 2.6.1-4
Bibliography
| Oldfather 1960, I 364-367 | Oldfather, C. H. Diodorus of Sicily. 12 Vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann 1960. |
Amar Annus
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