Thread by @MumukshuSavitri

1/n
Did you know Alexander the "Great" was such a great strategist that he thought the Indus river was the source of the Nile in Egypt? Despite spies scouting India's geography before his "conquest", he thought that the Eastern Ocean (Bay of Bengal) lay after the Beas river.

2/n
Alexander’s poor knowledge of geography was based on his teacher Aristotle who knew nothing about the Ganges river system. No Alexander writer or geographer before Ptolemy mentions even the Sutlej. Justin’s statement that Alexander conquered Magadha was completely fictional.

3/n
The truth is he never even reached the Ganga. The soldiers thought they were just one river away from the edge of India at the river Beas. His army rebelled & refused to go further after the Battle of Hydapses (Jhelum).

4/n
The Greeks thought the Indus is the largest of all rivers and that the Indus valley was close to the outer ocean. Beyond the Eastern Ocean of India they believed was only miles of desert. In reality they did not proceed beyond the NW border of today's India proper.

5/n
Arrian’s history tells us that since Alexander’s men refused to go any further than the Beas, he gave a speech saying “One more river and then the end”, thinking that he had reached the edge of the Eastern Ocean (Bay of Bengal).

6/n
He still believed that the ocean was relatively close and that he could overrun the territory to the east in a relatively short time. This fake legend of Alexander reaching the Ganga was created by the historian Phegeus who clearly had all the details wrong.

7/n
Phegeus said that beyond the Beas was a desert crossed in 12 days to reach Ganga - all of which is 100% utterly false. The truth is Alexander the not so great geographer had to turn back from the river Beas, & later Greek historians said it was the river Ganga to glorify him.

References:
Alexander the Great: Volume 2, Sources and Studies, Volume 2 - By W. W. Tarn

Aristotle, India and the Alexander Historians [article]
A. Brian Bosworth
persee.fr/doc/topoi_1161…