Alexandri Arae
οἱ Ἀλεξάνδρου βωμοί
Alexandri Arae or COLUMNAE (οἱ Ἀλεξάνδρου βωμοί). It was a well-known custom of the ancient conquerors from Sesostris downwards to mark their progress, and especially its furthest limits, by monuments; and thus, in Central Asia, near the river Jaxartes (Sihoun), there were shown altars of Hercules and Bacchus, Cyrus, Semiramis and Alexander. (Plin. Nat. 6.16. s. 18; Solin. 49.) Pliny adds that Alexander's soldiers supposed the Jaxartes to be the Tanais, and Ptolemy (3.5.26) actually places altars of Alexander on the true Tanais (Don), which Ammianus Marcellinus (22.8), carrying the confusion a step further, transfers to the Borysthenes. (Ukert, vol. iii. pt. 2, pp. 38, 40, 71, 191, 196.) Respecting Alexander's altars in India, see HYPHASIS
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.