Alexandria of the Caucasus (Askandria-e-Qafqaz or Askandria Paro paizad) was a city founded by Alexander the Great (one of many given the name Alexandria), at an important junction of communications in the southern foothills of the Hindu Kush, about 45 miles North of Kabul, in the country of the Paropamisadae. It was built on top of Kapiša-kaniš (pronounced "Kapish-Kanish"), capital of the Persiansatrapy of Gandara (although it is not known whether Gandara was still a part of the Achaemenid empire when Alexander took it), and populated with some 4000 natives and 3000 veteran Greeks in March 329 BC. He had also built forts in what is nowadays Bagram or Begram in Afghanistan, at the foot of the Hindu Kush, replacing forts erected in much the same place by Persia's king Cyrus the Great c. 500 BC.
Modern times
Some archaeological evidence concerning Alexandria of the Caucasus was gathered by Charles Masson (1800 - 1853), providing insight into the history of that lost city. His findings include coins, rings, seals and other small objects. In the French archaeologist Ghrshman, doing excavations in Bagram, found Egyptian and Syrian glassware, bronze statuettes, bowls and other objects, this being an indication that Alexander's conquests have opened India to imports from the west.
The site of Alexandria of the Caucasus is now the city of Chârikâr in Afghanistan. Bagram now hosts Bagram Air Base which was of great importance during the recent conflict in Afghanistan.
External link
Alexander the Great: his towns (http://www.livius.org/aj_al/alexander/alexander-z2.html)
Alexandria, named after its founder, Alexander the Great, was the seat of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world — second only to Rome in size and wealth throughout much of antiquity.
Alexandria seems from this time to have regained its old prosperity, commanding, as it did, an important granary of Rome; this fact, doubtless, was one of the chief reasons which induced Augustus to place it directly under imperial power.
Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole nearly a mile long and called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia" — a stadium was a Greek unit of length measuring approximately 200m).
Alexandria and Antioch were both traversed from end to end by one long straight street, crossed by shorter ones at right angles; Nicaea was a square from the centre of which all the four gates could be seen at the ends of the intersecting thoroughfares (Strabo xii.
Alexandria, Antioch and Pergamum, were normally controlled altogether by royal nominees.
In its population, too, Alexandria was only semi-Hellenic; for besides the proportion of Egyptian natives in its lower strata, its commercial greatness drew in elements from every quarter; the Jews, for instance, formed a majority of the population in two out of the five divisions of the city.
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