River
Flumen Sygris
Syr Darya (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Among the rivers the map draws in Asia beyond the Sea of Azov runs Flumen Sygris, the Syr Darya, which the Greeks called the Iaxartes; the map's form of the name seems to echo the modern Syr. Alexander the Great reached the river at Khujand in 329 BC and founded a colony there, Alexandria Eschate. His men believed they had found the upper course of the Don, the border between Europe and Asia, so flatterers told him he had conquered Asia to Europe's very edge. Most ancient writers let it flow into the Caspian; the historian Ammianus Marcellinus first led it into a separate lake, the Aral Sea.