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The Hindu Kush Mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Following the First Anglo-Afghan war of 1839– 42 the British government in Simla decided that the North-West Frontier of British India had to have an accurate delineation. Sir Mortimer Durand mapped the border between what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1893 and this frontier is known as the Durand Line. Unfortunately it is a political frontier and one that splits the Pathan or Pushtun-speaking lands into two, with the North-West Frontier Province and Waziristan in Pakistan to the east and the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangahar, Khost, Paktiya, and Kandahar to the west. The border regions north of Baluchistan in Quetta and Waziristan are strong tribal areas and ones that have never come under the direct rule of the Pakistani government. Warlords run their drug and arms businesses from well-fortified mud-walled hilltop fortresses. During the period that Lord Curzon was Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 the entire border regions of British India were mapped out along the Karakoram, Kashmir, Ladakh, and south Tibetan Ranges. During Partition, in 1947, once again an artificial border was established separating mostly Muslim Pakistan from India. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, gave Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of delineating the border in haste to avoid a civil war that would surely have come, and on 17 August 1947 Pakistan inherited all the territory between the Durand Line and the new Indian frontier, the Radcliffe Line. In the north, the disputed Kashmir region still remained unresolved and the northern boundary of Pakistan ran north to the main watershed along the Hindu Kush, Hindu Raj, and Karakoram Ranges. To the west, Afghanistan was a completely artificial country created by the amalgamation of the Pathans of the east, Hazaras of the central region, the Uzbeks in the Mazar-i-Sharif area, and the Tadjiks of the Panjshir Valley along the border with Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. The British lost three wars trying to invade this mountainous land between 1839 and 1919, and the Soviet Union which occupied Afghanistan for ten years from 1979 also withdrew across the Oxus River in failure in February 1989.

In the winter of 330/329, Alexander the Great crossed the Hindu Kush from southwest to northeast and found a cave, an eagle's aerie, and the marks of chains. Alexander and his men recognized the signs immediately: the rock was none other than the mythical prison of Prometheus; the eagle was Zeus's dreadful companion, slain by Herakles. The process whereby the Caucasus was identified with the Hindu Kush appeared to be the reverse of that envisioned by the third-century geographer, Eratosthenes of Kyrene. Alexander marched beyond the Caucasus (the site of the easternmost adventure of Herakles, or so it seemed at the time), and his men passed the boundaries set by Dionysos beyond the Tanais. The following year (329/8–328/7) saw a number of incidents with Heraklean flavor. The first instance where Heraklean influence may perhaps be detected is the punishment of Bessos. The second scene takes place on the banks of the river Oxus (Amu-Darya). Herakles plays a small but crucial role in the events leading to the murder of Kleitos. Herakles was also involved in the proskynesis affair.

In late spring or early summer of 327, Alexander the Great once more crossed the Hindu Kush—his Caucasus—and passed into India. He was congratulated by a number of kinglets from the neighborhood as the third son of Zeus, after Dionysos and Herakles. Herakles freed Prometheus from his shackles somewhere on the Hindu Kush, but for Alexander that was a recent discovery. Dionysos had visited Baktria, as everyone knew from Euripides, but the playwright never suggested that the God had also visited India. Still in the northernmost parts of India, Alexander came to the rock Aornos. He also reached the land of the Siboi (or Sibai), at the confluence of the Hydaspes and the Akesines. Early in 325, two years after the invasion of India, Alexander celebrated the successful conclusion to the campaign against the Malloi and Oxydrakai. The “battle of the Gods” marks the last appearance of Herakles in the historical accounts of Alexander's campaign.

Having settled affairs in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander recrossed the Hindu Kush and began his march to the Indus River, subduing as he went the satrapy of Gandhāra. Perdiccas and Hephaestion were sent ahead to bridge the Indus and accept the submission of Taxiles, who lived beyond the river. Taxiles, however, preferred to meet the king in person at Nicaea in Gandhāra. The campaign proved difficult, since the various tribes—the Aspasians, Assacenians, and Guraeans—withdrew into their mountain fastnesses and forced the Macedonians to conduct sieges of their major towns. One final attempt at resistance at Aornus, which was situated by the banks of the Indus, failed, and its capture enhanced Alexander’s reputation for invincibility.

This chapter shows how in early antiquity the universal appeal of silk spread across Eurasia through a trade network known as the Silk Roads. Silk inspired the economic exchange of trading goods, which produced a network of trade centers and cities. The value of silk was so great that traders endured harsh conditions as they passed through the great mountain ranges of the Tien Shan, Karakorams, and Hindu Kush and skirted inhospitable deserts, such as the Taklamakan and Gobi. Caravanserais, rest stops along the Silk Roads, allowed travelers to exchange ideas and innovations and created awareness of different cultures and religions. The product of the domestic silkworm figured prominently in the development of dominant Central and Western Asian empires and Chinese dynasties and produced significant historical figures, such as Timur and Mongol leader, Genghis Khan. As this chapter shows, that rich, arcane history developed because of the domestic silkworm.