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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 2251262, member: 26302&quot;]Good point about the geography Doug. Ustrushana was an eastern portion of what I would call &quot;Sogdia&quot;. It was to the east of Samarkand and Bukhara. To the east of it was Panjikent. It was the last fortress of what was called the &quot;Sogdian Rocks&quot; that Alexander conquered. As such, its the furthest east Alexander traveled. It was important because it controlled in part the easiest passage from China to Central Asia, the passage that by the 3rd century the Silk Road had moved to.</p><p><br /></p><p>As to the importance of Alexander to Sogdia, he proved no fortress could be impregnable. As such, it changed the mindset of Sogdians from trying to make the most secure fortresses possible to simply accepting they could be conquered by a stronger foe. This mindset brought to the forefront the importance of commerce and trading, and positioned the Sogdians to inheret the Silk Road a few centuries later when centuries of warfare in southern Bactria forced the Silk Road north through Sogdia and the panjikent.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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