According to the Persian tradition, the city of Derbent was partly repaired and fortified by Alexander the Great. Arrian and Quintus Curtius tell us, that Alexander absolutely rebuilt this city. They say indeed that it was on the banks of the Tanais or Don, but then in their time the Greeks gave the name of Tanais to the river Cyrus, which runs by the city. It would be a contradiction to suppose that Alexander should build a harbour in the Caspian Sea, on a river that opens into the Black Sea.
There were formerly three or four other ports in different parts of the Caspian Sea, all which were probably built with the same view; for the several nations inhabiting to the west, east, and north of that sea, have in all times been barbarians, who had rendered themselves formidable to the rest of the world, and from hence principally issued those swarms of conquerors who subjugated Asia and Europe.
And here I must beg leave to remark, how much pleasure authors in all ages have taken to impose upon mankind, and how much they have preferred a vain show of eloquence to matter of fact. Quintus Curtius puts into the mouths of Scythians an admirable speech full of moderation and philosophy, as if the Tartars of those regions had been all so many sages, and that Alexander had not been the general nominated by the Greeks against the king of Persia, sovereign of the greatest part of southern Scythia and the Indies. Other rhetoricians, thinking to imitate Quintus Curtius, have studied to make us look upon those savages of Caucacus and its dreary deserts, who lived wholly upon rapine and bloodshed, as the people in the world most remarkable for austere virtue and justice, and have painted Alexander, the avenger of Greece, and the conqueror of those who would have enslaved him and his country, as a public robber, who had ravaged the world without justice or reason.
Such writers do not consider, that these Tartars were never other than destroyers, and that Alexander built towns in the very country which they inhabited; and in this respect I may venture to compare Peter the Great to Alexander; like him he was assiduous and indefatigable in his pursuits, a lover and friend of the useful arts; he surpassed him as a lawgiver, and like him endeavoured to change the tide of commerce in the world, and built and repaired at least as many towns as that celebrated hero of antiquity.