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ANCIENT INDIA

ITS INVASION BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT

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M’CRINDLE (J. W.). The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as
described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodôros, Plutarch, Justin, and other
classical authors. With an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander,
copious Notes, Illustrations, Maps, and Indices. Pp. xii + 432.
_Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster_ (London). 1893. 8vo.

M’CRINDLE (J. W.). The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as
described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodôros, Plutarch, Justin, and other
classical authors. With an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander,
copious Notes, Illustrations, Maps, and Indices. Pp. xii + 432.
_Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster_ (London). 1893. 8vo.

M’CRINDLE (J. W.). The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as
described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodôros, Plutarch, Justin, and other
classical authors. With an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander,
copious Notes, Illustrations, Maps, and Indices. Pp. xii + 432.
_Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster_ (London). 1893. 8vo.

M’CRINDLE (J. W.). The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as
described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodôros, Plutarch, Justin, and other
classical authors. With an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander,
copious Notes, Illustrations, Maps, and Indices. Pp. xii + 432.
_Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster_ (London). 1893. 8vo.

M’CRINDLE (J. W.). The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as
described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodôros, Plutarch, Justin, and other
classical authors. With an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander,
copious Notes, Illustrations, Maps, and Indices. Pp. xii + 432.
_Archibald Constable and Co., Westminster_ (London). 1893. 8vo.




ANCIENT INDIA

ITS INVASION BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT




[Illustration: Comment le Roy alixandre ploura de pitie quil ont de son
cheual Buciffal qui se mouroit

ALEXANDER THE GREAT MOURNING THE DEATH OF BOUKEPHALOS]




                                   THE
                            INVASION OF INDIA
                         BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT
                             AS DESCRIBED BY
                      ARRIAN, Q. CURTIUS, DIODOROS
                           PLUTARCH AND JUSTIN

   Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other
   Classical Authors as describe Alexander’s Campaigns in Afghanistan
                the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and Karmania

           WITH AN INTRODUCTION CONTAINING A LIFE OF ALEXANDER
             COPIOUS NOTES, ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS AND INDICES
                                   BY
               J. W. M’CRINDLE, M.A., M.R.A.S., F.R.S.G.S.
     LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, PATNA, AND FELLOW OF
         THE CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY, MEMBER OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
                     OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

                               NEW EDITION
                      Bringing the Work up to Date

                               Westminster
                     ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY
                                MDCCCXCVI

                          _All rights reserved_




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                                   PAGE

    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS                            ix

    PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION                        xi

    PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION                       xxxv

    INTRODUCTION, CONTAINING A LIFE OF ALEXANDER      3

    ARRIAN                                           57

    Q. CURTIUS RUFUS                                183

    DIODÔROS                                        269

    PLUTARCH                                        305

    JUSTIN                                          321

    APPENDICES—

        NOTES A-L_L_                                331

        BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX                       375

    GENERAL INDEX                                   417

    INDEX OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED OR REFERRED TO      430




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    ALEXANDER THE GREAT MOURNING FOR BOUKEPHALOS             _Frontispiece_

    _By the Autotype Company from a French MS. in the British Museum
      of the Life of Alexander the Great, written in the fifteenth
                                century._

    FIG.                                                              PAGE

     1. LYSIMACHOS              Gold coin of Lysimachos (B.C.
                                  306-281), struck at Lysimachia,
                                  in the British Museum                 16

     2. ARISTOTLE               From an intaglio gem, engraved
                                  on sard, in the British Museum        16

     3. SEAL OF DARIUS          From a cylinder of chalcedony,
                                  inscribed “I am Darius the great
                                  king,” in Persian, Median, and
                                  Babylonian, in the Brit. Museum       29

     4. ALEXANDER THE GREAT     On a silver coin struck in Thrace
                                  by Lysimachos, in the Brit. Museum    48

     5. DIODOTOS                On a gold stater struck in Baktria,
                                  in the British Museum                 52

     6. ANTIOCHOS THE GREAT     On a gold coin (B.C. 222-187), in
                                  the British Museum                    52

     7. EUTHYDÊMOS              On a silver Baktrian coin, in the
                                  British Museum                        53

     8. THE TYRIAN HERAKLÊS     On a silver coin struck at Tyre (B.C.
                                 125), in the British Museum            71

     9. EUMENÊS                 Silver coin of Eumenês I. (B.C.
                                  263-241), struck at Pergamos,
                                  in the British Museum                120

    10. PTOLEMY SÔTÊR           On a silver coin (B.C. 306-284),
                                  in the British Museum                151

    11. INDIAN BOWMAN           From a coin of Chandragupta II. (A.D.
                                  395-415), in the Brit. Mus.          210

    12. SÔPHYTÊS                From a silver coin, in the Brit. Mus.  280

    13. GREEK WARSHIP           From a silver coin of Sidon, in the
                                  British Museum                       316

    14. SELEUCUS NICATOR        Obverse of a silver coin struck in
                                  Pergamos, in the British Museum      327

    15. EUKRATIDÊS              On a silver Baktrian coin, in the
                                  British Museum                       344

    16. ANTIMACHOS              On a silver Baktrian coin, in the
                                  British Museum                       370

    17. AGATHOKLÊS              Silver coin of Agathoklês, in the
                                  British Museum                       371

    18. HELIOKLÊS               On a silver Baktrian coin, in the
                                  British Museum                       371

    19. APOLLODOTOS             On a silver Baktrian coin, in the
                                  British Museum                       372

    20. AŚÔKA INSCRIPTION       Reduced from an impression of the
                                  Kalsi Edict by Dr. James Burgess,
                                  C.I.E.                               373

    21. ANTIGONOS GONATAS       Silver coin of Antigonos Gonatas
                                  (B.C. 277-239), in the Brit. Mus.    376

    22. ANTIGONOS DÔSÔN         Silver coin of Antigonos Dôsôn (B.C.
                                  229-220), in the British Museum      377

    23. ANTIOCHOS II.           On a silver coin (B.C. 261-246),
                                  in the British Museum                377

    24. DEMETRIOS POLIORKÊTÊS   Silver coin of Demetrios Poliorkêtês
                                  (B.C. 294-288), in the Brit. Mus.    383

    25. PTOLEMY III.            On a gold coin (B.C. 247-222), in
                                  the British Museum                   403

                                  MAPS

    MAP OF ALEXANDER’S ROUTE IN THE PANJÂB                     _Facing_ 57

    MAP OF THE ROUTE TAKEN BY ALEXANDER IN HIS ASIATIC EXPEDITION      432




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION


Since this volume was written, three works have appeared which not only
make important additions to our knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns in
Turkestan, Lower Sindh, and Makran respectively, but which also serve to
correct some current errors with regard to the identification of places
which lay in the route of the great conqueror, as he passed through these
obscure regions. As the works referred to have been written by scholarly
men, who possess an intimate personal knowledge of the localities which
they describe, the conclusions to which their investigations have
conducted them may be accepted with confidence, and we propose to give
here a brief summary of these conclusions so far as they concern our
subject. The works are these: 1. _Alexander des Grossen Feldzüge in
Turkestan_, von Franz Schwarz, München; 2. _The Indus Delta: a Memoir
chiefly on its Ancient History and Geography_, by Major-General M. R.
Haig, M.R.A.S., London; 3. _A Lecture on “The Retreat of Alexander the
Great from India,”_ by Colonel Holdich, R.E., as reported in the Calcutta
_Englishman_.

We begin with Turkestan, by which is here meant the provinces called
anciently Baktriana and Sogdiana. Their reduction, as will be seen from
our Introduction (pp. 39-44), occupied the arms of Alexander for upwards
of two years, from B.C. 329-327. The description of the campaigns by
which this conquest was effected has hitherto proved a task of unusual
difficulty, due partly to imperfect knowledge of the geography of the
seat of war, and partly also to discrepancies in the accounts of these
campaigns as given by Arrian and Curtius, who neither drew their facts
from the same original sources nor relate them in quite the same order of
sequence. It is fortunate therefore that Herr Schwarz, who for fifteen
years resided in Turkestan, and had occasion or opportunity during that
time to visit all its places of importance, sedulously applied himself
to study the antiquities of the country, and was thus able ultimately
to identify with certainty, almost all the places in which Alexander
is reported, by his historians, to have shown himself. His work is
accompanied by an excellent map, in which he has traced the line of the
marches and the counter-marches of the Macedonian troops, while operating
in the regions of the Oxus and the Jaxartes.

Alexander, in the early spring of 329 B.C., left Kabulistan, and having
crossed the Indian Kaukasos, arrived at Drapsaka, and from thence
continued his march to Aornos and Baktra. It has never been doubted
that Baktra is now Balkh, but opinions have differed with regard to the
other two places. Schwarz, on sufficient grounds, identifies Drapsaka
with Kunduz, and Aornos with Tash-Kurgan, near which are situated the
ruins of Khulm. Alexander, marching from Baktra through a frightful
desert, gained the banks of the Oxus, which he crossed with his army
in five days. The passage was effected, not from Kizil, as has been
hitherto supposed, but from Kilif, higher up the stream—a place which
Schwarz thinks was probably the city of the Branchidai, which, with its
inhabitants, Alexander so remorselessly destroyed. From the Oxus the
expedition advanced by way of Karshi and Jam to Marakanda, the famous
city of Samarcand. Near Karshi, at the hill Kungur-tau, occurred the
skirmish in which Alexander, on this march, received a wound. Marakanda
was situated on the banks of the Polytimêtos, now the Zerafshan or
Kohik, which flows westward till its waters are lost in the sands of
the Khorasmian Desert. Alexander marched thence to the river Tanais—the
Jaxartes or Syr-darya—which formed the eastern boundary of the Persian
empire, and separated it from the Skythians. On the Persian side of
this river Alexander founded a city, which he called by his own name,
Alexandria. It is agreed on all hands that the site of this Alexandria
was at or near where Khojent now stands. In this neighbourhood Alexander
captured seven towns, which had shown signs of a purpose to revolt. The
names of two of these have been recorded, Gaza and Kyropolis. The former
Schwarz identifies with Nau, and the latter with Ura-tübe, a considerable
city occupying a commanding position, strongly fortified, and distant
from Khojent about 40 miles. It had been founded by Cyrus to serve as a
bulwark against incursions of the Skythians. Alexander having quelled the
attempted revolt of the Sogdians, crossed the Jaxartes, and inflicted a
defeat on the Skythians, who had mustered in great force on their own
side of the river. He pursued them as far as what Curtius calls the
boundary-stones of Father Bacchus, which Schwarz has identified as a pass
over Mogul-Tau, near Mursa-rabat, a post-station, 17 miles distant from
Khojent.

On the heels of this victory tidings reached Alexander of the terrible
defeat and slaughter of his Macedonian troops by Spitamenes in one of the
islands of the Polytimêtos, and he immediately started for Marakanda, and
reached it after a march of three days. As the distance from Khojent
to Samarcand is 172 English miles, this march, made in broiling heat,
and through a country without roads, must have tried to the very utmost
the powers of endurance of the Macedonian soldiers, some of whom were
hoplites, wearing their brazen helmets, carrying their shields, and clad
in mail. Spitamenes made his escape into the desert, and Alexander could
only sate his vengeance by ravaging with merciless severity the beautiful
valley through which the river flowed. Schwarz tells us that he searched
in vain to discover the island which was the scene of the disaster, and
it probably no longer exists. It must, however, he thinks, have been
situated in the neighbourhood of Ziadin and Kermineh. Alexander, pursuing
his way down the river, passed Bokhara, the Sogdian capital, and advanced
as far as Karakul, beyond which the river disappears in the sands. He
then retired for the winter to Zariaspa. Zariaspa has been taken to
be another name of Baktra, but Schwarz shows that such an opinion is
altogether untenable, and identifies it, for reasons not to be gainsaid,
with Charjui, a place some six or seven miles distant from where the Oxus
is now spanned by the bridge of the Trans-Caspian Railway.

From Zariaspa Alexander returned to Marakanda, passing on his route
by Karakul, Bokhara, Kermineh, and Kata-Kurgan. Koinos meanwhile had
difficulty in holding his own against the indomitable Spitamenes, who
had collected at Bagai a body of 3000 Skythian horsemen, with a view to
invade Sogdiana. Bagai is now Ustuk, a Bokharan frontier fortress, 28
miles below Charjui, but on the opposite side of the Oxus. The hostile
forces at length came to an engagement. Koinos was victorious, and
Spitamenes, who fled into the desert with his Skythian horsemen, fell
a victim to their treachery. They cut off his head, and sent it as a
peace-offering to Alexander. After the reduction of Sogdiana, Alexander
withdrew to Nautaka, where he spent the winter of 328-327 B.C. This place
has been generally identified with Karshi, but Schwarz takes it to be
Schaar, which lies 40 miles to the south of Samarcand.

Alexander left Nautaka early in spring, and his next great exploit
was the capture of the famous Sogdian Rock, in the fortress of which
Oxyartes had placed for safety the members of his family, including his
daughter, the beautiful Roxana, whose charms so fascinated her captor,
that he made her his queen, in spite of all the remonstrances of his
friends. Curtius calls this stronghold the Rock of Arimazes. Some have
identified it with the steep crags which line one side of the narrow
gorge near Derbent, called the Iron Gate, which forms the only direct
approach from West-Bokhara to Hissar. Schwarz, however, says that the
Iron Gate, through which he has himself often passed, answers neither
to the description of Arrian nor of Curtius, and his own identification
of the Rock is with a mountain which ascends precipitously from a gorge
similar to that of the Iron Gate, from which it is some five miles
distant in a north-east direction. From the Rock the expedition marched
eastward into the country of the Paraitakai, the mountainous district
now known as Hissar. Here Alexander’s progress was arrested by another
mountain fortress no less formidable than the Sogdian. It is called by
Arrian the Rock of Chorienes, and by Curtius the Rock of Sysimithres.
Its identification presents no difficulty, as in all Hissar there is
but one place which answers the descriptions of it, namely, the narrow
pass at the river Waksh, where the Suspension Bridge (Pul-i-Sangin)
overspans it on the way from Hissar through Faizabad to Badshuan. This
pass, Schwarz tells us, is the most remarkable place to which he came
in the whole course of his travels. The fort having been surrendered
through the persuasions of Oxyartes, the conqueror returned to Baktra,
by way of Faizabad, Hissar, Karatag, and Yurchi, from which place he
proceeded down the right bank of the Surkhan to Tormiz, and thence to
the passage of the Oxus at Pata-gisar. On his return to Baktra, he there
made his preparations for the invasion of India. We have here only
further to notice that Alexander’s visit to Margiana, the city now so
well known as Merv, could not have been made, as Curtius informs us, from
Bokhara, which is 215 miles distant and separated from it by a terrible
intervening desert, all but entirely destitute of wells, but was probably
made from Sarakhs in the earlier part of the march from the Caspian Gates.

We turn now to Major-General Haig’s _Memoir_ on the Indus-Delta country—a
work of which about a fourth part directly concerns our subject. The
sections which are of this nature discuss the following points:—1. The
Geography and Hydrography of the Delta Country (chap. i.); 2. The Delta
at the time of Alexander’s Expedition (chap. ii.); 3. The Delta according
to later Greek Accounts (chap. iii.); 4. The Lonibare Mouth of the Indus
(Append. Note A); 5. The general course of the Indus in Sindh in ancient
times (Append. Note C); 6. Itineraries in the Las Bêlâ Country (Append.
Note D); 7. The March to the Arabios (Append. Note E); 8. The voyage of
Nearchos from Alexander’s Haven to the Mouth of the Arabios (Append. Note
F).

Our author could scarcely have chosen for his subject one that is more
beset with problems of aggravating perplexity. The Indus is notable
even among Indian rivers for the frequency, and sometimes also for the
suddenness, with which it changes its courses. As Colonel Holdich well
observes, “The difficulty of restoring to the map of India an outline
of the ancient geography of Sindh and the Indus Delta is one which
has baffled many generations of scholars. The vagaries of the Indus,
even within the limits of historic record, ... render this river, even
before the Delta is reached, a hopeless feature for reference with
regard to the position of places said once to have been near its bank.
Within the limits of the Delta the confusion of hydrography becomes
even more confounded.” In my note on Alexander in Sindh, which will be
found at page 352, I have noticed that the channel in which the Indus
now flows lies much farther to the west than the channel in which the
Macedonians found it flowing. This _westing_, as it is called, is due
to the operation of the law, first discovered by K. E. von Baer, that
the difference of the velocity of the earth’s rotation at the Equator
and at the Poles causes eroding rivers in the Northern Hemisphere to
attack their right bank more than the left, and to push their beds
sideways—while in the Southern Hemisphere, this action is reversed. From
the _Memoir_ we learn how this law, and the other natural laws by which
its action is modified, have affected the Indus. The river, we learn,
pursues from the confluence of the Panjnad a very uniform S.W. direction
for nearly 300 miles, till it reaches lat. 26° 56´, long. 67° 53´. At
this point the river changes its general direction to one due south, and
maintains this for about 60 miles, till it strikes, in lat. 26° 20´,
long. 67° 55´, the eastern base of the Lakî Hills, just under the peak
called Bhago Toro. Below this point the westing movement of centuries
has now brought the stream to the extreme edge of the alluvial land, and
into contact with the gravel slopes bordering the hill-country. As the
gravel tracts project in a bow into the alluvial land of Lower Sindh,
the river, unable to erode them, is forced to conform to their contour,
and to run in a great curve for nearly 180 miles to Thata. This curve
continues through the Delta to the sea, so that from Bhago Toro to the
river-mouth the course of the Indus forms an arc of some 260 miles, of
which the chord is about 160 miles, and the maximum depth nearly 50
miles. The general result is to give the course of the river in Sindh the
form of the letter S. And, as its abandoned channels attest, _such has
been the form in which the river has run in past ages_ as it approached
the sea. The lower curve of the S had a still bolder sweep _eastward_
when the river ran far east of its present course, unchecked by rock or
gravel bed, than it has now, when this part of the course has been shaped
by a resistance which the current cannot overcome. This S-shaped course
of the river _in all ages_ should be remembered in considering questions
of ancient local topography, such, for instance, as that of the site of
Patala. It will then be seen to be impossible that the river can have run
at the same period in its present course near Haidarâbâd, and, lower down
through the Ghâro, or ancient Sindh Sâgara; also that if Patala was at
Haidarâbâd, the western river-mouth of Alexander’s time must have lain,
not at the western extremity of the sea-face of the Delta, but much to
the east of that point. From these remarks (which I have abbreviated from
the text), it will be seen that Haidarâbâd can no longer be taken to be
the modern representative of Patala. Where then was the point at which,
in Alexander’s time, the Indus bifurcated, and Patala was situated?
Major-General Haig says that any precise identification of this site is
hardly within the limits of possibility; but, for reasons for which his
work itself must be consulted, he is of opinion that “the ancient capital
of the Delta was most likely not far from a spot 35 miles south-east
of Haidarâbâd”—a spot which happens to be 160 miles distant from each
extremity of the Delta coast, as supposed to have existed in Alexander’s
time. With regard to places which lie farther north than Patala, the
views set forth in this volume do not differ from those of Major-General
Haig. He is, however, of opinion that the kingdom of Mousikanos was of
greater extent than is usually supposed, and must have embraced the
district of Bahawulpur, which answers better to the description of that
kingdom, as _the most flourishing in all India_, than the country around
Alôr.

The Delta tract, as taken in the _Memoir_, extends from the sea
northwards to the latitude of Haidarâbâd (25° 25´ N.), and is bounded
on the east by the desert, the Purân or old course of the Indus, now
dry, and by the Korî mouth, which is the Lonibare mouth of Ptolemy; on
the west by the outer border of the plains, where the boundary runs S.
by W. for 50 miles to near Thata, from which point it turns almost due
west, and runs for 60 miles more to the sea, near Karâchî. This alluvial
tract is everywhere furrowed by ancient channels, some continuous, both
above and throughout the Delta, and others all but totally obliterated.
Our author has a notice of each of the more important of these channels.
Regarding the Ghâro, the western arm down which Alexander and his fleet
sailed, he says that it runs nearly east and west along the southern
border of the Kohistân (hill-country), that it is thus on the extreme
edge of the Delta, and that it has a course of about 40 miles in length.
Referring to the present channel of the Indus, he remarks:—

    “This divides the lower Delta region into two unequal portions.
    Of these, the western, and much the smaller, portion is in
    the form of an equilateral triangle, having sides of about 64
    miles in length, consisting of the river, the coast-line, and
    the southern edge of the Kohistân plains, and including an
    area of about 1700 square miles. This it will be convenient to
    call the ‘Western Delta,’ a name the more suitable that all the
    westward-flowing branches of the river have, or have once had,
    their mouths within the limits of the tract to which it will
    apply.”

A very interesting question is next discussed—that of the secular
extension of the Delta seaward—and the conclusion arrived at, which is,
however, conjectural, and below the estimate of Colonel Holdich, is that
from Alexander’s time to 1869 A.D. the advance of the Delta seaward has
been eight miles, or at the rate of rather more than six yards in a year,
this being less than a fourth of the growth of the Nile Delta in a not
much greater period of time.

We now proceed to show what new light we gain from the _Memoir_
respecting the voyage of Nearchos from the naval station in the Indus to
Alexander’s Haven, now Karâchî. We abridge the account which Arrian has
given in his _Indika_ of this part of the famous voyage:—

    Weighing from the Naval Station, the fleet reached Stoura,
    about 100 stadia further down stream, and at the further
    distance of 30 stadia came to another channel where the sea
    was salt, at a place called Kaumana. A run of 20 stadia from
    Kaumana brought it to Koreatis, where it anchored. After
    weighing from this, a bar (ἕρμα) was encountered at the spot
    where the Indus discharges into the sea, and through this,
    where it was soft, a passage had to be cut at low water, for
    a space of five stadia. On this part of the coast, which was
    rugged, the waves dashed with great violence. The next place
    of anchorage was at Krokala, a sandy island, which was reached
    after a course of 150 stadia, that had followed the windings
    of the coast. Near this dwelt the Arabies, who had their name
    from the river Arabis, which separates their territory from
    that of the Oreitai. On weighing from Krokala, a hill called
    Eiros lay to the right, and to the left a low flat island,
    which stretched along the face of the coast, and made the
    intervening creek narrow. The ships having cleared this creek,
    reached a commodious harbour to which Nearchos gave the name of
    “Alexander’s Haven.” At the harbour’s mouth, two stadia off,
    lay an island named Bibakta, which, acting as a barrier against
    the sea, caused the existence of the harbour.

Our author thinks that some of the circumstances described in the above
passage supply irresistible evidence that it was through the Ghâro that
Nearchos sailed into the sea. If the obstruction at the mouth of the
river was caused in part by rock, it is certain, he says, that that mouth
cannot have been situated to the east of the Ghâro, for along the whole
sea-border of the Delta, to a depth of several miles, no rock, not even a
stone, is to be found. The description again of the coast adjoining the
bar as rugged or rocky (τραχεῖα) can apply with great propriety to the
plain west of the Ghâro, consisting, as it does, of a compact gravelly
soil, frequently broken by outcropping rock, while the description would
be utterly out of place if applied to the low mud-banks of the actual
Delta coast. And further, the statement that the fleet, after leaving the
river, ran a winding course, shows very pointedly that the Ghâro must
have been the mouth by which the fleet reached the sea, since, if it had
issued from any of the mouths east of the Ghâro, there would have been
no windings to follow, the coast of the Delta being singularly straight
and regular. The fleet probably entered the sea by the creek of the Ghâro
known as the Kudro, not far from the present mouth of which there is a
small port named the Wâghûdar, accessible to riverboats of light draught.
Sir A. Burnes, however, who visited the Delta in 1831, took the Pitî
channel to have been that by which Nearchos gained the sea. He had seen
in that channel what he took to be a rock, and concluded that it was the
obstacle which Nearchos had encountered. It was not a rock, however,
but probably an oyster-bank, for when search was made for it afterwards
during a survey it was no longer to be found.

The island of Krokala, which General Cunningham erroneously identified
with the island of Kîâmârî, which lies in front of Karâchî, no longer
exists as an island, but forms part of the mainland. It lay at the mouth
of the Gisri Creek, by which the Malîr river pours its waters into the
sea. The headland which Arrian calls Eiros is to be identified with the
eminence called “Clifton,” the eastern headland of Karâchî Bay, the
“narrow creek” which the fleet entered on leaving Krokala, is Chinî
Creek, which leads into Karâchî Bay and harbour. Kîâmârî thus corresponds
with the “low, flat island” of the Greek narrative, while Manora
(mistaken by Cunningham for Eiros), exactly corresponds with Bibakta.

We must now briefly notice what is said regarding the eastern portion of
the Delta. Here the most important of all the forsaken channels of the
Indus is the Purân, which can still be clearly traced from two different
starting-points in Central Sindh, one 24, the other 36 miles north-east
of Haidarâbâd. The two head channels run south-east for about 50 miles,
and unite at a spot 45 miles east by south from Haidarâbâd. The single
channel has then a course of over 140 miles to the head of the Korî
Creek, the last 50 miles being through the Ran of Kuchchha. The eastern
arm of the Indus, which Alexander in person explored, was probably some
channel running into the Purân not far above the point where it enters
the Ran. On reaching the sea by this eastern branch, Alexander, as Arrian
informs us, landed, and with some cavalry proceeded three marches along
the coast. This statement the _Memoir_ declares to be a fabrication,
since such a march would be an utter impossibility. At the same time,
the notion of wells being dug in the locality is scouted as an absurdity.

The _Memoir_ further indicates the route by which Alexander, after
starting from Patala to return homewards, reached the Arabis or
Arabios—now the Purâli river, which flows through Lus Bela, and
discharges into Sonmiyâni Bay. The eastern frontier of the Arabios lay
near Krokala, and was very probably formed by the river called the Malîr.
Alexander, according to Curtius, reached this frontier in a nine-days’
march from Patala, and the western frontier, which was about 65 miles
distant from the other, in five days more. Our author, assuming that
Alexander would not have marched his army across the comparatively
waterless plain of the Kohistân, but would keep, if possible, within easy
reach of the river or one of its branches, thinks it obvious that the
earlier part of the route would follow the branch which ran westward—the
branch, namely, of which the Kalrî and Ghâro formed the lower portion.
From the position which he assigns to Patala, the distance traversed in
the nine-days’ march would be 117 miles, while the point on the Malîr
where Alexander encamped would be, he thinks, 7 or 8 miles east by north
from Karâchî cantonments. The distance between the Malîr and the Purâli,
it must be pointed out, is much greater now than it was in Alexander’s
time, for, like the Indus, the Purâli has shifted its course far
westward. The coast-line, moreover, at Sonmiyâni has advanced 20 miles,
if not more, since then. Our author, therefore, placing the mouth of the
river rather to the north of the latitude of Liâri, suggests that the
point where the army reached the Arabios was about 10 miles east by north
from Liâri, and 20 miles north or north by east from Sonmiyâni.

The last Appendix in the _Memoir_ is devoted to a review of the
narrative of the voyage by which Nearchos in six days reached the mouth
of the Arabios or Purâli from Alexander’s Haven. It states in the outset
that the discovery of the great advance of the coast about the head of
Sonmiyâni Bay serves to explain some difficulties in the account of the
voyage which have hitherto defied solution. We here abridge that account:—

    The fleet, on weighing from the haven, ran a course of 60
    stadia, and anchored under shelter of a desert island called
    Domai. Next day, with a run of 300 stadia, it reached Saranga,
    and on the following day anchored at a desert place called
    Sakala. Another run of 300 stadia brought it on the morrow to
    Morontobara or Women’s Haven. This haven had a narrow entrance,
    but was deep, capacious, and well-sheltered. The fleet, before
    gaining the entrance, had passed through between two islets,
    which lay so close to each other that the oars grazed the
    rocks on each side. On leaving this harbour next day it had on
    the left a tree-covered island 70 stadia long which sheltered
    it from the violence of the sea. As the channel, however,
    which separated the island from the mainland was narrow, and
    shoal with ebb-tide, the passage through it was difficult and
    tedious, and it was not till near the dawn of the following day
    that the fleet succeeded in clearing it. A course of 120 stadia
    brought it to a good harbour at the mouth of the Arabios. Not
    far from this harbour lay an island described as being high and
    bare.

The island of Domai Colonel Holdich and others would identify with
Manora. Manora, however, Haig points out, is even now 4 to 5 miles off
from the nearest mainland, and must have been further in Alexander’s
time. He would, therefore, place Domai rather more than 4 miles due
west of the town of Karâchî, or perhaps further north. The fleet, in
its course to Saranga, must have rounded Cape Monze or Râs Muâri, but
this projection is not mentioned by Arrian. The position of Saranga, to
judge from the recorded length of the run, must have been near the mouth
of the Hub river, which is 26 miles distant from the position assigned
to Domai. The Hub mouth has been silted up, and this led, last century,
to its port being abandoned. Our author points out that if Κ were
substituted for Σ in Saranga, we would then have in Karanga a very fair
representation of Kharok, the name of the Hub port. However this may be,
he adds, there can be no doubt that the Saranga of Nearchos was either at
the Hub mouth or a few miles further north.

He then corrects a mistake into which Dr. Vincent and myself had both of
us fallen in our respective translations of the record of the next part
of the voyage—that from Saranga to Sakala, and thence to Morontobara. Our
versions represented the two rocky islets, between which the fleet passed
instead of taking a circuitous course out in the open sea, as being in
the neighbourhood of Sakala instead of that of Morontobara. Sakala, Haig
thinks, may be placed a little east of Bidok Lak—a place 24 miles distant
from Saranga, if Saranga be taken to lie a few miles north of the Hub
mouth. Between these two places the fleet must have passed the island of
Gadâni, which is now a part of the mainland, and was probably the Kodanê
of Ptolemy.

With regard to Morontobara, our author agrees with Colonel Holdich in
thinking that it is now represented by the great depression known as
“Sirondha,” which, though usually a fresh-water lake, is occasionally
quite dry. This, as the Colonel states, was at no very distant date
a commodious harbour or arm of the sea, which has extended north in
historic times at least as far as Liâri, and possibly further. He
adds that south-west of Liâri some of the land formation is probably
very ancient, and that westward along the Makran coast there are many
indications of local changes. The distance from Bidok Lak to the
depression is estimated at about 27 miles, which represents very fairly
the 300 stadia of the narrative. Liâri is now about 20 miles distant from
the sea.

On leaving the Arabios the fleet, coasting the shores of the Oreitai,
arrived at Kôkala, a place near Râs Kachar, where Nearchos landed, and
was joined by the division of the army under Leonnatus, from whom he
received a supply of provisions for his ships. From Kôkala, a course of
500 stadia brought him to the estuary of the Tomêros, or, as it is now
called, the river Hingol. All connection between the fleet and the army
was thenceforth lost until the district of Harmozia, in Karmania, was
reached. The coast of the Oreitai extended westward from the Arabios to
the great rocky headland of Malan, which still bears the name given to
it in Arrian, Malana—a distance of fully 100 miles. The desolate shores
of the Ichthyophagi succeeded, and inland lay the vast sandy wastes
of Gedrosia. Between Cape Malan and the mouth of the Anamis river in
Harmozia, from which Nearchos, with a small retinue, proceeded inland
to meet Alexander, no fewer than twenty-one names of places at which
the fleet touched are recorded in the narrative of the voyage. Most of
these have been identified by Major Mockler, the political agent of
Makrân. We can refer to only one or two of the more notable. From Cape
Malan the fleet proceeded to Bagisâra, which, Colonel Holdich tells us,
is likely enough the Dimizaar or eastern bay of the Urmara headland.
The Pasiris, who are mentioned as a people of this neighbourhood, have
left frequent traces of their existence along the coast. At Kalama, now
Khor Khalmat, which was reached on the second day from Urmara, there
can be traced a very considerable extension of the land seawards, which
would have completely altered the course of the fleet from the present
coasting tract. The island of Karbine, which was distant 100 stadia
from Kalama, cannot, our author points out, be the island of Astola,
but is probably a headland now connected with the mainland by a low
sandy waste. Astola, however, he takes to be the island sacred to the
sun, which Arrian calls Nosala, and places at a distance of 100 stadia
from the mainland. The nearest land to it is Ras Jaddi or Koh Zarên, in
the neighbourhood of which was Mosarna, where Nearchos took on board a
pilot, by whom thenceforth the course of the fleet was directed. The next
place of importance was Barna, called by others Bâdara, and this Mockler
identifies with Gwâdar. The following identifications succeed:—Dendrobosa
with the west point of Gwâdar headland, Kôphas with Pishikân Bay, Bagia
with Cape Brês, Tâlmena with a harbour in Chahbar Bay, Kanate with
Karatee, Dagasira with Jakeisar, near the mouth of the Jageen river,
Bâdis with Kôh Mubârak, and the mouth of the Anamis river with a point
north by east from the island of Ormus. The distances which Arrian
records as run by the fleet from day to day are generally excessive,
especially after it had left the mouth of the Arabios.

We must now resume consideration of the movements of Alexander himself.
When we left him he had reached the banks of the Arabios, at a point
distant some twenty miles from Sonmiyâni, or perhaps even higher up the
river. On crossing the stream he turned to his left towards the sea, and
with a picked force made a sudden descent on the Oreitai. After a night’s
march he came to a well-inhabited district, defeated the Oreitai, and
penetrated to their capital—a mere village called Rambakia, which Colonel
Holdich places at or near Khairkot. The Oreitai themselves are, in his
opinion, represented by the Lumri tribes of Las Bela, who are of Rajput
descent. From Rambakia Alexander proceeded with a part of his troops to
force the narrow pass which the Gadrôsoi and the Oreitai had conjointly
seized with the design of stopping his progress. This defile was most
probably the turning pass at the northern end of the Hala range. The
Gadrôsoi seem to owe their name to the Gadurs, one of the Lumri clans,
from which, however, they hold themselves somewhat distinct. Alexander,
after clearing the pass, pushed on through a desert country into the
territory of the Gadrôsoi, and drew down to the coast. He must then, says
our author, have followed the valley of the Phur to the coast, and pushed
on along the track of the modern telegraph line till he reached the
neighbourhood of the Hingol river, where he halted to collect supplies
for the fleet. On this part of the route were the tamarisk trees which
yielded myrrh, the mangrove swamps, the euphorbias with prickly shoots,
and the roots of spikenard.

Beyond this he could no longer pursue his march along the coast in order
to keep in touch with the fleet. The huge barrier of the Malan range,
which abutted direct on the sea, stopped his way. There was no goat track
in those days, such as, after infinite difficulty, helped the telegraph
line over. He was consequently forced into the interior. Taking the only
route that was possible, he followed up the Hingol till he could turn the
Malan by the first available pass westward. Nothing here, we are told,
has altered since his days. The magnificent peaks and mountains which
surround the sacred shrine of Hinglaz are “everlasting hills,” and it
was through these that he proceeded to make his way. The windings of the
Hingol river he followed for 40 miles up to its junction with the Parkan.
The bed of this stream leads westward from the Hingol, and skirts the
north of the Taloi range. Alexander had thus for the first time a chance
of turning the Malan block, and directing his march westward to the sea.
He therefore pushed his way through this low valley, which was flanked
by the Taloi hills, that rose on his left to a height of 2000 feet. All
the region at their base was a wilderness of sandy hillocks and scanty
grass-covered waste, which could afford his troops no supplies and no
shelter from the fierce autumn heat. All the miseries of his retreat,
which are so graphically depicted by his historians, were concentrated
into the distance between the Hingol and the point where he regained
the coast. The Parkan route should have led him to the river Basol, but
having lost his way, he must have emerged near the harbour of Pasnî,
almost on the line of the present telegraph. The distance from the
Hingol to Pasnî our author estimates at about 200 miles; but in Curzon’s
well-known map of Persia it appears as if only 150.

From Pasnî Alexander marched for seven days along the coast till he
reached the well-known highway to Karmania. He could only leave the coast
near the Dasht river and strike into the valley of the Bahu, which would
lead him to Bampur, the capital of Gadrosia. This part of the march
probably occupied nearly a month. It has been doubted whether Bampur was,
in Alexander’s time, the capital of Gadrosia, rather than the place on
the edge of the Kirman desert, called indifferently Fahraj, Purag, and
Pura, where there are extensive ruins of a very ancient date. Colonel
Holdich, however, adduces arguments which suffice to set aside the claims
advanced in favour of Fahraj. Bampur is as old as Fahraj, and has in its
neighbourhood the site of a city still older, and now called Pura and
Purag. Besides, in order to reach Fahraj, Alexander must have passed
Bampur, since there is no other way consistent with Arrian’s account.
With regard to the route pursued by Krateros with the heavy transport
and invalids, our author points out that it was probably by the Mulla
(and not the Bolan) pass to Kelat and Quetta. Thence he must have taken
the Kandahar route to the Helmund, and followed that river down to the
fertile plains of lower Seistan, whence he crossed the Kirman desert by a
well-known modern caravan route and joined Alexander at or near Kirman.

Since the publication of his lecture, of which we have thus summarised
the contents, Colonel Holdich has contributed to the _Journal of the
Royal Geographical Society_ (January 1896), an article on “The Origin
of the Kafîr of the Hindu-Kush,” which contains some very interesting
notices regarding Alexander as he fought his way from the Hindu-Kush to
the banks of the Indus. The route by which the conqueror himself advanced
with one division of his army, while the other division, which was more
heavily armed, advanced by the Khaibar Pass, is thus described by our
author:—

    “The recognised road to India from Central Asia was that which
    passed through the plains of Kabul, by the Kabul river, into
    Laghmân or Lamghân, and thence by the open Dasht-i-Gumbaz into
    the lower Kunar. From the Kunar valley this road, even to the
    time of Baber’s invasion of India (early in the sixteenth
    century), crossed the comparatively low intervening range
    into Bajour; thence to the valley of the Panj-Kora and Swat,
    and out into India by the same passes with which we have now
    (after nearly 400 years) found it convenient to enter the same
    district.”

A reference to our notes, B. C. D. E., in the Appendix, will show that
this view of the route is that which we ourselves had adopted. His views
with regard to the position of Massaga, Aornos, and Embolima are also
coincident with those at which we had arrived. Dyrta he takes to have
been the place now known as Dir. That opinion was held by such great
authorities as Court and Lassen, but we have pointed out an objection to
it in p. 76, n. 3. To Nysa, which, as will be seen by a reference to our
long note pp. 338-340, we have identified with the Nagara or Dionysopolis
of Ptolemy (B. vii., 43), thus placing it at a distance of four or five
miles west of Jalâlâbâd and near the Kabul river, Colonel Holdich assigns
a different locality.

    “The Nysaeans,” he says, “whose city Alexander spared, were the
    descendants of those conquerors, who, coming from the west,
    were probably deterred by the heat of the plains of India from
    carrying their conquests south of the Punjab. They settled
    on the cool and well-watered slopes of those mountains which
    crown the uplands of Swat and Bajour, where they cultivated the
    vine for generations.... It seems possible that they may have
    extended their habitat as far eastward as the upper Swat valley
    and the mountain region of the Indus, and at one time may have
    occupied the site of the ancient capital of the Assakenoi,
    Massaga, which there is reason to suppose stood in about the
    position now occupied by the town of Manglaor.”

The hill in the neighbourhood of Nysa called Mount Mêros, which was clad
with ivy, laurel, and vine-trees, he identifies with the Koh-i-Mor or
Mountain of Mor, and gives this account of it:—

    “On the right bank of the Panj-Kora river (the ancient Ghoura),
    nearly opposite to its junction with the river of Swat
    (Suastos), is a very conspicuous mountain, whose three-headed
    outline can be distinctly seen from the Peshawar cantonment,
    known as the Koh-i-Mor or Mountain of Mor. On the southern
    slopes of this mountain, near the foot of it, is a large
    scattered village called Nuzar or Nasar. The sides of the
    mountain spurs are clothed with the same forest and jungle that
    is common to the mountains of Kafiristan, and to the hills
    intervening between Kafiristan and the Koh-i-Mor. Amid this
    jungle are to be found the wild vine and ivy.”

In note B.—Nikaia—page 332, some remarks will be found regarding the
Kafîrs. Colonel Holdich describes them similarly, but upholds the view,
rejected by Elphinstone, of their Greek origin. The best known of them,
he points out, are the Kamdesh Kafîrs from the lower valley of the
Bashgol, a large affluent of the Kunar river, which it joins from the
north-west, some forty miles below Chitral. He then continues:—

    “In the case of the Kamdesh Kafîr, at least, the tradition
    of Greek or Pelasgic origin seems likely to be verified in a
    very remarkable way. Scientific inquiry has been converging
    on him from several directions, and it seems possible that
    the ethnographical riddle connected with his existence will
    be solved ere long. In appearance he is of a distinct Aryan
    type, with low forehead, and prominent aquiline features,
    entirely free from Tartar or Mongolian traits; his eyes, though
    generally dark, are frequently of a light grey colour; his
    complexion is fair enough to pass for Southern European; his
    figure is always slight, but indicating marvellous activity and
    strength; and the modelling of his limbs would furnish study
    for a sculptor.”

Colonel Holdich subsequently calls our attention to certain strange
inscriptions found in the valley of the Indus east of Swat, and engraved,
most of them, on stone slabs built into towers which are now in ruins.
These inscriptions, on being subjected to a congress of Orientalists,
were pronounced to be in an unknown tongue. They may possibly, he adds,
be found to be vastly more ancient than the towers they adorned, it
being, at any rate, a notable fact about them that some of them “recall a
Greek alphabet of archaic type.” He concludes his observations regarding
the Kafîrs in these terms: “I cannot but believe them to be the modern
representatives of that very ancient western race, the Nysaeans—so
ancient that the historians of Alexander refer to their origin as
mythical.”

I may, in conclusion, advert, in a word, to an article of great ability,
contributed to the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ for October
1894, in which the writer endeavours to show that Alexander reached the
Indus by a widely different route from that which is indicated in our
pages, although it is also the route which, in its main outlines, has
been determined by the best authorities—men of high military rank,
personally acquainted with the country, and scholars of the greatest
eminence. As the selection of the route advocated was mainly based
on the opinion which the writer had formed as to the point whereat
Alexander had effected his passage of the Indus, it will suffice to
refute his theory if we prove that his opinion is altogether untenable.
In his view, the Indus was crossed, not at Attock, but much higher up
stream, at a point between Amb and the mouth of the Barhind river, the
Parenos of the Greeks. Now, while the passage at Attock is that which,
from time immemorial, has been used as the easiest means of access
into India from the west, the passage higher up is much more difficult
and dangerous, for though the river is not there so wide, its current
is much more impetuous, while the banks are, at the same time, much
steeper. Had Alexander notwithstanding attempted to cross at that point,
he would have had to encounter a desperate resistance on the part of
his determined enemy Abisares, in whose dominions he would have found
himself on reaching the eastern bank. He made, however, no such foolhardy
attempt either here or afterwards at the Hydaspes. We find, as a matter
of fact, that when he made the passage he met with no opposition, but
was most hospitably received by his vassal, the King of Taxila, in whose
dominions Attock was situated. The writer, it would appear, has been
led to his erroneous assumption by applying to the Indus _specially_
the remark in Strabo (quoted at page 64, note 4) regarding the rivers
of Northern Afghânistân _generally_, that Alexander wished to cross
them as near their sources as possible. The remark, we may be certain,
had no reference to the Indus at all, for Alexander could not but have
learned from Taxiles, who had joined him at Nikaia before the two
divisions of his army separated, where the Indus could best be crossed.
Taxiles, moreover, accompanied the division which advanced towards the
Indus by the Khaibar Pass, with instructions to make all the necessary
preparations for the passage of the whole army. Could such instructions
have been given if the point where the passage was to be made had still
to be discovered? A reference to Baber’s _Memoirs_ will show with what
ease that other great conqueror transported his army into India by using
the Attock passage.

    _A sixth volume, containing descriptions of India by Strabo
    and Pliny, together with incidental notices of India by other
    classical writers, is in course of preparation, and will
    complete the series._




PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

    En inventant l’histoire, la Grèce inventa le jugement du monde,
    et, dans ce jugement, l’arrêt de la Grèce fut sans appel.
    A celui dont la Grèce n’a pas parlé, l’oubli, c’est-à-dire
    le néant. A celui dont la Grèce se souvient, la gloire,
    c’est-à-dire la vie.—_Discours de M. Ernest Renan du 5 Mai
    1892._


This work is the fifth of a series which may be entitled _Ancient India
as described by the Classical Writers_, since it was projected to supply
annotated translations of all the accounts of India which have descended
to us from classical antiquity. The volumes which have already appeared
contain the fragments of the _Indika_ of Ktêsias the Knidian, and of
the _Indika_ of Megasthenês, the _Indika_ of Arrian, the _Periplous of
the Erythraian Sea_ by an unknown author, and Ptolemy’s _Geography of
India and the other Countries of Eastern Asia_. A sixth work, containing
translations of the chapters in Strabo’s _Geography_ which describe
_India and Ariana_, is in preparation, and will complete the series.
I cannot at present say whether this work will appear as a separate
publication, or will be included in a volume containing new and revised
editions of the three _Indikas_ mentioned above, which are now nearly out
of print, as are also the other two works of the series.

In the present work I have translated and annotated all the earliest
and most authentic records which have been preserved of the Macedonian
invasion of India under Alexander the Great. The notes do not touch on
points either of grammar or of textual criticism, but are mainly designed
to illustrate the statements advanced in the narratives. When short, they
accompany the text as footnotes, and when of such a length as would too
much encumber the pages, they have been placed together in an appendix
by themselves. Such notes again as refer to _persons_ have been placed,
whether short or long, in a second appendix, which I have designated a
_Biographical Appendix_.

In preparing the translations and notes I have consulted a great many
works, of which the following may be specified as those which I found
most useful:—

    Droysen’s _Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen_.

    Williams’s _Life of Alexander_.

    Sainte-Croix’s _Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens
    d’Alexandre le Grand_.

    C. Müller’s _collection of the remaining fragments of the
    Historians of Alexander the Great_.

    Thirlwall’s _History of Greece_, vols. vi. and vii.

    Grote’s _History of Greece_, vol. xii.

    Duncker’s _History of Antiquity_, vol. iv., which treats of
    India exclusively.

    Talboys Wheeler’s _History of India_.

    Le Clerc’s _Criticism upon Curtius_, prefixed to Rooke’s
    Translation of Arrian’s _Anabasis_.

    Lassen’s _Indische Alterthumskunde_.

    General Sir A. Cunningham’s _Geography of Ancient India_.

    V. de Saint-Martin’s _Étude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine
    de l’Inde_, and his _Mémoire Analytique sur la carte de l’Asie
    Centrale et de l’Inde_.

    Rennell’s _Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan_.

    Bunbury’s _History of Ancient Geography_.

    Abbott’s _Gradus ad Aornon_.

    _Journal Asiatique._ Serie VIII.

    _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society._ New Series.

    Mahaffy’s _Alexander’s Empire_ and his _Greek Life_ and
    _Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Conquest_.

    Professor Freeman’s _Essay on Alexander the Great_.

    General Chesney’s _Lecture on the Indian Campaign of Alexander_.

    Wesseling’s Latin Translation of Diodôros.

    Translations of Curtius by Digby, Pratt, and Vaugelas
    respectively.

    The Notes to the Elzevir edition of Curtius.

    Chinnock’s Translation of Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, and
    Notes thereto.

    Chaussard’s Translation of Arrian into French.

    Moberly’s _Alexander the Great in the Punjaub_, from Arrian.
    Book V.

    Burton’s _Sindh_.

    Weber’s _Die Griechen in Indien_.

    Dr. Bellew’s _Ethnography of Afghanistan_.

    Sir W. W. Hunter’s and Professor Max Müller’s Works on India.

The Translations are strictly literal, but though such, will, I trust, be
found to give, without crudeness of diction, a faithful reflex not only
of the sense, but also of the spirit, force, fluency, and perspicuity
of the original compositions. I have at all events spared no pains to
combine in the translations the two merits of being at once literal and
idiomatic in expression.

In translating Arrian I adopted the text of Sintenis (2nd edition,
Berlin, 1863); and with regard to Curtius, I found the work entitled
_Alexander in India_, edited by Heitland and Raven, very serviceable,
containing, as it does, exactly that portion of Curtius which it was
my purpose to translate. Both the works referred to contain valuable
_prolegomena_ and notes, to which I must here acknowledge my obligations.

The Introduction consists of two parts. In the first, I have pointed out
the sources whence our knowledge of the history of Alexander has been
derived, and discussed their title to credibility; while in the second,
I have sketched Alexander’s career, and added a very brief summary of
the events that followed his death till the wars for the division of his
empire were finally composed.

In the transcription of Greek proper names I have followed as hitherto
the method introduced by Grote, which scholars have now generally
adopted. A vindication of the method which, to my thinking, is
unanswerable, has appeared in the preface to Professor Freeman’s _History
of Sicily_, a work which the author unfortunately has not lived to
complete.

The most noticeable change resulting from this method is the substitution
of _K_ for _C_ in the spelling of Greek names. This should be borne in
mind by those who may have occasion to consult either the Biographical
Appendix or the General Index. I may further note that in transcribing
Sanskrit or other Indian names I have in all cases used the circumflex
to distinguish the long _â_, which is sounded as _a_ in _fall_, from
the short _a_, which is sounded as _u_ in _dumb_. In Sanskrit and its
derivative dialects this short vowel (अ) is never written unless it begin
a word, for it is supposed to be inherent in every consonant. The letter
_ś_ with the acute accent represents the palatal sibilant (श), which is
sounded like _sh_.

Two maps accompany the work, the larger of which shows the entire line
of the route which Alexander followed in the course of his Asiatic
expedition, while the smaller shows more distinctly that part of his
route which lay through the northern parts of Afghânistân and the
Country of the Five Rivers. For both I consulted the latest and most
authoritative maps, both British and German, in which these routes have
been laid down, and I found them in pretty close agreement, except with
regard to that part of the route which is traced in the smaller map. Here
I have generally followed the sketch map of the Panjâb which is given
in General Cunningham’s _Ancient Geography of India_, but have ventured
to differ from him with regard to the position of the Rock Aornos, of
Alexander’s bridge over the Indus, of Sangala, and of the Oxydrakai, whom
I have placed, as in Sir E. H. Bunbury’s map, to the south of the Malloi.

The frontispiece to the volume, reproduced from a fifteenth-century
French MS. of the Life of Alexander, may, it is hoped, appeal to many as
a quaint rendering of a widely “popular” incident.

I cannot conclude without expressing my great obligations to Mr.
Archibald Constable, by whose firm this work is published, for all the
trouble he has taken in connection with its passage through the press,
and especially with the preparation of the illustrations. I have also
to thank Dr. Burgess for supplying the photograph from which the Aśôka
inscription on page 373 has been reproduced, and for sundry valuable
suggestions besides.

                                                               J. W. M’C.

9 WESTHALL GARDENS, EDINBURGH, 1892.




INTRODUCTION

    “Of the life of Alexander we have five consecutive narratives,
    besides numerous allusions and fragments scattered up and down
    various Greek and Latin writers.... Unluckily, among all the
    five there is not a single contemporary chronicler.... The
    value of all, it is clear, must depend upon the faithfulness
    with which they represent the earlier writings which they
    had before them, and upon the amount of critical power
    which they may have brought to bear upon their examination.
    Unluckily again, among all the five, one only has any claim
    to the name of a critic. Arrian alone seems to have had at
    once the will and the power to exercise a discreet judgment
    upon the statements of those who went before him. Diodôros we
    believe to be perfectly honest, but he is, at the same time,
    impenetrably stupid. Plutarch, as he himself tells us, does
    not write history, but lives; his object is rather to gather
    anecdotes, to point a moral, than to give a formal narrative of
    political and military events. Justin is a feeble and careless
    epitomizer. Quintus Curtius is, in our eyes, little better
    than a romance writer; he is the only one of the five whom we
    should suspect of any wilful departure from the truth.”—From
    _Historical Essays_, by Professor Freeman, 2d series, third
    edition, pp. 183, 184.




INTRODUCTION


The invasion of India by Alexander the Great, like the first voyage of
Columbus to America, was the means of opening up a new world to the
knowledge of mankind. Before the great conqueror visited that remote and
sequestered country, which was then thought to lie at the utmost ends of
the earth, nothing was known regarding it beyond a few vague particulars
mentioned by Herodotos, and such grains of truth as could be sifted from
the mass of fictions which formed the staple of the treatise on India
written by Ktêsias of Knidos. A comparison of this work with the _Indika_
of Megasthenes, which was written after the invasion, will show how
entirely all real knowledge of the country was due to that event. It may
even, we think, be asserted that had that invasion not taken place, the
knowledge of India among the nations of the West would not have advanced
much beyond where Ktêsias left it, until the maritime passage to the East
by the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered.

It was early in the year 326 B.C. that Alexander, fresh from the conquest
of the fierce tribes of northern Afghânistân, led his army over into the
plains of India by a bridge of boats, with which he had spanned the Indus
a little below its junction with the Kabul river.[1] He remained in the
country not more than twenty months all told, yet in that brief space he
reduced the Panjâb as far as the Satlej, and the whole of the spacious
valley of the lower Indus, downwards to the ocean itself. He would even
have penetrated to the Ganges had his army consented to follow him, and,
in the opinion of Sandrokottos, would have succeeded in adding to his
empire the vast regions through which that river flows. The rapidity
with which he achieved his actual conquests in the country appears all
the more surprising when we take into account that at every stage of
his advance he encountered a most determined resistance. The people
were not only of a most martial temperament, but were at the same time
inured to arms; and had they but been united and led by such a capable
commander as Pôros, the Macedonian army was doomed to utter destruction.
Alexander, with all his matchless strategy, could not have averted such
a catastrophe; for what is the record of his Indian campaigns? We find
that the toughest of all his battles was that which he fought on the
banks of the Hydaspes against Pôros; that he had hot work in overcoming
the resistance of the Kathaians before the walls of Sangala; that he
was wounded near to death in his assault upon the Mallian stronghold;
and that in the valley of the Indus he could only overpower the
opposition instigated by the Brahmans by means of wholesale massacres
and executions. It may hence be safely inferred that if Alexander had
found India united in arms to withstand his aggression, the star of his
good fortune would have culminated with his passage of the Indus. But
he found, on the contrary, the political condition of the country when
he entered it eminently favourable to his designs. The regions of the
Indus and its great tributary streams were then divided into separate
states—some under kingly and others under republican governments, but
all alike prevented by their mutual jealousies and feuds from acting
in concert against a common enemy, and therefore all the more easy to
overcome. Alexander, in pursuance of his usual policy, sought to secure
the permanence of his Indian conquests by founding cities,[2] which he
strongly fortified and garrisoned with large bodies of troops to overawe
and hold in subjection the tribes in their neighbourhood. The system of
government also which he established was the same as that which he had
provided for his other subject provinces, the civil administration being
entrusted to native chiefs, while the executive and military authority
was wielded by Macedonian officers.

The Asiatic nations in general submissively acquiesced in the new order
of things, and after a time found no reason to regret the old order
which it had superseded. Under their Hellenic masters they enjoyed a
greater measure of freedom than they had ever before known; commerce was
promoted, wealth increased, the administration of justice improved, and
altogether they reached a higher level of culture, both intellectual and
moral, than they could possibly have attained under a continuance of
Persian supremacy.

India did not participate to any great extent in these advantages. Her
people were too proud and warlike to brook long the burden and reproach
of foreign thraldom, and within a few years after the Conqueror’s death
they completely freed themselves from the yoke he imposed, and were
thereafter ruled by their native princes. The Greek occupation having
thus proved so transient, had little more effect in shaping the future
course of the national destinies than a casual raid of Scottish borderers
into Cumberland in the old days could have had in shaping the general
course of English history.[3]

By this disruption of her relations with the rest of Alexander’s empire,
India fell back into her former isolation from all the outside world, and
for more than fifteen or sixteen centuries afterwards the western nations
knew as little of her internal condition as they knew till lately of the
interior of the Dark Continent. The invasion was, however, by no means
fruitless of some good results. As has been already indicated, it drew
aside the veil which had till then shrouded India from the observation
of the rest of the world, and it thus widened the horizon of knowledge.
It is fortunate that what then became known of India was not left for
its preservation at the mercy of mere oral tradition, but was committed
to the safer custody of writing. Not a few of Alexander’s officers and
companions were men of high attainments in literature and science, and
some of their number composed memoirs of his wars, in the course of
which they recorded their impressions of India and the races by which
they found it inhabited.[4] These reports, even in the fragmentary state
in which they have come down to us, have proved of inestimable value to
scholars engaged in the investigation of Indian antiquity—a task which
the sad deficiency of Sanskrit literature in history and chronology has
rendered one of no ordinary difficulty. Strabo, we must however note,
stigmatized the authors referred to as being in general a set of liars,
of whom only a few managed now and then to stammer out some words of
truth. This sweeping censure is, however, a most egregious calumny. It
may indeed be admitted that their descriptions are not uniformly free
from error or exaggeration, and may even be tainted by some intermixture
of fiction, but on the whole they wrote in good faith—a fact which even
Strabo himself practically admits by frequently citing their authority
for his statements. If one or two of them are to some extent liable to
the censure, it must be remembered that Ptolemy, Aristoboulos, Nearchos,
Megasthenes, and others of them, are writers of unimpeachable veracity.

It is to be regretted that the works in which these writers recorded
their Indian experiences have all, without exception, perished. We know,
however, the main substance of their contents from the histories of
Alexander, written several centuries after his death by the authors we
have here translated, as well as from Strabo, Pliny, Ailianos, Athênaios,
Orosius, and others.

The following is a list of the writers on India who visited the country
either with Alexander, or not many years after his death, or who were at
least his contemporaries:—

    1. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, who became king of Egypt.

    2. Aristoboulos of Potidaia, or, as it was called afterwards,
    Kassandreia.

    3. Nearchos, a Kretan by birth, but settled at Amphipolis,
    admiral of the fleet.

    4. Onêsikritos of Astypalaia, or, as some say, of Aegina, pilot
    of the fleet.

    5. Eumenês of Kardia, Alexander’s secretary, who kept the
    _Ephemerides_ or Court Journal. His countryman, Hieronymos, in
    his work on Alexander’s successors, made a few references to
    the campaigns of the Conqueror.

    6. Chares of Mitylene, wrote anecdotes of Alexander’s private
    life.

    7. Kallisthenes of Olynthos, Aristotle’s kinsman, author of an
    account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition.

    8. Kleitarchos (Clitarchus), son of Deinôn of Rhodes, author of
    a life of Alexander.

    9. Androsthenes of Thasos, a naval officer, author of a
    Paraplous.

    10. Polykleitos of Larissa, author of a history of Alexander,
    full of geographical details.

    11. Kyrsilos of Pharsalos, who wrote of the exploits of
    Alexander.

    12. Anaximenes of Lampsakos, author of a history of Alexander.

    13. Diognêtos, who, with Baitôn, measured and recorded the
    distances of Alexander’s marches.

    14. Archelaös, a geographer, supposed to have accompanied
    Alexander’s expedition.

    15. Amyntas, author of a work on Alexander’s _Stathmoi_, _i.e._
    stages or halting-places.

    16. Patroklês, a writer on geography.

    17. Megasthenês, friend of Seleukos Nikator, and his ambassador
    at the Court of Sandrokottos, king of Palibothra, composed an
    _Indika_.

    18. Dêïmachos, ambassador at the same court in the days of the
    son and successor of Sandrokottos, author of a work on India in
    two books.

    19. Diodotos of Erythrai, who, like Eumenês, kept Alexander’s
    Court Journal, and may possibly have been in India.

Five consecutive narratives of Alexander’s Indian campaigns, compiled
several centuries after his death from the works of the writers
enumerated, who were either witnesses of the events they described, or
living at the time of their occurrence, have descended to our times, and
are respectively contained in the following productions:—

    1. The Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian of Nikomêdeia.

    2. The History of Alexander the Great, by Quintus Curtius Rufus.

    3. The Life of Alexander, in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.

    4. The History of Diodôros the Sicilian.

    5. The Book of Macedonian History, compiled from the Universal
    History of Trogus Pompeius, by Justinus Frontinus.


ARRIAN

Arrian, who is universally allowed to be by far the best of all
Alexander’s historians, was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a
military commander, an expert in the tactics of war, and an accomplished
writer. He was born towards the end of the first century of our aera at
Nikomêdeia (now Ismiknid or Ismid), the capital of Bithynia, situated
near the head of a deep bay at the south-eastern end of the Propontis or
Sea of Marmora. He became a disciple of the Stoic philosopher Epiktêtos
(much in the same way as Xenophon attached himself to Sôkrates), and
gave to the world an abstract of his master’s lectures, together with
an _Encheiridion_ or manual of his philosophy—a work which was long
and widely popular. Under the Emperor Hadrian he was appointed in A.D.
132 prefect of Kappadokia. He had not long filled this office when a
large body of wild Alan horsemen made one of their formidable raids
into his province. They had hitherto proved irresistible, but on this
occasion they were completely foiled by the skilful strategy and tactics
of Arrian, who expelled them from his borders before they had secured
any plunder. In Rome he was preferred to various high offices, and
under Antoninus Pius was raised to the consulship. In his later years
he retired to his native city, where he occupied himself in composing
treatises on a considerable variety of subjects, but chiefly on history
and geography. He died at an advanced age in the reign of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius.

His account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition was followed by a treatise
on India called the _Indika_. The first part of this work, which gives a
description of India and its people, was based chiefly on the _Indika_
of Megasthenes; and the second part, which narrates the famous voyage of
Nearchos from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, was
based on a journal kept by Nearchos himself. The work is but a supplement
to his history. He speaks himself with noble pride of this great work.
“This I do assert,” he says, “that this historical record of Alexander’s
deeds is, and has been from my youth up, in place to me of native
land, family, and honours of state; and so I do not regard myself as
unworthy to take rank among the foremost writers in the Greek language,
if Alexander be forsooth among the foremost in arms.” “Quel délire de
l’amour propre!” here exclaims Sainte-Croix. His merits as an author
are thus well stated by a writer in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_:
“This great work (the _Anabasis_) reminds the reader of Xenophon’s
_Anabasis_, not only by its title, but also by the ease and clearness
of its style.... Great as his merits thus are as an historian, they are
yet surpassed by his excellences as an historical critic. His _Anabasis_
is based upon the most trustworthy historians among the contemporaries
of Alexander.... One of the great merits of the work is the clearness
and distinctness with which he describes all military movements and
operations, the drawing up of the armies for battle, and the conduct of
battles and sieges.”


Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

Nothing is known with any certainty respecting either the life of this
historian or the time at which he lived. Niebuhr makes him contemporary
with Septimius Severus, but most critics with Vespasian. Zumpt again,
who, like some other eminent scholars, identifies him with the
rhetorician Q. Curtius Rufus, of whom Suetonius wrote a life now lost,
places him as early as Augustus.[5] The style in which his history is
written certainly shows him to have been a consummate master of rhetoric.
He was particularly given to adorning his narrative with speeches and
public harangues, and these, as Zumpt observes, are marked with a degree
of power and effectiveness which scarcely anything in that species of
writing can surpass. It may also be said that his style for elegance does
not fall much short of the perfection of Cicero himself. It has of course
its faults, and in these can be traced the incipient degeneracy of the
Latin language, such as the introduction of poetical diction into prose,
the ambition of expressing everything pointedly and strikingly, not to
mention certain deviations from strict grammatical propriety.

The materials of his narrative were drawn chiefly from Ptolemy, who
accompanied Alexander into India, from Kleitarchos their contemporary,
and from Timagenes, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and wrote
an excellent history of Alexander and his successors. While the sources
whence he derived his information were thus good on the whole, he was
himself deficient in the knowledge of military tactics, geography,
chronology, astronomy, and especially in historical criticism, and he
is therefore as an historical authority far inferior to Arrian. But
in perusing his “pictured pages” the reader takes but little note of
his errors and inconsistencies, being fascinated with his graceful and
glowing narrative, interspersed as it is with brilliant orations, sage
maxims, sound moral reflections, vivid descriptions of life and manners,
and beautiful estimates of character. It is not surprising that with such
merits Curtius has been one of the most popular of the classical authors.
In spite of all his sins, for which he has so often been pilloried by the
censors of literary morals, his history of Alexander has been the delight
and admiration of not a few of the greatest of European scholars. He
seems to have taken Livy as his model, as Arrian took Xenophon for his.
His work consisted originally of ten books, but the first two are lost,
and in some of the others considerable gaps occur. The French translation
of Curtius by Vaugelas, who devoted thirty years of his life to the task,
is so remarkable for its elegance that it has been pronounced to be as
inimitable as Alexander himself was invincible. It is not, however, a
very close version.


PLUTARCH

There are but few works in the wide circle of literature which have
afforded so much instruction and entertainment to the world as Plutarch’s
_Parallel Lives of the Famous Men of Greece and Rome_. These _Lives_,
which are forty-six in number, are arranged in pairs, and each pair
contains the _life_ of a Greek and a Roman, followed, though not always,
by a comparison drawn between the two. Alexander the Great and Caesar are
ranked together, but no comparison follows. In his introduction to the
_life_ of the former, Plutarch explains his method as a biographer. “We
do not,” he says, “give the actions in full detail and with a scrupulous
exactness, but rather in a short summary, since we are not writing
_histories_, but _lives_. It is not always in the most distinguished
achievements that men’s vices or virtues may be best discerned, but
often an action of but little note—a short saying or a jest—may mark
a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges or the most
important battles.” His _Lives_, therefore, while useful to the writer of
history, must be used with care, since they are not intended as materials
for history. His narrative of Alexander’s progress through India has one
or two passages which show this indifference to historical accuracy, as
when, for instance, he states that the soldiers of Alexander refused to
pass the Ganges when they saw the opposite bank covered with the army of
the King of the Praisians.[6] His account of the battle with Pôros is,
however, excellent, and all the more interesting, because, as he tells
us, he obtained the particulars from Alexander’s own letters.[7]

Plutarch was a native of Chairôneia, a town in Boiôtia. The date of
his birth is unknown, but may be fixed towards the middle of the first
century of our aera. He visited Italy, and lectured on philosophy in some
of its cities. For some time he lived in Rome, where, it is said, but on
doubtful authority, that he was promoted to high offices of state, and
became tutor to the Emperor Trajan. The later years of his life he spent
at Chairôneia, where he discharged various magisterial offices and held
a priesthood. The date of his death, like that of his birth, is unknown,
but it is clear that he lived to an advanced age. Besides the _Lives_,
he published other writings, mostly essays, having some resemblance to
those of Bacon. They are sixty in number, and are called collectively
_Moralia_, though some of them are of an historical character. Two of
them are orations _About the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander_. His style
is somewhat difficult, at times cumbrous and involved, and somewhat
deficient in that grace and perspicuity for which the works of the Attic
writers are noted. His writings are all the more valuable from their
supplying a deficiency of the Greek historians, whose works are filled
with the records of war and politics, while giving us but little insight
into men’s private lives and their social surroundings.


DIODOROS THE SICILIAN

Diodôros was born at Agyrium, a city in the interior of Sicily, and was
a contemporary of Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus. It was the
great ambition of his life to write an universal history, and having
this in view he travelled over a great part of Europe and Asia in order
to acquire a more accurate knowledge of countries and nations than could
be obtained from merely reading books. In Rome, where a far greater
number of the ancient documents which he required to consult had been
collected than were to be found elsewhere, he resided for a considerable
time. He spent thirty years in the composition of his work, to which he
gave the name of _Bibliothêkê_, which indicated that it formed quite _a
library_ in itself, embracing, as it did, the history of all ages and all
countries. It consisted of forty books, which he divided into three great
sections: 1st, the mythical period previous to the Trojan war; 2d, the
period thence to the death of Alexander the Great; 3d, the period from
Alexander to the beginning of Caesar’s Gallic wars. Considerable portions
of the _Bibliothêkê_ are lost, but all the books relating to the period
with which we are concerned are still extant.

Diodôros constructed his narrative upon the plan of annals, placing
the events of each year side by side without regard to their intrinsic
connection. The value of the work is greatly impaired by the author’s
evident want of critical discernment; he mixes up history with fiction,
shows frequently that he has misunderstood his authorities, and advances
statements which are mutually contradictory. His style is, however,
pleasing, having the merits of simplicity and clearness. In his second
book he gives a description of India epitomized from Megasthenes.
His account of Alexander’s career in India records some interesting
particulars of which we should otherwise have remained ignorant. He seems
to have drawn largely from the same sources as Curtius.


JUSTINUS FRONTINUS

Justin, in the preface to his work entitled _De Historiis Philippicis_,
informs us that it was “a kind of anthology”—_veluti florum
corpusculum_—extracted from the forty-four volumes published by Pompeius
Trogus on Philippic (_i.e._ Macedonian) history. As these volumes
included histories of nearly all the countries with which the Macedonian
sovereigns had transactions, they embraced such a very wide field that
they were regarded as a cyclopaedia of general history. Justin remarks
that while many authors regard it as an arduous task to write no more
than the history of one king or one state, we cannot but think that
Pompeius had the daring of Hercules in attacking the whole world, seeing
that in his books are contained the _res gestae_ of all ages, kings,
nations, and peoples. He then states that he had occupied his leisure
while in Rome by selecting those passages of Trogus which seemed most
worthy of being generally known, and passing over such as he took to
be neither particularly interesting nor instructive. He has been much,
but unjustly, blamed for his omissions, seeing that his only object in
writing was to compile a work of elegant historical extracts. By so
doing he has rescued from oblivion many facts not elsewhere recorded.
From the extracts relating to India we gather more information about
Sandrokottos (Chandragupta) than from any other classical source. Trogus
Pompeius belonged, we know, to the age of Augustus, but it is uncertain
when Justin lived. As the earliest writer by whom he is mentioned is St.
Jerome, his date cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth century
of our aera.


THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

[Illustration: FIG. 1.—LYSIMACHOS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.—ARISTOTLE.]

Alexander III., King of Macedonia, surnamed the Great, was born at Pella
in the year 356 B.C. He was the son of Philip II. and Olympias, who
belonged to the royal race of Epeiros, which claimed to be descended
from Achilles, the hero of the _Iliad_. The education of the prince
was in the outset entrusted to Lysimachos, an Akarnanian, and to his
mother’s kinsman Leonidas, a man of an austere character, who inured
his pupil to Spartan-like habits of hard exercise and simple fare.
In his thirteenth year he was placed under the immediate tuition of
Aristotle, who acquired a life-long influence over the mind and character
of his pupil. It may be supposed that the eager love of discovery which
conspicuously distinguished Alexander from ordinary conquerors was in
a great measure inspired and stimulated by the precepts of his master.
In his sixteenth year he was entrusted, during his father’s absence
on a foreign expedition, with the regency of Macedonia; and two years
later, at the battle of Chaironeia, which was won chiefly through his
impetuous valour, he displayed for the first time his incomparable genius
for war. This victory made the Macedonian King supreme in Greece, and
at a convention which met soon afterwards at his summons, and which was
attended by deputies from all the Grecian states except Sparta, he was
appointed to command the national forces and to conduct an expedition
against Persia to avenge the invasions of Mardonios and Xerxes. He was
actively engaged in preparing for this great contest when he fell by
the hand of an assassin. Alexander succeeded (336 B.C.) not only to his
sovereignty, but also to his supremacy in the affairs of Greece. He found
himself, immediately on his accession, beset on all sides with most
formidable opponents. Attalos, who was in Asia with a considerable force
under his command, aspired to the throne; the Greeks, instigated by the
passionate eloquence of Demosthenes, attempted to liberate themselves
from Macedonian dictation, and the barbarians of the north threatened his
hereditary dominions with invasion. The youthful monarch was equal to the
emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly
marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient
rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms
northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous
tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube.
Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which
had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single
year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been,
he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian
expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted
to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse.

The empire which this comparatively insignificant force was destined to
attack and overthrow was the greatest which the world had as yet seen,
and had already subsisted for two hundred years. It had been founded by
Cyrus the Great, and extended by his successors till it embraced all
Asia from the shores of the Aegean and the Levant to the regions of the
Jaxartes and the Indus. It was divided by the great belt of desert,
which stretches almost continuously from the Persian Gulf to the Sea
of Aral, into two great sections which differed widely both in their
physical aspect and the character of their inhabitants. The eastern
tribes living amid mountains and deserts were rude, but distinguished for
their hardihood, their love of independence, and their martial prowess.
The western Asiatics, on the other hand, who inhabited those fair and
fertile countries which had been the earliest seats of civilisation,
were singularly deficient in these qualities. Enervated by ease and
the affluence of luxuries, they offered but a feeble resistance to
Alexander, and bent their necks submissively to his yoke. He had quite
a different experience when he came into conflict with the tribes of
the Oxus, Jaxartes, and Indus. They resisted him with the utmost spirit
and determination, rose against him even after defeat, and succeeded in
inflicting a signal disaster on his arms.

The system by which the vast empire was governed may be described as a
rigid monarchy. It was divided by Darius Hystaspes into twenty provinces,
a number which was afterwards much augmented probably by the subdivision
of the larger ones. The government of each was committed to a satrap[8]
whose powers were almost despotic. He collected the revenues, from which,
besides defraying the expenses of his own administration, he was obliged
to remit a fixed amount of annual tribute to the royal treasury. The
Indian satrapy, which probably included Baktria and was limited to the
regions west of the Indus, paid the largest tribute, which, as we learn
from Herodotos, amounted to the immense sum of 360 talents of gold dust.

The king who filled the throne at the time of the invasion was Darius
Kodomannos, who had some reputation for personal courage and some other
virtues which might have adorned his reign had it been fated to be
peaceful. He was, however, like Louis XVI. of France, quite destitute
of the skill and nerve required for piloting the vessel of the state in
stormy times. The empire long before his accession had been falling into
decay. Insurrections were for ever breaking out. Some of the provinces,
though nominally subject, were practically independent, while in others
the satraps both claimed and exercised the right of transmitting their
authority by hereditary succession. What saved it from dissolution was,
not so much the strength of the government, as the reluctance of the
leading men, through their distrust of each other’s good faith, to enter
into combinations against it. It was another symptom of its weakness,
that the king in his wars trusted far more to the Greek troops in his
pay than to his native levies and their leaders. Neither the Greeks nor
the Persians had lost sight of the fact that at Kounaxa the victory had
been won for Cyrus by the Greek mercenaries.

Alexander having completed his preparations, and appointed Antipater
to act as regent of Macedonia during his absence, crossed over the
Hellespont into Asia in the spring of 334 B.C. His army, though
numerically insignificant when compared with the magnitude of the
enterprise which lay before it, proved nevertheless, from the physical
superiority, courage, and daring of the men, combined with the perfection
of their organisation and discipline, and the consummate skill of their
leader, more than a match for any force, however numerous, which was
brought into the field against it. We may here quote a passage from
Thirlwall, in which he describes the composition, organisation, and
equipment of this heroic little army which performed the greatest deeds
recorded in military annals:

    “The main body, the phalanx—or quadruple phalanx, as it was
    sometimes called, to mark that it was formed of four divisions,
    each bearing the same name—presented a mass of 18,000 men,
    which was distributed, at least by Alexander, into six brigades
    of 3000 each, formidable in its aspect, and on ground suited
    to its operations, irresistible in its attacks. The phalangite
    soldier wore the usual defensive armour of the Greek heavy
    infantry—helmet, breast-plate, and greaves: and almost the
    whole front of his person was covered with the long shield
    called the _aspis_. His weapons were a sword long enough to
    enable a man in the second rank to reach an enemy who had come
    to close quarters with the comrade who stood before him, and
    the celebrated spear, known by the Macedonian name, _sarissa_,
    four-and-twenty feet long. The sarissa, when couched, projected
    eighteen feet in front of the soldier: and the space between
    the ranks was such that those of the second rank were fifteen,
    those of the third twelve, those of the fourth nine, those of
    the fifth six, and those of the sixth three feet in advance of
    the first line: so that the man at the head of the file was
    guarded on each side by the points of six spears. The ordinary
    depth of the phalanx was of sixteen ranks. The men who stood
    too far behind to use their sarissas, and who therefore
    kept them raised until they advanced to fill a vacant place,
    still added to the pressure of the mass. As the efficacy of
    the phalanx depended on its compactness, and this again on
    the uniformity of its movements, the greatest care was taken
    to select the best soldiers for the foremost and hindmost
    ranks—the frames, as it were, of the engine. The bulk and core
    of the phalanx consisted of Macedonians; but it was composed
    in part of foreign troops. These were no doubt Greeks. But
    the northern Illyrians, Paeonians, Agrianians, and Thracians,
    who were skilled in the use of missiles, furnished bowmen,
    dartsmen, and slingers: probably according to the proportion
    which the master of tactics deemed the most eligible, about
    half the number of the phalanx. To these was added another
    class of infantry, peculiar in some respects to the Macedonian
    army, though the invention belonged to Iphicrates. They were
    called Hypaspists, because, like the phalangites, they carried
    the long shield: but their spears were shorter, their swords
    longer, their armour lighter. They were thus prepared for more
    rapid movements, and did not so much depend on the nature of
    the ground. They formed a corps of about 6000 men. The cavalry
    was similarly distinguished into three classes by its arms,
    accoutrements, and mode of warfare. Its main strength consisted
    in 1500 Macedonian and as many Thessalian horse. But the rider
    and his horse were cased in armour, and his weapons seem to
    have corresponded to those of the heavy infantry. The light
    cavalry, chiefly used for skirmishing and pursuit, and in
    part armed with the sarissa, was drawn from the Thracians and
    Paeonians, and was about the third of the number of the heavy
    horse. A smaller body of Greek cavalry probably stood in nearly
    the same relation to the other two divisions, as the Hypaspists
    to the heavy and light infantry. To the Hypaspists belonged
    the royal foot bodyguard, the Agêma, or royal escort, and the
    Argyraspides, so called from the silver ornaments with which
    their long shields were enriched. But the precise relation in
    which these bodies stood to each other does not appear very
    distinctly from the descriptions of the ancients. The royal
    horse-guard was composed of eight Macedonian squadrons, filled
    with the sons of the best families. The numbers of each are not
    ascertained, but they seem in all not much to have exceeded or
    fallen short of a thousand.”

From this description of the Macedonian army, it may easily be imagined
what a formidable aspect its main arm—the phalanx of panoplied
infantry—would present to the enemy. Polybios informs us that the Roman
officers who were present in the battle of Kynoskephalai, and then saw
the phalanx for the first time, told him that in all their experience
of war they had never seen anything so terrible. The phalanx, however,
as that historian points out, could only operate effectively on level
and open ground—was quite unfit for rapid advance and rough terrain,
and useless if its ranks were broken. It was thus helpless in face of
an active enemy unless well supported by cavalry and light troops. This
explains why Alexander attached so much importance to his cavalry. In
point of fact he owed none of his victories to the phalanx; his cavalry,
rapid in its evolutions and charging with resistless impetuosity, gained
them all. In addition to the troops which have been particularised in the
extract, there was one kind organised by Alexander called _dimachai_,
intermediate between cavalry and infantry, being designed to fight on
horseback or on foot as circumstances required. His artillery formed a
very useful part of his equipment. The _balistai_ and _katapeltai_ of
which it consisted threw stones and darts to the distance of 300 yards,
and was frequently employed with great effect.

As he foresaw that in the course of his expedition he was likely to
penetrate to regions either imperfectly or altogether unknown, he
entertained on his staff men of literary and scientific requirements to
write his deeds, and describe those countries and nations to which he
might carry his arms.

He first came into conflict with the Persians on the banks of the
Granîkos, a small river, which, flowing from Mount Ida through the Trojan
plain, enters the Propontis to the west of Kyzikos. Their army, which
consisted of 20,000 horse, and an equal number of Greek mercenaries, was
commanded by several satraps who were assisted by the counsels of Memnon
the Rhodian, the ablest general in the service of Darius. The Persians
were drawn up in line along the right bank of the stream, while their
mercenaries were posted on a range of heights that rose in the rear.
Alexander drew up his forces on the opposite bank in the order which he
adopted in all his great battles. Thus the phalanx formed his centre; he
commanded himself the extreme right, and the officer in whom he had most
confidence the extreme left. To either wing were attached such brigades
of the phalanx as circumstances seemed to require. The Persians having
observed where Alexander was posted, strengthened their left wing with
dense squadrons of their best cavalry, anticipating that this part of
their line would be exposed to the first fury of the onset led by himself
in person. They judged aright. Alexander having sent a detachment of
cavalry across the stream, followed with other cavalry and a portion
of the phalanx. The Persians made a gallant resistance, but were soon
beaten. Their darts and scimitars were no match for the tough cornel of
the Macedonian spears. Their ranks first broke where Alexander himself
in the hottest of the fight was dealing death and wounds around him. A
blow which was descending on his own head, and which if delivered would
have proved fatal, was intercepted by Kleitos, who cut off the arm of the
assailant, scimitar and all. The field was won before either the phalanx
on the one side, or the Greek mercenaries on the other, could come into
action. The Macedonians, after returning from a short pursuit, closed
around the mercenaries and cut them down, all but 2000 who were made
prisoners and sent in chains to Macedonia. The number of the Persians
slain was about 1000 against only 115 on the other side.

Alexander did not, like most other conquerors after a victory, plunder
the surrounding country, but regarding Asia as already his own, treated
the inhabitants as subjects whose interests he was bound to protect and
promote. Neither did he at once advance into the interior, but, acting
by a rule of strategy which he was always careful to observe, resolved
to make his rear secure. He therefore first reduced all the western
provinces of the empire which Darius after the defeat of his satraps had
placed under the supreme authority of Memnon the Rhodian. Memnon was a
formidable antagonist, both from his skill in war, and from his having a
powerful fleet at his command, which gave him the dominion of the sea,
and enabled him to threaten at will the shores of Greece and Macedonia.

Alexander marched from the battle-field to Ilion, and advanced thence
southward through the beautiful regions of Ionia and the other
maritime states, which, in striking contrast to their present blighted
condition, were then at the height of prosperity—adorned with numerous
rich and splendid cities, which vied with each other in all the arts
of refinement. The terror of his name preceded him, and these cities
one after another, including even Sardis, the western capital, which
was strongly fortified, threw open their gates to admit him. Milêtos,
however, and Halikarnassos, being supported by the Persian fleet, refused
to surrender, and did not fall into his hands until each had been for
some time besieged. After the fall of Halikarnassos, the rest of Karia,
of which it was the capital, submitted, and then the operations of the
first year of the war were brought to a close by the reduction of all
Lykia. In this province he gave his army some rest.

The next campaign opened with the conquest of Pamphylia, after which
Alexander turned his march away from the coast with a view to invade
Phrygia, which lay to the north beyond the lofty range of Tauros. It was
now the depth of winter, but Alexander in defiance of all obstacles—frost
and snow, torrents and precipices, and the resistance of the fierce
Pisidian mountaineers—forced his way into the Phrygian plains. This
passage of the Tauros at such a season was an achievement not unworthy
to rank with the more celebrated passage of the Alps made by Hannibal
about a century later. After he had cleared the defiles, a march of five
days brought him to Kelainai, the capital of the greater Phrygia, which
was pleasantly situated where the river Marsyas joins the Maeander, and
was embellished with a palace and a royal park. Alexander, deeming its
acropolis to be impregnable, made terms with the inhabitants, and then
advanced to the ancient capital called Gordion, after Gordios, the father
of the celebrated Midas, the first king of the country. Here was the
complicated knot to which the prophecy was attached that whoever untied
it should be Lord of Asia. It was tied on a rope of bark which fastened
the yoke to the pole of the wagon on which Midas had been carried into
the city on the day when the people chose him as their king. Alexander
either undid the knot or cut it through with his sword.

On the return of spring he moved forward to Ankyra (now Angora),
and there had the satisfaction to receive the submission of the
Paphlagonians, who at that time were a very powerful nation. Being thus
free to move southwards without leaving an enemy in his rear, he entered
Kappadokia, and having overrun it without encountering any serious
opposition, he recrossed the Tauros by a pass that admitted him into
the fertile plains of Eastern Kilikia. The capital of this province was
Tarsos, a flourishing seat of commerce, art, and learning, built on both
banks of the river Kydnos, which was navigable to the sea. This important
city fell without resistance into Alexander’s hands, the satrap having
fled at the tidings of his approach. Here, however, he nearly lost his
life, having caught a violent fever by throwing himself when heated into
the waters of the Kydnos, which ran cold with the snows of Mount Tauros.
After his recovery he sent Parmeniôn eastward to occupy the passes
leading into Syria, called the Syrian Gates, and marched himself in the
opposite direction to reduce the hill-tribes of Western Kilikia. In the
meantime Darius, advancing from the East, had crossed the Euphrates and
the Syrian desert at the head of an army not less numerous than that
with which Napoleon invaded Russia, and was lying encamped on a wide
plain suitable for his cavalry within a two days’ march of the Syrian
Gates. Here he waited for some time ready to fall upon the Macedonian
troops and crush them with the overwhelming superiority of his numbers
when they debouched from the defile. When he despaired of their coming,
he marched into Kilikia through a pass known as the Amanian Gates and
encamped on the banks of the Pinaros which flows through the plain of
Issos to the sea. He thus placed himself in a trap where he was hemmed in
by the mountains and the sea in a narrow plain not more than a mile and
a half in width. Alexander meanwhile had passed through the other gates
into the Syrian plain when he learned to his astonishment that Darius
was now in his rear. He at once retraced his steps, and by midnight
regained the pass, where from one of its summits he beheld the Persian
watchfires gleaming far and wide over the plain of Issos. At daybreak he
marched down the pass, and on reaching the open part of the plain made
the usual disposition of his forces, Parmeniôn commanding the left, and
himself the right wing. Darius had drawn up his line, which extended from
the mountains to the sea, along the northern bank of the river Pinaros.
In the centre, which confronted the dreaded Macedonian phalanx, he had
posted a body of 30,000 heavy-armed Greek mercenaries.

Alexander began the action by dislodging a detachment of the enemy which
had been posted at the base of the mountains and threatened his rear.
Finding the Persians did not advance, he crossed the river and charged
their left wing with such impetuosity that he broke their ranks and swept
them from the field irretrievably discomfited. He then wheeled round
and brought timely succour to his phalanx, which the Greek mercenaries
of Darius were driving back with disordered ranks to the river. The
struggle now became desperate, for these mercenaries, bitterly resenting
the state of political degradation to which the Macedonians had reduced
their compatriots in southern Greece, now fought against them with all
the fury that the passions of hate and rivalry could inspire. They were
nevertheless driven back, and the tide of battle surged up towards the
state chariot itself, on which Darius was mounted in the centre of his
line. The pusillanimous monarch no sooner perceived that his person was
in danger than he ordered his charioteer to turn the heads of his horses
for flight. This decided the fortunes of the day; it was the signal of
his defeat, and his troops, on seeing it, at once broke from their ranks
and fled from the field. The cavalry even, which on the extreme right
had victory almost within their grasp, yielded to the general panic, and
helped to swell the crowd of fugitives. As the narrowness of the plain
allowed but very little room for escape, the vanquished were massacred
in myriads. Darius escaped across the Euphrates, but his treasures and
his family, consisting of his mother, wife, and children, fell into
Alexander’s hands, who treated these illustrious captives with all the
kindness and courtesy which were due alike to their misfortunes and their
exalted rank.

He did not pursue Darius, and about two years passed away before he again
met him in battle. His victory had left Syria and Egypt open to his arms,
and these countries had to be reduced and the power of Persia effectually
crushed at sea before he could advance with safety into the heart of the
empire. He therefore marched southward to Phoenicia, the seaports of
which supplied the Persians with most of their war-galleys. Parmeniôn he
sent forward with a small detachment to seize Damascus, where Darius,
before his defeat, had deposited his treasures. The city surrendered
without resistance, and a vast and varied spoil fell into the hands of
the Macedonians. The cities along the Syrian coast submitted in like
manner to Alexander himself, all but Tyre, which sent him a golden crown,
but refused to admit him within her gates. For this temerity the city of
merchant princes paid a dreadful penalty. Alexander, having captured it
after a seven months’ siege, burned it to the ground, and most of the
inhabitants he either slew or sold into slavery. This is considered to
have been the greatest of all Alexander’s military achievements. Tyre had
hitherto been deemed impregnable. It was built on an island separated
from the mainland by a channel of the sea half a mile in width; its
walls, which were of great solidity, rose to an immense height, and its
navy gave it the command of the sea. The inhabitants, moreover, were
expert in arms, and defended themselves with such spirit and obstinacy
that Alexander found himself unable to overcome their resistance, until
he obtained from Cyprus and Sidon a fleet superior to their own. He had
also to construct a causeway through the channel to enable him to bring
his engines close up to the walls, and this was a work of vast labour and
difficulty. His merciless treatment of the vanquished darkly overshadows
the glory of this memorable exploit.

Palestine, with the adjoining districts, next submitted to the Conqueror.
Gaza alone, like Tyre, closed its gates against him. This city, which
stood not far from the sea, towards the edge of the desert which
separates Syria from Egypt, was strongly fortified, and held out for two
months. Alexander took it by storm, slaughtered the garrison, and then
set out for Egypt. A seven days’ march through the desert brought him to
Pelusium. The Egyptians, who smarted under the bondage of Persia, like
the Israelites of old under their own, hailed his advent as that of a
deliverer, and gladly submitted to his rule.

Alexander proceeded as far southward as Memphis and the Pyramids, and
then embarking on the western or Kanopic branch of the Nile, sailed down
to Lake Mareôtis, and landed on the narrow sandy isthmus by which that
lake is separated from the sea. This neck of land was faced on the north
by the island of Pharos, a long ridge of rock which sheltered it from all
the violence of the ocean. Alexander, discerning with his keen eye all
the advantages of such a position for commerce, at once founded on the
isthmus the city of Alexandria, which, as he anticipated, soon became the
great centre of trade between the eastern and western worlds. His next
object was to consult the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, which was said to have
been visited by Heraklês and Perseus, from both of whom he claimed to be
descended. He therefore marched along the coast for about 200 miles to
Paraitonion, which lay at the western extremity of Egypt. On the way he
was met by deputies from Kyrênê, who brought him valuable presents, and
invited him to visit their city. From Paraitonion he marched southward
through the Libyan desert, and, after some days, reached the large and
beautiful oasis where, embosomed amid thick woods, rose the temple of
Ammon and the palace of his priests. On consulting the oracle he obtained
answers, about the nature of which he stated nothing further than that
they were satisfactory. He then returned across the desert to Memphis,
where he settled the future government of Egypt, and ordered justice to
be dispensed according to the ancient laws of the country. From Memphis
he directed his march to Syria, and on reaching Tyre, remained there for
some time. While he was in Egypt he had been visited by Hegelochos, his
admiral, who reported that the Persians had been dispossessed of the
islands which they had acquired in the Aegean; that their fleet had been
dissipated, and that all their leaders were prisoners except Pharnabazos,
the successor of Memnon, who had died somewhat suddenly while Alexander
was in Phrygia.

Alexander was now, therefore, the undisputed master of all the countries
west of the Euphrates, and could with complete security turn his arms
eastward to bring his contest with Persia to a final issue. Darius, on
the other hand, who, in the interval between his defeat and the fall
of Tyre, had twice sent an embassy to the Conqueror to sue for peace
and the ransom of his family, on terms which, though most tempting, had
been haughtily refused, was mustering all his forces to encounter the
storm of war which would sooner or later burst from the clouds that hung
ominously on his western horizon. The army he now raised was far stronger
numerically than that with which he had fought at Issos, and, as it was
drawn chiefly from the east, consisted of the best troops in his empire.
He led it from Babylon across the Tigris, and marching northward along
the eastern bank of that river, reached the plains of northern Assyria,
which afforded ample space for the evolutions of his numerous cavalry.
Here he encamped on a wide plain between the Tigris and the mountains of
Kurdistan, near a village called Gaugamela.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.—SEAL OF DARIUS.]

Alexander, having remained at Tyre until his preparations were completed,
started from that city after midsummer in the year 331 B.C. On crossing
the Euphrates at the fords of Thapsakos, he learned where Darius was, and
at once accelerated his march to find him. He passed the Tigris, which
had been left unguarded, and advancing southward for a few days, came
in sight of the Persian host, which he found already drawn up in line
prepared for action. It is said that Parmeniôn, alarmed by the immense
array of the hostile ranks, came at a late hour to the king’s tent and
proposed a night attack, and that Alexander’s answer was that it would
be a base thing to steal a victory. His forces amounted only to 40,000
infantry and 7000 horse, yet he was so confident of success that on the
morning of the decisive day his sleep was deeper and longer than usual.

In its main features, the battle that followed was but a repetition of
the day of Issos. Alexander again commanded the right wing and Parmeniôn
the left. Again Darius posted himself in the centre of his line, and
again the Greek mercenaries confronted the Macedonian phalanx. Again
Alexander, at the head of the Companion cavalry, made havoc of the troops
which guarded the royal standard; and again Darius, terror-struck at his
near approach, ignominiously fled from the field. His flight gave once
more the signal of defeat, and that too, as at Issos, just at the time
when his cavalry on the right had made the position of Parmeniôn most
critical.[9] Alexander was recalled from the pursuit of Darius, whom he
was eagerly bent on capturing, by a messenger sent by Parmeniôn pressing
for instant aid. He at once turned back. On his way he met the Persian
and Parthian cavalry and the Indian troops now in full retreat. A combat
close and hot followed. The fugitives were for the most part killed, but
sold their lives dearly. On returning to the field Alexander found that
his left wing was no longer in distress, but putting the enemy to rout,
and he therefore started once more in pursuit of Darius. The fugitive
escaped, however, to Ekbatana, the capital in former days of the Median
kings.

Accounts differ as to the numbers that were killed in this battle. Arrian
says, absurdly enough, that 300,000 of the Persians were slain, and a
greater number taken prisoners. Diodôros reduces the amount to 90,000,
and Curtius to 40,000. The loss again on Alexander’s side is reckoned by
Arrian at 100, by Curtius at 300, and by Diodôros at 500.[10]

Alexander pursued the fugitive troops as far as Arbêla—the place which
has given its name to the battle, though it was sixty miles distant from
the field whereon it was fought. Here he found the baggage of Darius,
and having enriched himself with its spoils, he advanced southward to
Babylon. This great capital, which once gave law to all the nations of
the East, had under the rule of the Achaimenids gradually declined both
in wealth and importance. Its inhabitants, like the Egyptians, detested
their Persian masters, who oppressed them and persecuted their religion.
They issued therefore from their gates in a joyful procession to welcome
the victor and present him with gifts. His first acts on entering the
city were well calculated to make a favourable impression on their minds.
He ordered the temple of Belus to be rebuilt, honoured that deity with
a public sacrifice according to the Chaldaean ritual, and restored to
his priests the immense revenues with which they had been endowed by the
Assyrian kings.[11]

Alexander thus found himself the master of a more spacious empire than
any the world had yet seen. No king or conqueror had ever before stood
on such a giddy pinnacle of power. As he had made his way to this
supreme height before he had yet reached those years or experienced those
vicissitudes of fortune which have a sobering effect on the mind, it is
not surprising that, as in the case of Napoleon, whose genius was at
many points in close touch with his own, and who, at a like early age,
had amazed the world with his deeds of arms, unbounded success tended
to deteriorate his character. He is found henceforth becoming more
arrogant and despotic, more suspicious, and avid of flattery, while less
tolerant of advice or remonstrance, and less capable of controlling the
violence of his passions. The simple style of living in which he had been
brought up seemed no longer to please him, and he began to assume all
the pomp and splendour with which an oriental despot loves to surround
himself,[12] an innovation in his habits which deeply mortified the pride
of the Macedonians. It may be urged in his defence that he may have made
the change less from any real inclination than from the politic motive of
conciliating his new subjects by conforming to their tastes and habits.

Before leaving Babylon he settled the affairs of Assyria and its
dependencies in accordance with a principle on which he generally acted,
committing the civil administration to a native ruler, but leaving the
command of the forces and the collection of the revenue in the hands of
Macedonian officers. He then marched eastward, and in twenty days reached
Sousa, the favourite capital of the Persian kings. Rich as Babylon was,
its treasures were as nothing compared with those which had been here
accumulated. The sums contained in the treasury amounted to 40,000
talents of uncoined gold and silver, and 9000 talents of coined gold,
and there was other booty besides of immense value, including the spoils
which Xerxes had carried off from Greece—the recovery of which gratified
beyond measure the patriotic feelings of the army.

From Sousa Alexander took the road to Persepolis, the ancient capital of
the Persians, a rich and splendid city lying to the south-east of Sousa,
in the beautiful vale of Persis which was fertilised by the streams
descending from Mount Zagros, the Mêdos, and the Araxês.[13] On his
route he passed through the hill-country of the Ouxians, which like that
of the Pisidians, was occupied by warlike and predatory tribes. These
mountaineers were nominally subject to Persia, but they nevertheless
at one of their defiles exacted toll even from the Great King himself
whenever he passed through their country in going between his two
capitals. They beset this defile with the whole of their effective force
to levy the customary tribute from Alexander, who payed them what he
called their dues in the form of a crushing defeat.[14] He then plundered
their villages, and, having received their submission, pressed forward by
way of the formidable pass called the Persian Gates.[15] Here the satrap
Ariobarzanes, at the head of more than 40,000 men, tried but in vain to
arrest his progress. Alexander, with his usual skill and courage forced
the position, and meeting with no further resistance reached Persepolis,
where no defence was attempted. He not only permitted his soldiers to
plunder this ancient capital, but, if we may believe the story, with
which Dryden’s Ode has made us familiar, set fire with his own hands in a
drunken revel to the royal palace, a structure of supreme magnificence,
as its ruins, which are still to be seen, attest. It is more probable,
however, that he burned it from motives of policy, partly to show the
Persians how absolutely he was now their master, and partly to avenge
Greece for the destruction of her temples by Xerxes. In the royal
treasury he found the vast sum of 120,000 talents, which falls little
short of thirty million pounds of our money. As it was now mid-winter
he here gave his army some respite from their toils. He gave himself,
however, no rest, but led a detachment to Pasargadai, the primitive seat
of the Achaimenids, which contained an august monument, the tomb of
Cyrus, which still exists, and a rich treasury which he plundered.[16] He
next assailed the Mardians, and marching over ice and snow, reduced their
mountain fastnesses and compelled their submission.

In the spring of 330 B.C. he resumed the pursuit of Darius, who was
still at Ekbatana making vain efforts to raise another army. The fallen
monarch, on hearing that the enemy was again moving against him and had
reached Media, fled eastward hoping to find protection and safety in
the far remote province of Baktria, of which his kinsman Bessos was the
satrap. The capital which he had left was the summer residence of the
Persian kings, and was noted for the enormous strength of its citadel.
Alexander therefore ordered Parmeniôn to transport thither, as to a place
of peculiar security, the treasures which had been seized at the other
capitals, and to confide their custody to a strong guard of Macedonian
soldiers.[17] This done, he set out with a light detachment of troops
in the hope of overtaking the fugitive king before he passed through
the Kaspian Gates. At Rhagai, which was a day’s rapid march from that
pass, he learned that Darius had escaped beyond it, and he therefore
halted for five days to recruit his troops. On renewing the pursuit and
reaching the open country beyond the gates, he learned that the Persian
officers who were escorting their sovereign had conspired against him
and deprived him of his liberty. Greatly fearing now lest the traitors
had some deadlier purpose in view, he made incredible exertions to
overtake them, and he came up with them on the fourth day—but all too
late. The conspirators, among whom was Bessos, finding that the pursuit
was gaining upon them, mortally wounded the hapless king, who breathed
his last before Alexander reached him. “Such,” says Arrian, “was the end
of Darius, who as a warrior was singularly remiss and injudicious. In
other respects his character is blameless, either because he was just
by nature, or because he had no opportunity of displaying the contrary,
as his accession and the Macedonian invasion were simultaneous. It was
not in his power, therefore, to oppress his subjects, as his danger was
greater than theirs. His reign was one unbroken series of disasters,
and he was at last treacherously assassinated by his most intimate
connections. At his death he was about fifty years old.” Alexander sent
his body into Persia with orders that it should be buried with all due
honours in the royal sepulchre. Bessos escaped into his own satrapy
where he assumed the upright tiara, the distinguishing emblem of Persian
royalty, and took the name of Artaxerxes.

Alexander now halted at Hekatompylos,[18] a place which received this
Greek name from its being the centre where many roads met, and which
became in after times the capital of the Parthian kings. Being joined
here by the rest of his army, he prepared to invade Hyrkania, from which
he was separated by the chain of mountains now called the Elburz. As
the passes were beset by robber-tribes, he divided his army into three
bodies. The most numerous division crossed the mountains under his
own command by the shortest and most difficult roads. Krateros made a
circuit to the left through the country of the Tapeirians (Taburistan),
while the third division under Erigyios took the royal road which led
westward from Hekatompylos to Zadrakarta.[19] The divisions on emerging
from the defiles united, and encamped near the last named place, which
was the Hyrkanian capital. Hither came to Alexander with three of his
sons the aged Artabazos, accompanied by the Tapeirian satrap and by
deputies from the Greek mercenaries of Darius. Artabazos was received
with distinguished honour, both because of his high rank and the fidelity
he had shown to Darius, whom he had accompanied in his flight. The satrap
was confirmed in his government, but the deputies were sternly told
that as the mercenaries had violated the duty which they owed to their
country, they must submit themselves unreservedly to the judgment of
the king. Alexander then attacked the Mardians who inhabited the lofty
mountains to the north-west of the Kaspian Gates. They submitted after a
slight resistance, and were ordered to obey the Tapeirian satrap.

Alexander’s next object was to crush Bessos and possess himself of all
the eastern provinces as far as the borders of India. He therefore
marched eastward towards Baktria, and having traversed the northern part
of Parthia, reached Sousia, a city of Areia (now Sous, near Meshed, the
present capital of Khorasan). Satibarzanes, the satrap of that province,
and one of the conspirators against Darius, met him here, and having
tendered his submission, was confirmed in his government, and dismissed
with an escort of Macedonian horsemen to his capital, Artakoana.
Alexander then resumed his march towards Baktria, but was arrested on the
way by receiving word that Satibarzanes had revolted in favour of Bessos,
armed the Areians, and slain his Macedonian escort. He therefore at once
altered his route, and by the promptitude of his appearance confounded
the plans of the satrap, who fled and was deserted by most of his troops.
Artakoana was captured by Krateros after a short siege. This city stood
in a plain of exceptional fertility at a point where all the roads
from the north to the south, and from the west to the east, united,
and Alexander, discerning the incomparable advantages of its position,
whether for war or commerce, founded in its neighbourhood a new city
in which he planted a Macedonian colony. He called it Alexandreia, and
as it still exists as Herat, it will be seen how well grounded was its
founder’s belief in the strategetical and commercial importance of its
site.

Alexander, after suppressing this revolt, instead of resuming his march
to Baktria, moved forward to Prophthasia (now Furrah), the capital of
Drangiana (Seistan), of which Barsaentes, another of the accomplices in
the murder of Darius, was satrap. This traitor was seized and executed.
Here an event occurred which has left a dark stain on the character
of Alexander. He was led to suspect that a conspiracy had been formed
against his life by some of his principal officers, and among others by
the son of Parmeniôn, Philôtas, who held the most coveted post in the
army, that of commander of the Companion Cavalry. It is certain that he
was not an accomplice in the plot; but as he had been informed of its
existence, and failed to give the king any warning of his danger, he was
accused before the Macedonian army and condemned to death. He confessed
under torture that his father, Parmeniôn, had formed a design against
the king’s life, and that he had himself joined the recent plot, lest
his father, who was now an old man, might, before the plot was ripe, be
snatched away by death from his command at Ekbatana, which placed the
vast treasures deposited there at his disposal. This confession, wrung
by torture when its agonies became insupportable, and obviously framed
to meet the wishes of the questioners, was no proof of the guilt either
of the father or the son. Parmeniôn was, nevertheless, on this worthless
evidence condemned to death, and Alexander, whom he had so faithfully
served, took care that the sentence should be executed before the news
of his son’s death, which he might seek to avenge, could reach his ears.
Many other Macedonians were also at this time tried and put to death.
Alexander’s confidence in his friends was thus much shaken; and instead
of entrusting as formerly the command of the Companion Cavalry to one
individual, he divided that body into two regiments, giving the command
of one to Kleitos, and of the other to Hêphaistiôn.

From Prophthasia he proceeded southwards into the fertile plains along
the Etymander (R. Helmund), then inhabited by a peaceful tribe called the
Ariaspians, who had received from Cyrus the title of _Euergetai_—that is,
benefactors, because they had assisted him at a time when he had been
reduced to great straits. Alexander spent two months in their dominions,
probably awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Ekbatana. During
this interval Dêmetrios, a member of the king’s bodyguard, was arrested
on suspicion of his having been implicated with Philôtas in the recent
plot, and his office was bestowed on Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, for
whom this promotion opened the way to a royal destiny. Alexander before
resuming his march appointed a governor over the Euergetai, but rewarded
their hospitality by augmenting their territory and confirming them in
the enjoyment of their political privileges.

He left this country about mid-winter, and ascending the valley of the
Etymander penetrated into Arachosia, a province which stretched eastward
to the Indus. As he advanced northward by Kandahar the snow lay deep
on the ground, and the soldiers suffered severely both from hunger and
cold. About this time he heard that the Areians had again revolted at the
instigation of Satibarzanes, who had entered their province at the head
of 2000 horse, and he immediately sent a detachment under Erigyios to
quell the insurgents. Continuing meanwhile his own advance, he arrived
at the foot of the colossal mountain-barrier, the chain of Paropanisos,
which separates Kabul from Baktria. Here in a commanding position,
near the village of Charikar, which stands in the rich and beautiful
valley of Koh-Daman, he founded yet another Alexandreia (called by way
of distinction Alexandreia of the Paropamisadai, or Alexandria apud
Caucasum), and planted it with Macedonian colonists. According to Strabo
he wintered in this neighbourhood, but Arrian leads us to suppose that he
departed as soon as he had founded the city. He crossed the mountains,
as some think, by the Bamiân Pass, the most western of the four routes
which give access from the Koh-Daman to the regions of the Upper Oxus.
It is likelier, however, that he ascended by the more direct route along
the course of the Panjshir river. The army again suffered on the way from
the severity of the cold, and still more from the scarcity of provisions.
According to Aristoboulos nothing grew on these hills but terebinth
trees and the herb called silphium, on which the flocks and herds of the
mountaineers pastured. This march, which terminated at Adrapsa, occupied
fifteen days.

The Macedonians had now reached a fertile country; but as Bessos had
ordered it to be ravaged, they found a wide barrier of desolation opposed
to their further advance. The barrier was interposed in vain. Alexander
resolutely pressed forward, and Bessos and his associates fled at his
approach, and, crossing the Oxus, retired into Sogdiana. Aornos and
Baktra, the two principal cities of the Baktrian satrapy, surrendered
without resistance, and the satrapy itself was soon afterwards reduced.
At Baktra Erigyios, who had succeeded in quelling the Areian revolt,
rejoined the army. Alexander having appointed Artabazos satrap of his
new conquest, marched to the Oxus in pursuit of Bessos, and came upon
that river at the point where Kijil now stands. There it was about
three-quarters of a mile in breadth, and the current was found to be
both deep and rapid. The passage, which occupied five days, was made on
floats, supported by skins stuffed with straw, and rendered watertight.
The army had no sooner gained the right bank than messengers arrived
from two of the leading adherents of Bessos—Spitamenes, the satrap of
Sogdiana, and Dataphernes—promising to surrender Bessos, who was already
their prisoner, if Alexander would send a small force to their support.
The king assented, and sent Ptolemy forward to receive the traitor from
their hands. They gave him up, and he was conducted with a rope round his
neck into the presence of the king, who ordered him to be scourged and
then conveyed to Zariaspa (which some identify with Baktra), there to
await his final doom.

The army next marched forward to Marakanda, now Samarkand, then merely
the capital of the Sogdian satrapy, but destined to be in aftertimes
the capital of the vast empire founded by Timour. It stood in the
valley of the Polytimêtos (R. Kohik), a region of such exuberant
fertility and beauty that it figures in Persian poetry as one of the
four paradises of the world. Alexander remained for some time in this
pleasant neighbourhood to remount his cavalry and otherwise recruit
his forces. He then advanced to the river Jaxartes, which formed the
boundary between the Persian empire and the barbarous Skythian tribes,
and which the Greeks confounded with the Tanais or Don. The country
was protected against the inroads of these warlike tribes by a line of
fortified towns, of which the largest and strongest, Cyropolis, had
been founded, as its name imports, by Cyrus. Alexander captured all
these fortresses and manned them with small Macedonian garrisons; and to
curb the Skythians still more effectually, founded on the banks of the
Jaxartes, near where Khojent now stands, still another Alexandreia, which
the Greeks for distinction’s sake called _Eschatê_, or “the Extreme.” In
the midst of this undertaking, he was interrupted by the sudden outbreak
of a widespread rebellion instigated by Spitamenes and his confederates.
Taking immediate and energetic steps for its suppression, he in a few
days recovered the seven towns; and then crossing the Jaxartes, defeated
the Skythians, who with a view to aid the insurgents had mustered in
great force on its right bank. After this victory he received tidings of
the first serious disaster that had befallen his arms. He had sent a
large force to operate against Spitamenes, who was at the time besieging
the Macedonian garrison which held Marakanda. On learning that this
force was approaching, the rebel chief retired down the Polytimêtos to
Bokhara, and thence to the vast desert which stretches from Sogd to the
Sea of Aral. Here he was joined by a large body of Skythian horsemen, and
thus reinforced turned upon his pursuers, drove them back from the edge
of the desert, which they had just entered, into the valley whence they
had emerged, and there, amid the woody ravines of the Polytimetos, cut
them to pieces almost to a man. Encouraged by this success, he returned
to Marakanda and renewed the siege of its citadel, but on learning that
Alexander was rapidly returning from the Jaxartes, he retraced his steps
towards the desert, and reached it before the enemy overtook him. The
course of the pursuit led Alexander to the scene of the late disaster.
His first care was to bury the slain, and he then avenged their death by
ravaging with fire and sword, in all its length and breadth, the lovely
valley of the Polytimetos. He showed no mercy, but slaughtered all who
fell into his hands, soldier and citizen alike. This is certainly, as
Thirlwall remarks, one of the acts of his life for which it is most
difficult to find an excuse.

As the year (329 B.C.) was now drawing to a close, he recrossed the Oxus
and returned to Zariaspa (Baktra?), where he spent the winter. Sentence
was here pronounced upon Bessos, who was mutilated and then sent to
Ekbatana for execution. Alexander’s European forces, as the narrative
has shown, were constantly undergoing diminution, not only by losses
in the field, but also by his leaving Macedonian veterans to garrison
important strongholds, or to form the nucleus of the population of the
cities he founded. He therefore from time to time sent requisitions
for recruits to Macedonia and Greece, and as these were adequately met
the fighting quality of his troops was always maintained at the same
high level. During his stay at Baktra a great number of such recruits
arrived, and filled up the large gap which the late disaster had made
in his ranks. There came thither also ambassadors from the King of the
Skythians, bringing presents and the offer of a marriage alliance, which
was declined. The King of the Khorasmians, moreover, whose dominions,
according to his own account, bordered on the land of the Kolchians and
the Amazons, came in person and offered his services to Alexander should
he wish to subdue the nations to the north and west of the Kaspian Sea.
Alexander, however, being now anxious to enter India, declined his offers
for the present.

The accounts of his next two campaigns are confused, and not always
mutually consistent. According to Curtius, when he moved from Zariaspa,
he crossed the river Ochos (now the Aksou), and came to a city called
Marginia, probably the _Marginan_ of our times. Arrian, however, makes
no mention of this expedition. The Baktrians were still imperfectly
subjugated, and the Sogdians, notwithstanding the severe chastisement
they had received, were again up in arms against his authority. He
therefore left Krateros to deal with the former, while he marched in
person against Marakanda. On his way thither he performed another of
his marvellous achievements, the capture of a fortress perched on the
summit of a steep, lofty, and strongly fortified rock, held by a powerful
garrison, and deemed to be impregnable. He captured it, nevertheless.
Within this stronghold Oxyartes, a Baktrian chief, had for safety
deposited his wife and daughters. Roxana, the eldest daughter, was, next
to the wife of Darius, the most beautiful of all Asiatic women, and
Alexander was so captivated with her charms that he did not hesitate to
make her his wife.

Spitamenes, meanwhile, assisted by the Massagetai, one of the Skythian
tribes that ranged over the Khorasmian desert, made a devastating
irruption into Baktria, and though he was in the end repulsed by
Krateros, escaped into the desert beyond the reach of pursuit. Fearing
he might renew his attack in some other quarter, Alexander hastened to
Marakanda to settle the province and provide for its security against
future hostile incursions. To this end he directed a number of new towns
to be founded and planted with Macedonian, Greek, and native colonists.
In the course of this expedition he came to the Royal Park at Bazaria
(perhaps Bokhara), and while hunting within its precincts killed a lion
of extraordinary size with his own hand.

On his return to Marakanda a tragic incident occurred—his murder of
Kleitos, from whom he had received some provocation in the course of
a drunken revel. As he was tenderly attached to Kleitos, who was the
brother of his nurse, and had saved his life at the Granîkos, his remorse
for this frenzied deed knew no bounds at the time, and gave him many
bitter moments in his after life.

His next expedition led him towards the western frontier of the province,
where he reduced the district called Xenippa, which lay on the skirts
of the Noura mountains—a range that runs from east to west about ten
miles north of Bokhara. As Spitamenes was supposed to be in the desert
not far off, he left Koinos in that part of the country with orders to
capture that audacious rebel, while he himself withdrew to Nautaka,
where he intended to pass the winter. This place was situated in a
fertile oasis between Samarkand and the Oxus, and must have occupied the
site of Kurshee or Kesh, noted afterwards as the birthplace of Timour.
Spitamenes, meanwhile, attacked Koinos, but was defeated after a severe
struggle, and driven back into the desert. His Skythian confederates,
fearing their own country might be invaded, cut off his head and sent
it to Alexander; and so perished the most active, bold, and persevering
antagonist that he had as yet encountered in Asia, one of the few who
resolutely and to the last scorned to bend his neck to a foreign yoke.

With the first return of spring (B.C. 327) he moved from his winter
quarters to invade the Paraitakai, who, as their name indicates,
inhabited a mountainous district, and were, some think, a branch of
the widespread Takka tribe, the name of which appears in Taxila, which
designated a great capital it possessed in India. In the country of
the Paraitakai, which lay to the east of Baktria and Sogdiana, there
was another great rock fortress, which, like the Sogdian, was deemed
impregnable. It was the main stronghold of a chief called Khorienês,
who, after holding out for some time, was persuaded by Oxyartes to cast
himself on the generosity of the great conqueror, a quality of which
he had himself a very satisfactory experience. Khoriênes therefore
surrendered, and was rewarded by being confirmed in his government.
Alexander after this success proceeded to Baktra in order to make
preparation for his expedition into India, but left Krateros to reduce
such of the tribes as still held out for independence. At Baktra
another tragedy was enacted. The court pages, at the instigation of
one of their number, called Hermolaos, who had been subjected to some
degrading punishment, conspired against the king, who narrowly escaped
assassination. The pages, who all belonged to families of high rank, were
tortured to extract confessions of their guilt, and were then stoned
to death by the Macedonians. The confessions indicated, it is said,
that Kallisthenes, a literary man attached to the court who had been
permitted, on the recommendation of his kinsman Aristotle, to accompany
the expedition, not only knew of the existence of the plot, but had
encouraged the pages to persist in their design. He had rendered himself
obnoxious to the king by the freedom with which he expressed his opinions
and by his opposition to the Persian fashions introduced into the court,
and his doom was sealed. Accounts differ as to the time and mode of his
death. According to Ptolemy he was tortured and then crucified, but
Aristoboulos and Chares agree in stating that he was carried about in
chains and died at last of disease in India.

The summer had set in when Alexander set out from Baktra on his Indian
expedition. He crossed the chain of Paropamisos in ten days, and halted
at the Alexandreia which he had founded at their base to settle the
affairs of that city and the surrounding district. The narrative of his
campaigns, from the time he left this place till he led his army into
Karmania, after its disastrous march through the burning sands of the
Gedrosian desert, is given in full detail in the translations which form
the body of this work. His march, which on his emerging from the desert
lay through the beautiful and fertile province of Karmania, resembled a
festive procession, and the licence in which he permitted his soldiers
to indulge was meant no less to obliterate the memory of their terrible
sufferings in the desert than to celebrate according to Bacchic fashion
and example the conquest of India.

In Karmania, Alexander received intelligence that Philip, who had been
left in command of all the country west of the Indus had been slain
in a mutiny by the Greek mercenaries under his command, but that the
Macedonian troops had quelled the mutiny and put the assassins to death.
He did not at the time appoint any successor to Philip, but empowered
Eudêmos and Taxiles to take temporary charge of the affairs of the
satrapy. Before he left Karmania he was rejoined by Krateros who brought
in safety the division of the army which he had led from the Indus by way
of Arachôsia, Drangiana, and the Karmanian desert. Nearchos also visited
his camp, which at the time was a five days’ journey distant from the
sea, and communicated the welcome news that the fleet had arrived in
safety at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The admiral was instructed to
continue the voyage by sailing up the Gulf to the mouth of the Tigris,
while Hephaistiôn was put in command of the main army with orders to
proceed to Sousa along the maritime parts of Persis and Sousiana. The
king himself with a small division took the upper road which led to that
capital through Pasargadai and Persepolis. In Persis things had not gone
well in his absence. The satrap whom he had appointed was dead, and his
office had been usurped by Orxines, a Persian of great wealth and high
rank, against whom many acts of violence and oppression were charged.
He found also that the tomb of Cyrus had been desecrated and plundered,
and this outrage excited his violent indignation, since he looked upon
that conqueror as the founder of the vast empire which was now his own.
He could not discover the perpetrators, but had to content himself with
ordering the violated sepulchre to be properly restored. On reaching
Persepolis he investigated the charges against Orxines, and finding them
proved, put him to death, and gave his satrapy to Peukestas, one of the
commanders of his bodyguard.

In Persis the health of Kalanos, the Indian gymnosophist, who, at
Alexander’s request, had abjured the ascetic life and followed him
from India, began to fail, and, as he chose rather to die than suffer
the infirmities of age, he announced that it was his intention to
burn himself. The king attempted to dissuade him, but finding that he
was inexorably bent on self-destruction, ordered a funeral pyre to be
prepared for him, and all the arrangements connected with his cremation
to be superintended by Ptolemy. On the day appointed the devotee ascended
the pyre and perished in its flames, exhibiting throughout a serene
fortitude and self-possession which greatly astonished the Macedonians
who attended in throngs to witness this strange spectacle. Strabo makes
Pasargadai to be the scene of this incident, but Diodôros, Sousa, and
with more probability, since we know that Nearchos was an eye-witness of
the burning.

Alexander reached Sousa in the beginning of the year 324 B.C., and
remained there for a considerable time, regulating the affairs of his new
dominions. One of his great objects was to fuse together as far as was
practicable his European with his Asiatic subjects; and to this end he
assigned to some eighty of his generals Asiatic wives, giving with each
an ample dowry. He took himself a second wife, Barsinê, called sometimes
Stateira, the eldest daughter of Darius, and, it is said, also a third,
Parysatis, the daughter of Ochos, one of the predecessors of Darius.
About 10,000 Macedonians followed the example of their superiors, and
all who did so received presents from their royal master. Carrying out
this object in another form, he enrolled a large number of Asiatics
among his European troops. These new schemes were so bitterly resented
by the better class of his Macedonian veterans that they rose against
him in a mutiny which he had no little difficulty in quelling. About
10,000 of these veterans were dismissed, and they returned to Europe
under the command of Krateros. Towards the close of the year he went
to Ekbatana, and there he lost his chief favourite Hêphaistiôn, who
succumbed to an attack of fever. His grief at this bereavement knew no
bounds, and showed itself in acts which seem copied from those wherewith
Achilles demonstrated his passionate sense of the loss of his beloved
Patroklos. From Ekbatana he marched back towards Babylon, and was met
on the way by ambassadors from all parts of the known world, who came
to do homage to the greatest of all kings and conquerors, and also by
a deputation of Chaldaean priests who warned him of danger if at that
time he should enter Babylon. He entered it nevertheless, though with
gloomy forebodings, early in the spring of 323 B.C. As this city was the
best point of communication between the eastern and western parts of his
dominions, he had selected it to be the capital of his vast empire, and
accordingly took measures immediately on his return for the improvement
of its internal condition, for the drainage of the swampy lands in its
neighbourhood which rendered its climate unhealthy, and also for removing
obstacles to the safe and easy navigation of the great river by which it
communicated with the sea.

His ambition being still, however, unsated, he meditated fresh conquests,
which, if effected, would have made him master of the world from the
shores of the Atlantic to the Eastern Ocean. But his end was now drawing
near. The climate of Babylon was malarious, and as his spirits were
depressed both by his loss of Hêphaistiôn and by superstitious fears, he
was less able to withstand its malignant influences. He caught a fever,
and having aggravated its virulence by indulging in convivial excesses,
was cut off in June 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-three, and after he
had reigned for nearly thirteen years. “So passed from the earth,” says
Bishop Thirlwall, “one of the greatest of her sons: great above most
for what he was in himself, and not, as many who have borne the title,
for what was given him to effect. Great, not merely in the vast compass
and the persevering ardour of his ambition ... but in the course which
his ambition took, in the collateral aims which ennobled and purified
it, so that it almost grew into one with the highest of which man is
capable, the desire of knowledge and the love of good. In a word, great
as one of the benefactors of his kind.... It may be truly asserted that
his was the first of the great monarchies founded in Asia that opened a
prospect of progressive improvement, and not of continual degradation, to
its subjects: it was the first that contained any element of moral and
intellectual progress.” This estimate, high as it is, appears to be just
and sober, and to hold a due balance between the extravagant eulogiums
and the damnatory criticisms of other writers such as Mitford, Williams,
and Droysen on the one hand, and Niebuhr, Sainte-Croix, and Grote on the
other, who all alike allowed their ethical and political proclivities to
bias their judgment.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.—ALEXANDER THE GREAT.]

Alexander was dignified both in his appearance and in his demeanour.
He was not above the ordinary height, but his frame was well built and
extremely muscular. “He was very handsome in person,” says Arrian,
“devoted to exertion, of an active mind and a most heroic courage,
tenacious of honour, ever ready to meet dangers, indifferent to the
pleasures of the body, and strictly observant of his religious duties.”
Plutarch tells us that the statues of Alexander which most resembled
him were those of Lysippos, who alone had his permission to represent
him in marble, and who best hit off the turn of his head, which leaned a
little to one side.[20] He adds that he was of a fair complexion, with
a tinge of red in his face and upon his breast, and that his breath and
whole person were so fragrant that they perfumed his under garments. In
another passage, describing Alexander’s habits, the same author says that
he was very temperate in eating, and that he was not so much addicted
to wine as he was thought to be. What gave rise to this opinion was his
practice of spending a great deal of time at table. The time, however,
was passed rather in talking than drinking, every cup introducing some
long discussion. Besides, he never sat long at table except when he had
abundance of leisure. There was always a magnificence at his table, and
the expense rose with his fortune till it came to the fixed sum of 10,000
drachms for each entertainment. As in his dying moments he had given
orders that his body should be conveyed to Ammôn in the Libyan oasis,
it was embalmed, and after more than two years had been spent in making
preparations for its removal, it was conveyed with vast pomp in a car of
wondrous magnificence to Egypt, where it was entombed first at Memphis,
and afterwards, by the authority of Ptolemy,[21] at Alexandreia, the
greatest of all the cities which he had founded and called after his name.

Alexander was so prematurely cut off, and was besides so much occupied
before his death with organising fresh expeditions, both maritime and
military, that he had no time to improve or complete the measures which
he had initiated for promoting the fusion and securing the permanent
unification of the multifarious races comprised in his empire. Had he
been vouchsafed a longer term of life, it seems probable that he would
have succeeded in welding so firmly together all the parts of his
dominions that centuries might have elapsed before they became again
disintegrated; but the dissensions which speedily broke out between his
great captains, originating in their ambition to rule with independent
authority, shattered his empire and embroiled it in wars which lasted for
nearly half a century.

Soon after his death Perdikkas, to whom in his last moments he had given
his signet-ring, was appointed to conduct the government on behalf of
the royal family, which was held to consist of Arrhidaios, the king’s
half-brother, a man of weak intellect and character, and Queen Roxana,
who a few months after her husband’s death gave birth to a son who
received the name of Alexander Aigos. The satrapies were then divided
among the leading generals. Perdikkas soon began to use his position
for the furtherance of his own selfish designs, and having secured the
support of Eumenês, attempted to crush his colleagues and assume all
power to himself. He marched first into Egypt against Ptolemy, but on
the banks of the Nile he was defeated and slain in a mutiny of his own
men 321 B.C. Tidings soon afterwards reached the army that Krateros had
been defeated and slain in fighting against Eumenês while marching to
assist Ptolemy. The office of regent was upon this offered to Ptolemy,
who declined its acceptance, as he held that the satrapies should become
independent kingdoms. The army then conferred that office, along with the
tutelage of the royal family, on Antipater of Macedonia, who had crossed
over into Asia to oppose Perdikkas. A new partition of the provinces,
which did not differ much from the former, was then made at a place in
Upper Syria called Triparadeisos. Under this arrangement Ptolemy held
Egypt; Lysimachos, Thrace; Antigonos, Phrygia or Central Asia Minor;
Seleukos, Babylon; Antigenes, Sousiana; Peukestas, Persia; Peithôn,
son of Krateros, Media; Nearchos, Pamphylia and Lycia; Arrhidaios,
Hellespontine Phrygia; Antipater and Polysperchon, Macedonia and
Greece. Eumenês still held the satrapy at first assigned to him—that
of Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and Pontos—and was now the leader of those
who had been the adherents of Perdikkas. He was supported by Alketas,
the brother of Perdikkas, Peukestas, Attalos, Antigenes, and by the
influence of Olympias, the mother of Alexander. Besides Perdikkas and
Krateros, two other great generals had by this time disappeared from the
scene—Meleager, who had been cut off by Perdikkas, and Leonnatos, who had
been slain in the Lamian war.

Antigonos was appointed by Antipater to conduct the war against Eumenês,
and after many fluctuations of fortune at last captured him and put
him to death. This happened early in the year 316 B.C. The fortunes of
Alexander’s empire were then left at the disposal of five men—Antigonos,
Lysimachos, Ptolemy, Seleukos, and Kassander, the son of Antipater, who
had died in the year 319 B.C. The ambition and ever-increasing power of
Antigonos soon led his colleagues to form a coalition against him, and
a long series of hostilities followed. In the end Antigonos and his son
Dêmêtrios, surnamed Poliorkêtês, were defeated by the confederates in
the battle of Ipsos in 301 B.C. Antigonos fell on the field of battle,
and the greater part of his dominions fell to the share of Seleukos,
whose cavalry and elephants had been chiefly instrumental in winning the
victory. He received as his reward a great part of Asia Minor as well
as the whole of Syria from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. Ptolemy
obtained Phoenicia and Hollow Syria, but these provinces afterwards gave
rise to frequent wars between succeeding kings of Egypt and Syria. A war
in later times broke out between Seleukos and Lysimachos, in which the
latter was slain in 281 B.C. His kingdom of Thrace was afterwards merged
in that of Macedonia. Thus the empire of Alexander, after a period of
incessant wars continued for upwards of forty years, was divided between
the powerful monarchs of Macedonia, Egypt, and Syria.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.—DIODOTOS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.—ANTIOCHOS THE GREAT.]

The successors of Seleukos were unable to retain hold of their remote
eastern dependencies. About the middle of the third century B.C.
Theodotos or Diodotos, the governor of Baktra, revolted from his grandson
Antiochos II. and made Baktra an independent kingdom. Not long afterwards
Aśôka, the grandson of Chandragupta, as we learn from one of his own
inscriptions,[22] sent missionaries to the kings of the West to proclaim
to them and to their subjects the doctrines of Buddhism. The kings named
in the inscription are Antiyoka (Antiochos II., king of Syria), Turamaya
(Ptolemy III., Euergetes, king of Egypt), Antigona (Antigonas Gonatas,
king of Macedonia), Maga (Magas, king of Kyrênê). About the year 212 B.C.
Antiochos III., surnamed the Great, marched eastward to recover Parthia
and Baktria which had both revolted from the second Antiochos. He was,
however, unable, even after a war which lasted for some years, to effect
the subjugation of these kingdoms, and accordingly concluded a treaty
with them in which he recognised their independence. With the assistance
of the Baktrian sovereign Euthydêmos, who founded the greatness of the
Baktrian monarchy, he made an expedition into India, where he renewed
the alliance with that country which had been formed in the days of
Sandrokottos. From Sophagasenos,[23] the chief of the Indian kings, he
obtained a large supply of elephants, and then returned to Syria by the
route through Arachôsia in the year 205 B.C.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.—EUTHYDÊMOS.]

[Illustration: ALEXANDER’S ROUTE IN THE PANJAB

John Bartholomew & Co., Edinʳ.

_NOTE:—Lines of Route shewn thus_ ——]




ARRIAN




ARRIAN’S ANABASIS


FOURTH BOOK


_Chapter XXII.—Alexander crosses the Indian Kaukasos to invade India and
advances to the river Kôphên_

After capturing the Rock of Choriênês, Alexander went himself to Baktra,
but despatched Krateros with 600 of the Companion Cavalry[24] and a force
of infantry, consisting of his own brigade with that of Polysperchôn
and Attalos and that of Alketas, against Katanês and Austanês the only
chiefs now left in the country of the Paraitakênai[25] who still held
out against him. In the battle which ensued Krateros after a severe
struggle proved victorious. Katanês fell in the action, while Austanês
was made prisoner and brought to Alexander. Of the barbarians who had
followed them to the field, there were slain 120 horsemen and about 1500
foot. Krateros after the victory led his troops also to Baktra. While
Alexander was here the tragic incident in his history, the affair of
Kallisthenês and the pages, occurred.

When spring was now past,[26] he led his army from Baktra to invade the
Indians, leaving Amyntas in the land of the Baktrians with 3500 horse
and 10,000 foot. In ten days he crossed the Kaukasos[27] and arrived
at the city of Alexandreia[28] which he had founded in the land of the
Parapamisadai[29] when he first marched to Baktra. The ruler whom he had
then set over the city he dismissed from his office because he thought
he had not discharged its duties well. He recruited the population of
Alexandreia with fresh settlers from the surrounding district, and also
with such of his soldiers as were unfit for further service.[30] He then
ordered Nikanor, one of the Companions, to take charge of the city itself
and regulate its affairs, but he appointed Tyriaspes satrap of the land
of the Parapamisadai and the rest of the country as far as the river
Kôphên.[31] Having reached the city of Nikaia[32] and sacrificed to the
goddess Athêna, he despatched a herald to Taxilês[33] and the chiefs
on this side of the river Indus, directing them to meet him where it
was most convenient for each. Taxilês accordingly and the other chiefs
did meet him and brought him such presents as are most esteemed by the
Indians. They offered also to give him the elephants which they had with
them amounting in number to five-and-twenty.

Having here divided his army, he despatched Hêphaistiôn and Perdikkas
with the brigades of Gorgias, Kleitos,[34] and Meleager, half of the
companion cavalry, and the whole of the mercenary cavalry, to the land
of Peukelaôtis[35] and the river Indus.[36] He ordered them either to
seize by force whatever places lay on their route or to accept their
submission if they capitulated, and when they came to the Indus to make
whatever preparations were necessary for the transport of the army
across that river. They were accompanied on their march by Taxilês and
the other chiefs. On reaching the river Indus they began to carry out
the instructions which they had received from Alexander. One of the
chiefs, however, Astês, a prince of the land of Peukelaôtis, revolted,
but perished in the attempt, besides involving in ruin the city to which
he had fled for refuge, which the troops under Hêphaistiôn captured in
thirty days. Astês himself fell, and Sanggaios,[37] who had some time
before fled from Astês and deserted to Taxilês, a circumstance which
guaranteed his fidelity to Alexander, was appointed governor of the city.


_Chapter XXIII.—Alexander wars against the Aspasians_

Alexander took command in person of the other division of the army,
consisting of the hypaspists,[38] all the companion cavalry except
what was with Hêphaistiôn, the brigades of infantry called the
foot-companions, the archers, the Agrianians, and the horse lancers,
and advanced into the country of the Aspasians and Gouraians and
Assakênians.[39] The route which he followed[40] was hilly and rugged,
and lay along the course of the river called the Khôês,[41] which he had
difficulty in crossing. This done he ordered the mass of the infantry
to follow leisurely, while he rode rapidly forward, taking with him
the whole of his cavalry, besides 800 Macedonian foot soldiers, whom
he mounted on horseback with their infantry shields; for he had been
informed that the barbarians inhabiting those parts had fled for refuge
to their native mountains, and to such of their cities as were strongly
fortified. When he proceeded to attack the first city of this kind that
came in his way, he found men drawn up before it in battle order, and on
these he fell at once, just as he was, put them to rout, and shut them
up within the gates. He was wounded, however, in the shoulder by a dart
which penetrated through his breast-plate, but not severely, for the
breast-plate prevented the weapon from going right through his shoulder.
Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, and Leonnatos were also wounded.

He then encamped near the city on the side where he thought the wall was
weakest. Next day, as soon as there was light, the Macedonians attacked
the outer of the two walls by which the city was encompassed, and as it
was but rudely constructed they captured it without difficulty. At the
inner wall, however, the barbarians made some resistance; but when the
ladders were applied, and the defenders were galled with darts wherever
they turned, they no longer stood their ground, but issued from the city
through the gates and made for the hills. Some of them perished in the
flight, while such as were taken alive were to a man put to death by the
Macedonians, who were enraged against them for having wounded Alexander.
Most of them, however, made good their escape to the mountains, which lay
at no great distance from the city. Alexander razed it to the ground, and
then marched forward to another city called Andaka, which surrendered
on capitulation. When the place had thus fallen into his hands he left
Krateros in these parts, with the other infantry officers, to take
by force whatever other cities refused voluntary submission, and to
settle the affairs of the surrounding district in the best way existing
circumstances would permit, while he himself advanced to the river
Euaspla,[42] where the chief of the Aspasians was.


_Chapter XXIV.—Operations against the Aspasians_

In this expedition Alexander took with him the hypaspists, the archers,
the Agrianians, the brigade of Koinos and Attalos, the cavalry guard,
about four squadrons of the other companion cavalry, and one half of the
mounted archers. After a long march he reached, on the second day, the
city of the Aspasian chief.[43] The barbarians on hearing of his approach
set fire to their city and fled to the mountains. But Alexander’s men
followed close at the heels of the fugitives, as far as the mountains,
and made a great slaughter of the barbarians before they could escape to
rough and difficult ground.

During the pursuit Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, descried the chief of the
Indians of that country standing at the time on a small eminence, with
some of his shield-bearing guards around him, and, although his own
following was much smaller, he nevertheless continued the chase, being
still on horseback. When the ascent, however, became so difficult that
his charger could no longer mount it at a good pace, he left him there,
and handing him over to one of the hypaspists to lead, he proceeded on
foot, just as he was, to come up with the Indian. The latter on seeing
that Ptolemy was now near at hand, turned round to face him, as did also
his shield-bearing guards. The Indian, closing with his adversary, struck
him on the breast with a long spear which pierced his cuirass, but the
cuirass broke all the force of the blow. Ptolemy, on the other hand,
smote the Indian right through the thigh, laid him prone at his feet,
and stripped him of his arms. When his men saw their leader lying dead
they left the place, but the other Indians, when they saw on looking
from the mountains that the dead body of their chief was being carried
off by the enemy, were filled with grief and rage, and rushing down to
the small eminence fought for the recovery of the corpse with the utmost
determination; for by this time Alexander also was on the eminence, and
had brought with him the infantry soldiers, who had now alighted from
their horses. This reinforcement falling upon the Indians succeeded after
a hard struggle in driving them off to the mountains and securing the
possession of the dead body.

Alexander then crossed the mountains, and came to a city at their base,
named Arigaion.[44] He found that the inhabitants had burned the place
and taken to flight. Here Krateros, with his staff and the troops under
his command, rejoined him, after having fully carried out all the orders
given by the king. As the city seemed to occupy a very advantageous
site, he commanded Krateros to fortify it strongly, and people it with
as many natives of the neighbourhood as should consent to make it their
home, together with any soldiers found unfit for further service. He then
marched to a place where, as he had ascertained, most of the barbarians
of that part of the country had taken refuge, and on reaching a certain
mountain encamped at its base.

Meanwhile Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, who had been sent out by Alexander
to procure forage, and had gone with a few followers a considerable
distance in advance to reconnoitre the enemy, came back to Alexander
to report that he had seen more fires where the barbarians were posted
than in Alexander’s camp. Alexander, without believing that the fires
were so numerous, was still convinced that a host of barbarians had
mustered together from the surrounding country, and therefore leaving
a part of his army where it was encamped in proximity to the mountain,
he took with him such a force as the reports led him to think would be
adequate, and when the fires were near in view, he divided it into three
parts. The command of one part he gave to Leonnatos, an officer of the
bodyguard, placing under him the brigade of Attalos, along with that of
Balakros. The command of the second division he gave to Ptolemy, the son
of Lagos. It consisted of a third of the royal hypaspists, together with
the brigade of Philippos and Philôtas, two companies of archers, each
a thousand strong, the Agrianians, and half of the horsemen. The third
division Alexander led in person against the position occupied by the
main body of the barbarians.


_Chapter XXV.—Defeat of the Aspasians—The Assakenians and Gouraians
attacked_

When they saw the Macedonians advancing against them they came down from
the high ground which they had occupied into the plain below, confident
in their numbers, and despising the Macedonians for the smallness of
theirs. A sharp conflict followed, but Alexander without much trouble
gained the victory. Ptolemy did not draw up his men in line upon the
plain, but since the barbarians were posted on a small hill, he formed
his battalions into column, and led them up the hill on the side where
it was most assailable. He did not surround the entire circuit of the
hill, but left an opening for the barbarians by which to escape if they
meant flight. With these men also the conflict was sharp, not only from
the difficult nature of the ground, but also because the Indians were of
a different mettle from the other barbarians there, and were by far the
stoutest warriors in that neighbourhood; but brave as they were they were
driven from the hill by the Macedonians. The men of the third division
under Leonnatos were equally successful, as they also routed those with
whom they engaged. Ptolemy states that the men taken prisoners were in
all above 40,000, and that there were also captured more than 230,000
oxen, from which Alexander chose out the best—those which he thought
superior to the others both for beauty and size—with a view to send them
to Macedonia to be employed in agriculture.

He marched thence to invade the country of the Assakenians, for they
were reported to have under arms and ready for battle an army of 20,000
cavalry and more than 30,000 infantry, besides 30 elephants. Krateros
had now completed the work of fortifying the city which he had been left
to plant with colonists, and rejoined Alexander with the heavy armed
troops and the engines which it might be necessary to employ in besieging
towns. Alexander himself then proceeded to attack the Assakenians,
taking with him the companion cavalry, the horse archers, the brigade of
Koinos and Polysperchon, and the thousand Agrianians and the archers.
He passed through the country of the Gouraians, where he had to cross
the Gouraios,[45] the river named after that country. The passage was
difficult on account of the depth and swiftness of the stream, and also
because the stones at the bottom were so smooth and round that the men on
stepping on them were apt to stumble. When the barbarians saw Alexander
approaching they had not the courage to encounter him in the open field
with their collective forces, but dispersed to their several cities,
which they resolved to defend to the last extremity.


_Chapter XXVI.—Siege of Massaga_

Alexander marched first to attack Massaga,[46] which was the greatest
city in those parts. When he was now approaching the walls, the
barbarians, supported by a body of Indian mercenaries brought from a
distance, and no less than 7000 strong, sallied out with a run against
the Macedonians when they observed them preparing to encamp. Alexander
thus saw that the battle would be fought close to the city, whereas he
wished the enemy to be drawn away to a distance from the walls, so that,
if they were defeated, as he was certain they would be, they might have
less chance of escaping with their lives by a short flight into the city.
Alexander therefore ordered the Macedonians to fall back to a little hill
which was about seven stadia distant from the place where he had meant to
encamp. This gave the enemy fresh courage as they thought the Macedonians
had already given way before them, and so they charged them at a running
pace and without any observance of order. But when once their arrows
began to reach his men, Alexander immediately wheeled round at a signal
agreed on and led the phalanx at a running pace to fall upon them. But
his horse-lancers and the Agrianians and the archers darted forward,
and were the first to come into conflict with the barbarians, while he
was leading the phalanx in regular order into action. The Indians were
confounded by this unexpected attack, and no sooner found themselves
involved in a hand-to-hand encounter than they gave way and fled back to
the city. About 200 of them were killed, and the rest were shut up within
the walls. Alexander brought up the phalanx against the fortifications,
but was wounded in the ankle, though not severely, by an arrow shot from
the battlements. The next day he brought up the military engines, and
without much difficulty battered down a part of the wall. But when the
Macedonians attempted to force their way through the breach which had
been made, the Indians repelled all their attacks with so much spirit
that Alexander was obliged for that day to draw off his forces. On the
morrow the Macedonians renewed their assault with even greater vigour,
and a wooden tower was brought up against the wall from which the archers
shot at the Indians, while missiles were discharged against them from
engines. They were thus driven back to a good distance, but still their
assailants were after all unable to force their way within the walls.

On the third day Alexander led the phalanx once more to the assault, and
causing a bridge to be thrown from an engine over to that part of the
wall which had been battered down, by that gangway he led the hypaspists
over to the breach—the same men who by a similar expedient had enabled
him to capture Tyre. The bridge, however, broke down under the great
throng which was pushing forward with eager haste, and the Macedonians
fell with it. The barbarians on the walls, seeing what had happened,
began amid loud cheering to ply the Macedonians with stones and arrows
and whatever missiles they had ready at hand or could at the moment
snatch up, while others sallying out from posterns in the wall between
the towers, struck them at close quarters before they could extricate
themselves from the confusion caused by the accident.


_Chapter XXVII.—Massaga taken by storm—Ora and Bazira besieged_

Alexander then sent Alketas with his brigade to take up the wounded and
recall to the camp the active combatants. On the fourth day another
gangway on a different engine was despatched by him against the wall.

Now the Indians, as long as the chief of that place was still living,
continued with great vigour to maintain the defence, but when he was
struck by a missile from an engine and was killed by the blow, while
some of themselves had fallen in the uninterrupted siege, and most of
them were wounded and disabled for fighting, they sent a herald to treat
with Alexander. To him it was always a pleasure to save the lives of
brave men, and he came to an agreement with the Indian mercenaries to the
effect that they should change their side and take service in his ranks.
Upon this they left the city, arms in hand, and encamped by themselves on
a small hill which faced the camp of the Macedonians. But as they had no
wish to take up arms against their own countrymen, they resolved to arise
by night and make off with all speed to their homes. When Alexander was
informed of this he surrounded the hill that same night with all his
troops, and having thus intercepted the Indians in the midst of their
flight, cut them to pieces. The city now stripped of its defenders he
took by storm, and captured the mother and daughter of Assakênos.[47]
Alexander lost in the siege from first to last five-and-twenty of his men
in all.

He then despatched Koinos to Bazira,[48] convinced that the inhabitants
would capitulate on learning that Massaga had been captured. He,
moreover, sent Attalos, Alketas, and Dêmêtrios, the captain of cavalry,
to another city, Ora, instructing them to draw a rampart round it, and to
invest it until his own arrival. The inhabitants of this place sallied
out against the troops under Alketas, but the Macedonians had no great
difficulty in routing them, and driving them back within the walls of the
city. As regards Koinos, matters did not go well with him at Bazira, for
as it stood on a very lofty eminence, and was strongly fortified in every
quarter, the people trusted to the strength of their position and made no
proposals about surrendering.

Alexander, on learning this, set out for Bazira, but as he knew that
some of the barbarians of the neighbouring country were going to steal
unobserved into the city of Ora, having been sent by Abisares[49] for
this very purpose, he directed his march first to that city. He then sent
orders to Koinos to fortify some strong position as a basis of operations
against the city of the Bazirians, and to leave in it a sufficient
garrison to prevent the inhabitants from going into the country around
for provisions without fear of danger. He was then to join Alexander with
the remainder of his troops. When the men of Bazira saw Koinos departing
with the bulk of his troops they regarded the Macedonians who remained,
as contemptible antagonists, and sallied out into the plain to attack
them. A sharp conflict ensued in which 500 of the barbarians were slain,
and upwards of 70 taken prisoners. The rest fled together into the city
and were more rigorously than ever debarred all access to the country
by the garrison of the fort. The siege of Ora did not cost Alexander
much labour, for he captured the place at the first assault, and got
possession of all the elephants which had been left therein.


_Chapter XXVIII.—Bazira captured—Alexander marches to the rock Aornos_

When the inhabitants of Bazira heard that Ora had fallen, they regarded
their case as desperate, and at the dead of night fled from their city to
the Rock, as all the other barbarians were doing, for, having left their
cities, they were fleeing to the rock in that land called Aornos;[50]
for this is a mighty mass of rock in that part of the country, and a
report is current concerning it that even Heraklês, the son of Zeus,
had found it to be impregnable. Now whether the Theban, or the Tyrian,
or the Egyptian Heraklês penetrated so far as to the Indians[51] I can
neither positively affirm nor deny, but I incline to think that he did
not penetrate so far; for we know how common it is for men when speaking
of things that are difficult to magnify the difficulty by declaring that
it would baffle even Heraklês himself. And in the case of this rock my
own conviction is that Heraklês was mentioned to make the story of its
capture all the more wonderful. The rock is said to have had a circuit
of about 200 stadia, and at its lowest elevation a height of eleven
stadia.[52] It was ascended by a single path cut by the hand of man, yet
difficult. On the summit of the rock there was, it is also said, plenty
of pure water which gushed out from a copious spring. There was timber
besides, and as much good arable land as required for its cultivation the
labour of a thousand men.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.—THE TYRIAN HERAKLÊS.]

Alexander on learning these particulars was seized with an ardent desire
to capture this mountain also, the story current about Heraklês not being
the least of the incentives. With this in view he made Ora and Massaga
strongholds for bridling the districts around them, and at the same time
strengthened the defences of Bazira. The division under Hêphaistiôn and
Perdikkas fortified for him another city called Orobatis[53] in which
they left a garrison and then marched on to the river Indus. On reaching
it they began preparing a bridge to span the Indus in accordance with
Alexander’s orders.

Alexander now appointed Nikanor, one of the companions, satrap of
the country on this side of the Indus,[54] and then first marched
himself towards that river and received the submission of the city of
Peukelaôtis which lay not far from the Indus. He placed in it a garrison
of Macedonian soldiers under the command of Philippos, and then occupied
himself in reducing other towns—some small ones—situated near the
river Indus.[55] He was accompanied on this occasion by Kôphaios and
Assagetês the local chiefs.[56] On reaching Embolima,[57] a city close
adjoining the rock of Aornos,[58] he there left Krateros with a part of
the army to gather into the city as much corn as possible and all other
requisites for a long stay, that the Macedonians having this place as
the basis of their operations might, during a protracted siege, wear
out the defenders of the rock by famine, should it fail to be captured
at the first assault. He himself then advanced to the rock, taking with
him the archers, the Agrianians, the brigade of Koinos, the lightest and
best-armed men selected from the remainder of the phalanx, 200 of the
companion cavalry, and 100 horse-archers. At the end of the day’s march
he encamped on what he took to be a convenient site. The next day he
advanced a little nearer to the Rock, and again encamped.


_Chapter XXIX.—Siege of Aornos_

Some men thereupon who belonged to the neighbourhood came to him, and
after proffering their submission undertook to guide him to the most
assailable part of the rock, that from which it would not be difficult to
capture the place. With these men he sent Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, a
member of the bodyguard, leading the Agrianians and the other light-armed
troops and the selected hypaspists, and directed him, on securing the
position, to hold it with a strong guard and to signal to him when he
had occupied it. Ptolemy, who followed a route which proved rough and
otherwise difficult to traverse, succeeded in occupying the position
without being perceived by the barbarians.[59] The whole circuit of this
he fortified with a palisade and a trench, and then raised a beacon on
the mountain from which the flame was likely to be seen by Alexander.
Alexander did see it, and next day moved forward with his army, but
as the barbarians obstructed his progress he could do nothing more on
account of the difficult nature of the ground. When the barbarians
perceived that Alexander had found an attack to be impracticable, they
turned round, and in full force fell upon Ptolemy’s men. Between these
and the Macedonians hard fighting ensued, the Indians making strenuous
efforts to destroy the palisade by tearing up the stakes, and Ptolemy
to guard and maintain his position. The barbarians were worsted in the
skirmish and when night began to fall withdrew.

From the Indian deserters Alexander selected one who knew the country
and could otherwise be trusted, and sent him by night to Ptolemy with a
letter importing that when he himself assailed the rock, Ptolemy should
no longer content himself with defending his position but should fall
upon the barbarians on the mountain, so that the Indians, being attacked
in front and rear, might be perplexed how to act. Alexander, starting at
daybreak from his camp, led his army by the route followed by Ptolemy
when he went up unobserved, being convinced that if he forced a passage
that way, and effected a junction with Ptolemy’s men, the work still
before him would not then be difficult; and so it turned out; for up
to mid-day there continued to be hard fighting between the Indians and
the Macedonians—the latter forcing their way up the ascent, while the
former plied them with missiles as they ascended. But as the Macedonians
did not slacken their efforts, ascending the one after the other, while
those in advance paused to rest, they gained with much pain and toil the
summit of the pass early in the afternoon, and joined Ptolemy’s men. His
troops being now all united, Alexander put them again in motion and led
them against the rock itself; but to get close up to it was not yet
practicable. So came this day to its end.

Next day at dawn he ordered the soldiers to cut a hundred stakes per man.
When the stakes had been cut he began piling them up towards the rock
(beginning from the crown of the hill on which the camp had been pitched)
to form a great mound, whence he thought it would be possible for arrows
and for missiles shot from engines to reach the defenders. Every one took
part in the work helping to advance the mound. Alexander himself was
present to superintend, commending those that were intent on getting the
work done, and chastising any one that at the moment was idling.


_Chapter XXX.—Capture of Aornos—Advance to the Indus_

The army by the first day’s work extended the mound the length of a
stadium, and on the following day the slingers by slinging stones at the
Indians from the mound just constructed, and the bolts shot at them from
the engines, drove them back whenever they sallied out to attack the men
engaged upon the mound. The work of piling it up thus went on for three
days, without intermission, when on the fourth day a few Macedonians
forced their way to a small hill which was on a level with the rock,
and occupied its crest. Alexander without ever resting drove the mound
towards the hill which the handful of men had occupied, his object being
to join the two together.

But the Indians terror-struck both by the unheard-of audacity of the
Macedonians in forcing their way to the hill, and also by seeing that
this position was now connected with the mound, abstained from further
resistance, and, sending their herald to Alexander, professed they were
willing to surrender the rock if he granted them terms of capitulation.
But the purpose they had in view was to consume the day in spinning
out negotiations, and to disperse by night to their several homes. When
Alexander saw this he allowed them to start off as well as to withdraw
the sentinels from the whole circle of outposts. He did not himself stir
until they began their retreat, but, when they did so, he took with him
700 of the bodyguards and the hypaspists and scaled the rock at the point
abandoned by the enemy. He was himself the first to reach the top, the
Macedonians ascending after him pulling one another up, some at one place
and some at another. Then at a preconcerted signal they turned upon the
retreating barbarians and slew many of them in the flight, besides so
terrifying some others that in retreating they flung themselves down
the precipices, and were in consequence dashed to death. Alexander
thus became master of the rock which had baffled Heraklês himself. He
sacrificed upon it and built a fort, giving the command of its garrison
to Sisikottos,[60] who long before had in Baktra deserted from the
Indians to Bessos, but after Alexander had conquered the Baktrian land
served in his army, and showed himself a man worthy of all confidence.

He then set out from the rock and invaded the land of the
Assakênians,[61] for he had been apprised that the brother of Assakênos,
with the elephants and a host of the barbarians from the adjoining
country, had fled for refuge to the mountains of that land. On reaching
Dyrta[62] he found there were no inhabitants either in the city itself or
the surrounding district. So next day he sent out Nearchos and Antiochos,
commanders of the hypaspists, the former with the light-armed Agrianians,
and the latter with his own regiment and other two regiments besides.
They were despatched to examine the nature of the localities, and to
capture, if possible, some of the barbarians who might give information
about the state of matters in the country, and particularly about the
elephants, as he was very anxious to know where they were.

He himself now marched towards the river Indus, and the army going on
before made a road for him, without which there would have been no means
of passing through that part of the country.[63] He there captured a
few of the barbarians, from whom he learned that the Indians of the
country had fled away for refuge to Abisarês,[64] but had left their
elephants there at pasture near the river Indus. He ordered these men to
show him the way to the elephants. Now many of the Indians are elephant
hunters,[65] and men of this class found favour with him and were kept
in his retinue, and on this occasion he went with them in pursuit of the
elephants. Two of these animals were killed in the chase by throwing
themselves down a steep place, but the others on being caught suffered
drivers to mount them, and were added to the army. He was further
fortunate in finding serviceable timber[66] along the river, and this
was cut for him by the army and employed in building boats. These were
taken down the river Indus to the bridge which a good while before this
Hêphaistiôn and Perdikkas had constructed.[67]


FIFTH BOOK


_Chapter I.—Alexander at Nysa_

In the country traversed by Alexander between the Kôphên and the river
Indus, they say that besides the cities already mentioned, there stood
also the city of Nysa,[68] which owed its foundation to Dionysos, and
that Dionysos founded it when he conquered the Indians, whoever this
Dionysos in reality was, and when or whencesoever he made his expedition
against the Indians; for I have no means of deciding whether the Theban
Dionysos setting out either from Thebes or the Lydian Tmôlos[69] marched
with an army against the Indians, passing through a great many warlike
nations unknown to the Greeks of those days, but without subjugating
any of them by force of arms except only the Indian nations; all I know
is, that one is not called on to sift minutely the legends of antiquity
concerning the gods; for things that are not credible, if one reasons
as to their consistency with the course of nature, do not seem to be
incredible altogether if one takes the divine agency into account.

When Alexander came to Nysa, the Nysaians sent out to him their
president, whose name was Akouphis,[70] and along with him thirty
deputies of their most eminent citizens, to entreat him to spare the
city for the sake of the god. The deputies, it is said, on entering
Alexander’s tent found him sitting in his armour, covered with dust from
his journey, wearing his helmet and grasping his spear. They fell to the
ground in amazement at the sight, and remained for a long time silent.
But when Alexander had bidden them rise and to be of good courage, then
Akouphis taking up speech thus addressed him.

“The Nysaians entreat you, O King! to permit them to be still free
and to be governed by their own laws from reverence towards Dionysos;
for when Dionysos after conquering the Indian nation was returning to
the shores of Greece he founded with his war-worn soldiers, who were
also his bacchanals, this very city to be a memorial to posterity of
his wanderings and his victory, just as you have founded yourself an
Alexandreia near Kaukasos, and another Alexandreia in the land of the
Egyptians, not to speak of many others, some of which you have already
founded, while others will follow in the course of time, just as your
achievements exceed in number those displayed by Dionysos. Now Dionysos
called our city Nysa, and our land the Nysaian, after the name of his
nurse Nysa; and he besides gave to the mountain which lies near the city
the name of Mêros, because according to the legend he grew, before his
birth, in the thigh of Zeus. And from his time forth we inhabit Nysa as
a free city, and are governed by our own laws, and are a well-ordered
community. But that Dionysos was our founder, take this as a proof, that
ivy which grows nowhere else in the land of the Indians, grows with
us.”[71]


_Chapter II.—Alexander permits the Nysaians to retain their
Autonomy—Visits Mount Mêros_

It gratified Alexander to hear all this, for he was desirous that the
legends concerning the wanderings of Dionysos should be believed, as
well as that Nysa owed its foundation to Dionysos, since he had himself
reached the place to which that deity had come, and meant to penetrate
farther than he; for the Macedonians, he thought, would not refuse to
share his toils if he advanced with an ambition to rival the exploits of
Dionysos. He therefore confirmed the inhabitants of Nysa in the enjoyment
of their freedom and their own laws; and when he enquired about their
laws, he praised them because the government of their state was in the
hands of the aristocracy. He moreover requested them to send with him 300
of their horsemen, together with 100 of their best men selected from the
governing body, which consisted of 300 members. He then asked Akouphis,
whom he appointed governor of the Nysaian land, to make the selection.
When Akouphis heard this, he is said to have smiled at the request, and
when Alexander asked him why he laughed, to have replied, “How, O King!
can a single city if deprived of a hundred of its best men continue to be
well-governed? But if you have the welfare of the Nysaians at heart, take
with you the 300 horsemen, or, if you wish, even more; but instead of the
hundred of our best men you have asked me to select, take with you twice
that number of our worst men, so that on your returning hither you may
find the city as well governed as it is now.” By these words he persuaded
Alexander, who thought he spoke sensibly, and who ordered him to send
the horsemen without again asking for the hundred men who were to have
been selected, or even for others to supply their place. He requested
Akouphis, however, to send him his son and his daughter’s son to attend
him on his expedition.

Alexander felt a strong desire to see the place where the Nysaians
boasted to have certain memorials of Dionysos. So he went, it is said,
to Mount Mêros with the companion cavalry and the body of foot-guards,
and found that the mountain abounded with ivy and laurel and umbrageous
groves of all manner of trees, and that it had also chases supplied
with game of every description. The Macedonians, to whom the sight of
the ivy was particularly welcome, as it was the first they had seen for
a long time (there being no ivy in the land of the Indians, even where
they have the vine), are said to have set themselves at once to weave
ivy chaplets, and, accoutred as they were, to have crowned themselves
with these, chanting the while hymns to Dionysos and invoking the god
by his different names.[72] Alexander, they say, offered while there
sacrifice to Dionysos and feasted with his friends. Some even go so far
as to allege, if any one cares to believe such things, that many of
his courtiers, Macedonians of no mean rank, while invoking Dionysos,
and wreathed with ivy crowns, were seized with the inspiration of the
god, raised in his honour shouts of Evoi, and revelled like Bacchanals
celebrating the orgies.


_Chapter III—How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and
Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus_

Any one who hears these stories is free to believe them or disbelieve
them as he chooses. For my own part, I do not altogether agree with
Eratosthenes the Kyrênian, who says that all these references to the
deity were circulated by the Macedonians in connection with the deeds of
Alexander, to gratify his pride by grossly exaggerating their importance.
For, to take an instance, he says that the Macedonians, on seeing a
cavern among the Paropamisadai, and either hearing some local legend
about it, or inventing one themselves, spread a report that this was
beyond doubt the cave in which Promêtheus had been bound, and to which
the eagle resorted to prey upon his vitals, until Heraklês, coming
that way, slew the eagle and freed Promêtheus from his bonds.[73]
And again, he says that the Macedonians transferred the name of Mount
Kaukasos from Pontos to the eastern parts of the world and the land of
the Paropamisadai adjacent to India (for they called Mount Paropamisos,
Kaukasos), to enhance the glory of Alexander as if he had passed over
Kaukasos. And again, he says that when the Macedonians saw in India
itself oxen marked with a brand in the form of a club, they took this as
a proof that Heraklês had gone as far as the Indians. Eratosthenes has
likewise no belief in similar stories about the wanderings of Dionysos.
Whether or not the accounts about them are true, I cannot decide, and so
leave them.

When Alexander arrived at the river Indus he found a bridge already
made over it by Hêphaistiôn, and two thirty-oared galleys, besides a
great many small boats. He found also a present which had been sent
by Taxilês the Indian, consisting of 200 talents of silver, 3000 oxen
fattened for the shambles, 10,000 sheep or more, and 30 elephants. The
same prince had also sent to his assistance a force of 700 horsemen, and
these brought word that Taxilês surrendered into his hands his capital
Taxila, the greatest of all the cities between the river Indus and the
Hydaspês. Alexander there offered sacrifices to the gods to whom it was
his custom to sacrifice, and entertained his army with gymnastic and
equestrian contests on the banks of the river. The sacrifices proved to
be favourable for his undertaking the passage.


_Chapter IV.—General description of the Indus and of the people of India_

That the Indus is the greatest of all the rivers of Asia, except the
Ganges, which is itself an Indian river; that its sources lie on this
side of the Paropamisos or Kaukasos;[74] that it falls into the great
sea which washes the shores of India towards the south wind; that it
has two mouths, both of which outlets abound with shallows, like the
five mouths of the Ister; and that it forms a delta in the land of the
Indians closely resembling the Egyptian Delta, and that this is called in
the Indian tongue Pâtâla,[75] let this be my description of the Indus,
setting forth those facts which can least be disputed, since the Hydaspês
and the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês and the Hyphasis, which are also
Indian rivers, are considerably larger than any other rivers in Asia, but
are smaller, I may even say much smaller, than the Indus, just as also
the Indus itself is smaller than the Ganges. Indeed, Ktêsias (if any one
thinks him a proper authority) states that where the Indus is narrowest
its banks are 40 stadia apart, and where broadest 100 stadia, while its
ordinary breadth is the mean between these two distances.[76]

This river Indus Alexander began to cross at daybreak with his army to
enter the country of the Indians. Concerning this people I have, in this
present work, described neither under what laws they live, nor what
strange animals their country produces, nor in what number and variety
fish and water-monsters are bred in the Indus, the Hydaspês, the Ganges,
and other Indian rivers. Nor have I described the ants which dig up
gold for them, nor its guardians the griffins,[77] nor other stories
invented rather to amuse than to convey a knowledge of facts, since
there was no one to expose the falsehood of any absurd stories told
about the Indians. However, Alexander and those who served in his army
did expose the falsehood of most of them, although some even of these
very men invented lies of their own. They proved also, in contradiction
of the common belief, that the Indians were goldless, those tribes at
least, and they were many, which Alexander visited with his army; and
that they were not at all luxurious in their style of living, while they
were of so great a stature[78] that they were amongst the tallest men in
Asia, being five cubits in height, or nearly so. They were blacker than
any other men except the Aethiopians,[79] while in the art of war they
were far superior to the other nations by which Asia was at that time
inhabited. For I cannot make any proper comparison between the Indians
and the race of ancient Persians, who, under the command of Cyrus, the
son of Kambyses, wrested the supremacy of Asia from the Medes, and added
to their empire other nations, some by conquest and others by voluntary
submission; for the Persians of those days were but a poor people,
inhabiting a rugged country and approximating closely in the austerity
of their laws and usages to the Spartan discipline.[80] Then with regard
to the discomfiture of the Persians in the Skythian land, I cannot with
certainty conjecture to what cause it was attributable, whether to the
difficult nature of the country into which they were led, or to some
other mistake made by Cyrus, or whether it was that the Persians were
inferior in the art of war to those Skythians whose territories they
invaded.[81]


_Chapter V.—The rivers and mountains of Asia_

However, I shall treat of the Indians in a separate work,[82] in which I
shall set down whatever seems to be most credible in the reports supplied
by those who accompanied Alexander in his expedition, and by Nearchos
who made a voyage round the Great Sea which adjoins the Indians. I shall
then add the accounts of the country which were compiled by Megasthenes
and Eratosthenês, who are both writers of standard authority. I shall
describe the customs of the Indians and the remarkable animals which
their country is said to produce, and also the voyage which was made
by Nearchos in the outer sea.[83] In the meantime it will suffice if I
content myself with describing only what seems requisite to make the
account of Alexander’s operations clearly intelligible. Mount Tauros
divides Asia, beginning from Mykalê, the mountain which lies opposite
to the island of Samos; then forming the boundary of the country of the
Pamphylians and Kilikians, it stretches onwards to Armenia. From the
Armenians it passes into Mêdia, and runs through the country of the
Parthians and the Khorasmians. Reaching Baktria it there unites with
Mount Parapamisos, which the Macedonians of Alexander’s army called
the Kaukasos, for the purpose, it is said, of magnifying the deeds of
Alexander, for it could thus be said that he had carried his victorious
arms even beyond the Kaukasos. It is possible, however, that this
mountain range may be a continuation of that other Kaukasos which is in
Skythia, in the same way as it is a continuation of the Tauric range. For
this reason I have before this occasionally called this range Kaukasos,
and in future I mean to call it so. This Kaukasos extends as far as the
great Indian Ocean in the direction of the east.[84] All the important
rivers of Asia accordingly rise either in Mount Tauros or Mount Kaukasos,
and shape their courses some to the north, and others to the south.
Those which run northward discharge their waters either into the Maiôtic
Lake, or into the Hyrkanian Sea, which is in reality a gulf of the Great
Sea.[85] The rivers which run southward are the Euphrates, Tigris,
Indus, Hydaspês, Akesines, Hydraôtes, and Hyphasis, together with the
rivers between these and the Ganges. All these either enter the sea, or,
like the Euphrates, disappear among the swamps which receive their waters.


_Chapter VI.—Position and boundaries of India and how its plains may have
been formed_

If anyone takes this view of Asia, that it is divided by the Tauros
and the Kaukasos from west to east, then he finds that it is formed by
the Tauros itself into two great sections, one of which lies towards
the south and the south wind, and the other towards the north and
the north wind. The southern section is divided into four parts, of
which, according to Eratosthenês, India is the largest, this being also
the opinion of Megasthenes who resided with Siburtios the satrap of
Arakhôsia, and who tells us that he frequently visited Sandrakottos the
king of the Indians.[86] They say that the smallest part is that which is
bounded by the river Euphrates, and which extends to our own inland sea,
while the other two parts which lie between the river Euphrates and the
Indus will scarcely bear comparison with India even if both were taken
together. They also say that India is bounded towards the east and the
east wind as far as the south by the Great Sea, and towards the north
by Mount Kaukasos, as far as its junction with the Tauros, while the
river Indus cuts it off from other countries towards the west and the
north-west wind as far as the Great Sea. The larger portion of India is
a plain, and this, as they conjecture, has been formed from the alluvial
deposits of the rivers, just as in other countries plains which are
not far off from the sea are generally formations of their respective
rivers, a fact which explains why the names of such countries were
applied of old to their rivers. There is, for instance, in the country
of Asia the plain of the Hermos, a river which rises in the mountain
of Mother Dindymênê, and on its way to the sea flows past the Aiolian
city of Smyrna. There is again another Lydian plain, called that of the
Kaÿstros, which is a Lydian river, and another plain in Mysia, that of
the Kaïkos, and another in Karia, that of the Maiandros, which extends as
far as the Ionian city of Milêtos. In the case of Egypt again, the two
historians, Herodotos, and Hêkataios (or at any rate the author of the
work on Egypt, if he was other than Hêkataios) agree in declaring that
in the same way Egypt was the gift of its river,[87] and clear proofs
have been adduced by Herodotos in support of this view, so that even the
country itself got perhaps its name from the river, for that in early
times Aigyptos was the name of the river which the Egyptians and other
nations now call the Nile the words of Homer sufficiently prove, since
he says[88] that Menelaös anchored his ships at the mouth of the river
Aigyptos. Now if the rivers we have mentioned, which are of no great
size, can each of them separately form in its course to the sea a large
tract of new country, by carrying down silt and slime from the upland
districts in which they have their sources, there can be no good reason
for doubting that India is mostly a plain which has been formed by the
alluvial deposits of its rivers.[89] For if the Hermos and the Kaÿstros
and the Kaïkos and the Maiandros and the other rivers of Asia which fall
into the inland sea were united, they could not be compared in volume of
water with one of the Indian rivers, and much less with the Ganges, which
is the greatest of them all, and with which neither the volume of the
Egyptian Nile, nor the Istros (Danube) which flows through Europe, can be
for a moment compared. Nay, the whole of those rivers if combined into
one would not be equal to the Indus, which is already a large river where
it issues from its springs, and which after receiving as tributaries
fifteen rivers,[90] all greater than those of Asia, enters the sea still
retaining its own name. Let these remarks which I have made about the
country of the Indians suffice for the present, while I reserve all other
particulars for my description of India.


_Chapter VII.—The bridging of rivers_

In what manner Alexander made his bridge over the Indus neither
Aristoboulos nor Ptolemy, the authorities whom I chiefly follow, have
given any account; nor can I decide for certain whether the passage was
bridged with boats, as was the Hellespont by Xerxes and as were the
Bosporos and the Istros by Darius,[91] or whether the bridge he made over
the river was one continuous piece of work. I incline, however, to think
that the bridge must have been made of boats,[92] for neither would the
depth of the river have admitted the construction of an ordinary kind of
bridge, nor could a work so vast and difficult have been executed in so
short a time. But if the passage was bridged with boats I cannot decide
whether the vessels being fastened together with cables and anchored in
a row sufficed to form a bridge as did those by which, as Herodotos the
Halikarnassian says, the Hellespont was joined, or whether the method was
that which is used by the Romans in bridging the Istros and the Keltic
Rhine,[93] and by which they bridged the Euphrates and the Tigris as
often as necessity required. Since, however, the Romans, as far as my
knowledge goes, have found that the bridging of rivers by boats is the
most expeditious method of crossing them, I think it worth a description
here. The vessels at a preconcerted signal are let go from their moorings
and rowed down stream not prow but stern foremost. The current of course
carries them downward, but a small pinnace furnished with oars holds
them back till they settle into their appointed place. Then baskets of
wicker work, pyramid-shaped and filled with rough stones, are lowered
into the river from the prow of each vessel to make it hold fast against
the force of the current. As soon as one of those vessels has been held
fast another is in the same way anchored with its prow against the stream
as far from the first as is commensurate with their bearing the strain
of what is put upon them. On both of them beams of wood are rapidly laid
lengthwise, and on these again planks are placed crosswise to bind them
together. In this manner the work proceeds through all the vessels which
are required for bridging the passage. At each end of the structure
firmly fixed railed gangways are thrown forward to the shore so that
horses and beasts of burden may with the greater safety enter upon it.
These gangways serve at the same time to bind the bridge to the shore. In
a short time the whole is completed amid great noise and bustle, though
discipline is by no means lost sight of as the work proceeds. In each
vessel the occasional exhortations of the overseers and their rebukes
of negligence neither prevent orders from being heard nor the work from
being quickly executed.


_Chapter VIII.—Alexander arrives at Taxila—Receives an embassy from
Abisares and advances to the Hydaspês_

This method has been practised by the Romans from of old, but how
Alexander bridged the river Indus I cannot say, for even those who served
in his army are silent on the matter. But the bridge was made, I should
think, as nearly as possible in the way described, or if it was otherwise
contrived let it be so.

When Alexander had crossed to the other side of the Indus he again
offered sacrifice according to his custom. Then marching away from
the Indus he arrived at Taxila,[94] a great and flourishing city, the
greatest indeed of all the cities which lay between the river Indus and
the Hydaspês. Taxilês, the governor of the city, and the Indians who
belonged to it received him in a friendly manner, and he therefore added
as much of the adjacent country to their territory as they requested.
While he was there Abisarês, the king of the Indians of the hill-country,
sent him an embassy which included his own brother and other grandees
of his court. Envoys came also from Doxarês, the chief of the province,
and those like the others brought presents. Here again in Taxila
Alexander offered his customary sacrifices and celebrated a gymnastic
and equestrian contest. Having appointed Philip, the son of Makhatas,
satrap of the Indians of that district, he left a garrison in Taxila and
those soldiers who were invalided, and then moved on towards the river
Hydaspês—for he had learned that Pôros with the whole of his army lay on
the other side of that river resolved either to prevent him from making
the passage or to attack him when crossing.[95] Upon learning this
Alexander sent back Koinos, the son of Polemokratês, to the river Indus
with orders to cut in pieces all the boats that had been constructed for
the passage of the Indus and to bring them to the river Hydaspês. In
accordance with these orders the smaller boats were cut each into two
sections and the thirty-oared galleys into three, and the sections were
then transported on waggons to the banks of the Hydaspês. There the boats
were reconstructed, and appeared as a flotilla upon that river. Alexander
then taking the forces which he had with him when he arrived at Taxila
and 5000 of the Indians commanded by Taxilês and the chiefs of that
country advanced towards the Hydaspês.[96]


_Chapter IX.—Alexander on reaching the Hydaspês finds Pôros prepared to
dispute its passage_

Alexander encamped on the banks of the river,[97] and Pôros was seen on
the opposite side, with all his army and his array of elephants around
him.[98] Against the place where he saw Alexander had encamped, he
remained himself to guard the passage, but he sent detachments of his
men, each commanded by a captain, to guard all parts of the river where
it could be easily forded, as he was resolved to prevent the Macedonians
from effecting a landing. When Alexander saw this, he thought it
expedient to move his army from place to place, so that Pôros might be at
a loss to discover his real intentions. For this purpose he divided his
army into many parts, and some of the troops he led himself in different
directions, sometimes to ravage the enemy’s country, and sometimes to
find out where he could most easily ford the river. He placed various
commanders at various times over different divisions of his army, and
despatched them also in different directions. At the same time he caused
provisions to be conveyed to the camp from all parts of the country on
this side of the river, to impress Pôros with the conviction that he
intended to remain where he was near the bank, till the waters of the
river subsided in winter, and afforded him a large choice of passages.
As the boats were constantly plying up and down the stream, and the
skins were being filled with hay, while all the bank was lined, here with
horse and there with foot, all this prevented Pôros from resting and
concentrating his preparations at any one point selected in preference
to any other as the best for defending the passage. At this time of the
year besides, all the Indian rivers were swollen and flowing with turbid
and rapid currents, for the sun is then wont to turn towards the summer
tropic.[99] At this season incessant rains deluge the soil of India, and
the snows of the Kaukasos then melting flood the numerous rivers to which
they give birth. In winter they again subside and become small and clear,
and in many places fordable, with the exception of the Indus and the
Ganges, and perhaps some one or two others. The Hydaspês at all events
does become fordable.


_Chapter X.—Alexander’s devices to deceive Pôros and steal the passage of
the river_

Alexander therefore publicly announced that he would remain where he was
throughout that season of the year if his passage was for the present
to be obstructed, but he continued as before waiting in ambush to see
whether he could anywhere rapidly steal a passage to the other side
without being observed. He clearly saw that it was impossible for him to
cross where Pôros himself had encamped near the bank of the Hydaspês, not
only because he had so many elephants, but also because his large army
arrayed for battle, and splendidly accoutred, was ready to attack his
troops the moment they landed. He foresaw besides that his horses would
refuse to mount the opposite bank, where the elephants would at once
encounter them, and by their very aspect and their roaring would terrify
them outright; nor did he think that even before they gained the shore
they would remain upon the inflated hides during the passage; but that on
seeing the elephants even at a distance off, they would become frantic
and leap into the water. He resolved therefore to steal the passage, and
to do this in the following way. Leading out by night the greater part
of his cavalry along the river bank in different directions, he ordered
them to set up a loud clamour, raise the war-shout,[100] and fill the
shores with every kind of noise, as if they were really preparing to
attempt the passage. Pôros marched meanwhile along the opposite bank, in
the direction of the noise, having his elephants with him, and Alexander
gradually accustomed him to lead out his men in this way in opposition.
When this had been done repeatedly, and the men did nothing more than
make a great noise and shout the war-cry, Pôros no longer made any
counter-movement when the cavalry issued out from the camp, but remained
within his own lines, his spies being, however, posted at numerous points
along the bank. When Alexander had thus quieted the suspicions of Pôros
about his nocturnal attempts, he devised the following stratagem.


_Chapter XI.—Arrangements made by Alexander for crossing the Hydaspês
unobserved_

There was a bluff ascending from the bank of the Hydaspês at a point
where the river made a remarkable bend, and this was densely covered
with all sorts of trees. Over against it lay an island in the river
overspread with jungle, an untrodden and solitary place. Perceiving that
this island directly faced the bluff, and that both places were wooded
and adapted to screen his attempt to cross the river, he decided to take
his army over this way. Now the bluff and the island were 150 stadia
distant from the great camp.[101] But along the whole of the bank he
had posted running sentries[102] at a proper distance for keeping each
other in sight, and readily transmitting along the line any orders that
might be received from any quarter. In every direction, moreover, shouts
were raised by night, and fires were burnt for many nights together. But
when he had made up his mind to attempt the passage, the preparations
for crossing were made in the camp without any concealment. In the camp
Krateros had been left with his own division of the cavalry, and the
Arakhosian and Parapamisadan horsemen, together with the brigades of
the Macedonian phalanx commanded by Alketas and Polysperchon and the
contingent of 5000 men under the chiefs of the hither Indians. He had
ordered Krateros not to attempt to cross the river before Pôros moved off
against them, or before learning that he was flying from the field, and
that they were victorious. “If, however,” said he, “Pôros with one part
of his army advances against me while he leaves the other part and his
elephants in his camp, then please to remain where you are; but if Pôros
takes all his elephants with him, and a portion of the rest of his army
is left behind in the camp, then do you cross the river with all possible
speed; for,” added he, “it is the elephants only which make it impossible
for the horses to land on the other bank. The rest of the army can cross
over without difficulty.”


_Chapter XII.—Alexander crosses the Hydaspês_

Such were the instructions given to Krateros; but half-way between the
island and the main camp in which he had been left, there were posted
Meleager, Attalos and Gorgias, with the mercenary cavalry and infantry,
who had received orders to cross to the other side in detachments, into
which their ranks were to be separated as soon as they saw the Indians
fairly engaged in battle. He then selected to be taken under his own
command the corps of body-guards called Companions, the regiments of
cavalry under Hêphaistiôn, Perdikkas and Dêmêtrios, also the Baktrian,
Sogdian, and Skythian cavalry, and the Daan horse-archers, and from the
phalanx of infantry the hypaspists, the brigade of Kleitos and Koinos,
and the archers and the Agrianians, and with these troops he marched with
secrecy, keeping at a considerable distance from the bank that he might
not be seen to be moving towards the island and the bluff, from which he
intended to cross over to the other side. There in the night the skins,
which had long before been provided for the purpose, were stuffed with
hay, and securely stitched up. During the night a violent storm of rain
came on, whereby his preparations and the attempt at crossing were not
betrayed to the enemy by the rattle of arms and the shouting of orders,
since the thunder and rain drowned all other sounds. Most of the boats
which he had ordered to be cut into sections had been conveyed to this
place, and when secretly pieced together again were hidden away in the
woods along with the thirty-oared galleys. Towards daybreak the wind had
died down and the rain ceased. The rest of the army then crossed over
in the direction of the island, the cavalry mounted on the skin pontoon
rafts, and as many of the foot-soldiers as the boats could hold embarked
in them. They so proceeded, that they were not seen by the sentries
posted by Pôros till they had passed beyond the island, and were not far
from the bank.


_Chapter XIII.—Incidents of the passage of the river_

Alexander himself embarked on a thirty-oared galley, and went over
accompanied by Ptolemy, Perdikkas, and Lysimachos, his body-guards, and
by Seleukos, one of the companions, who was afterwards king, and by
one half of the hypaspists, the other half being on board of the other
galleys of like size. As soon as the soldiers had passed beyond the
island, they steered for the bank, being now full in view of the enemy,
whose sentinels on seeing their approach galloped off at the utmost speed
of each man’s horse to carry the tidings to Pôros. Meanwhile Alexander
was himself the first to disembark, and taking the horsemen who had been
conveyed over in his own and the other thirty-oared galleys, he at once
formed them into line as they kept landing, for the cavalry had orders
to be the first to disembark. At the head of these duly marshalled he
moved forward. Owing, however, to his ignorance of the locality he had
unawares landed not on the mainland, but upon an island, the great size
of which prevented it all the more from being recognised as an island.
It was separated from the mainland by a branch of the river in which the
water was shallow; but the violent storm of rain which had lasted the
most of the night had so swollen the stream that the horsemen could not
find the ford, and he feared that the latter part of the passage would
be as laborious as the first. When at last the ford was found he led
his men through it with difficulty; for the water where deepest reached
higher than the breasts of the foot soldiers, and as for the horses their
heads only were above the river. When he had crossed this piece of water
also, he selected the mounted corps of body-guards, and the best men from
the other squadrons of cavalry, and brought them from column into line
upon the right wing.[103] Then in front of all the cavalry he posted the
horse archers, and next in line to the cavalry and in front of all the
infantry the royal hypaspists commanded by Seleukos. Next to these again
he placed the royal foot guards, and then the other hypaspists, each in
what happened to be the order of his precedence for the time being. At
each extremity of the phalanx were posted the archers and the Agrianians
and the javelin men.


_Chapter XIV.—Skirmish with the son of Pôros at the landing-place_

Alexander having made these dispositions, ordered the infantry, which
numbered nearly 6000 men, to follow him at the ordinary marching pace and
in regular order, for when he saw that he was superior in cavalry, he
took with himself only the horsemen, about 5000 in number, and led them
forward at a rapid pace. Taurôn, the captain of the archers, he ordered
to hasten forward with his men to give support to the cavalry. He had
come to the conclusion that if Pôros engaged him with all his troops he
would either, without difficulty, overpower him by charging with his
cavalry, or would remain on the defensive till the infantry came up
during the action, or that if the Indians, terrified by the marvellous
audacity of his passage of the river, should take to flight, he would be
able to pursue them closely, and the slaughter being thus all the greater
there would not be left much more work for him to do.

Aristoboulos says that the son of Pôros arrived with about 60 chariots
before Alexander made the final passage from the large island, and that
he could have hindered Alexander from landing (for he made the passage
with difficulty even when no one opposed him), if the Indians had but
leaped down from their chariots and fallen upon those who first stepped
on shore. The prince, however, passed by with his chariots, and allowed
Alexander to accomplish the passage in complete safety. Against these
Indians Alexander, he says, despatched his horse archers, who easily
put them to a rout which was by no means bloodless. Other writers say
that while the troops were landing an encounter took place between the
Indians who had come with the son of Pôros and Alexander at the head
of his cavalry, and that as the son of Pôros had come with a superior
force Alexander himself was wounded by the Indian prince, and that his
favourite horse Boukephalas was killed, having been wounded, like his
master, by the son of Pôros. But Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, with whom I
agree, gives a different account, for he states, like the others, that
Pôros sent off his son, but not in command of merely 60 chariots; and
indeed it is not at all likely that Pôros, on learning from the scouts
that either Alexander himself, or, at all events, a part of his army,
had made the passage of the Hydaspês, would have sent his own son with
no more than 60 chariots, which, considered as a reconnoitring party,
would have been too numerous, and not rapid in retreat, but considered as
meant to repel such of the enemy as had not yet crossed the river, and
to attack those who had already landed, an altogether inadequate force.
He says that the son of Pôros arrived at the head of 2000 men and 120
chariots, and that Alexander had made even the final passage from the
island before the prince appeared upon the scene.


_Chapter XV.—The arrangements made by Pôros for the conflict_

Ptolemy states further that Alexander at first despatched against the
prince the horse archers, and led the cavalry himself, under the belief
that Pôros was advancing against him with the whole of his army, and
that this was a body of advanced cavalry thrown forward by Pôros. But
when he discovered what the real strength of the Indians was he then
briskly charged them with what cavalry he had with him. When they noticed
that Alexander himself and his body of cavalry did not charge them in
an extended line, but by squadrons, their ranks gave way, and 400 of
their horsemen fell, and among them the son of Pôros. Their chariots,
moreover, were captured, horses and all, for they proved heavy in the
retreat and useless in the action itself, by having stuck fast in the
clay. When the horsemen who had escaped from this rout reported one after
another to Pôros that Alexander himself had crossed the river with the
strongest division of his army, and that his son had been slain in the
fight, he was still at a loss what to determine, for the division which
had been left with Krateros in the great camp right opposite to his own
position appeared to be undertaking the passage, but he at last decided
to march with all his forces against Alexander and fight it out with
the strongest division of the Macedonians led by the king in person. He
nevertheless left there in his camp a few of the elephants and a small
force to deter the cavalry under the command of Krateros from landing. He
then took all his cavalry, 4000 strong, all his chariots, 300 in number,
200 of his elephants, and 30,000 efficient infantry, and marched against
Alexander. When he found a place where he saw there was no clay, but
that the ground from its sandy nature was all flat and firm, and suited
for the movements of cavalry whether charging or falling back, he then
drew up his army in order of battle,[104] posting his elephants in the
front line at intervals of at least 100 feet, so as to have his elephants
ranged in front before the whole body of his infantry, and so to spread
terror at all points among Alexander’s cavalry. He took it for certain
besides that none of the enemy would have the audacity to push in at
the intervals between the elephants—not the cavalry, since their horses
would be terrified by these animals, and much less the infantry, since
they would be checked in front by his heavy-armed foot soldiers falling
upon them, and trampled down when the elephants wheeled round upon them.
Behind these he drew up his infantry, which did not close up in one line
with the elephants, but formed a second line in their rear, so that the
regiments were only partly pushed forward into the intervals. He had also
troops of infantry posted on the wings beyond the elephants, and on both
sides of the infantry the cavalry had been drawn up, and in front of it
the chariots.


_Chapter XVI.—The plan of attack adopted by Alexander_

In this manner had Pôros arranged his troops. As soon as Alexander
perceived that the Indians had been drawn up in battle order he made his
cavalry halt, that he might get in hand each regiment of the infantry
as it came up; and even when the phalanx by a rapid march had effected
a junction with the cavalry he still did not at once marshal its ranks
and lead it into action, and thus expose the men, while tired and out
of breath, to the barbarians, who were quite fresh, but he gave them
time, while he rode round their ranks, to rest until they could recover
themselves. When he had observed how the Indians were arranged he
made up his mind not to advance against the centre, in front of which
the elephants had been posted, while the intervals between them had
been filled with compact masses of infantry, for he feared lest Pôros
should reap the advantage which he had calculated on deriving from that
arrangement. But as he was superior in cavalry he took the greater part
of that force, and marched along towards the left wing of the enemy to
make his attack in this quarter.[105] Koinos he sent at the head of his
own regiment of horse and that of Dêmêtrios to the right, and ordered
him, when the barbarians on seeing what a dense mass of cavalry was
opposed to them, should be riding along to encounter it, to hang close
upon their rear.[106] The command of the phalanx of infantry he committed
to Seleukos, Antigenês, and Taurôn, who received orders not to take part
in the action till they saw that the phalanx of infantry and the cavalry
of the enemy were thrown into disorder by the cavalry under his own
command.

When the Indians were now within reach of his missiles he despatched
against their left wing the horse archers, who were 1000 strong, to throw
the enemy in that part of the field into confusion with storms of arrows
and charges of their horses. He marched rapidly forward himself with the
companion cavalry against the left wing of the barbarians, making haste
to attack their cavalry in a state of disorder while they were still in
column, and before they could deploy into line.


_Chapter XVII.—Description of the battle of the Hydaspês—Defeat of Pôros_

The Indians meanwhile had collected their horsemen from every quarter,
and were riding forward to repulse Alexander’s onset, when Koinos, in
accordance with his orders, appeared with his cavalry upon their rear.
Seeing this the Indians had to make their cavalry face both to front and
rear—the largest and best part to oppose Alexander, and the remainder
to wheel round against Koinos and his squadrons. This therefore at
once threw their ranks into confusion, and disconcerted their plan of
operations; and Alexander, seeing that now was his opportunity while
their cavalry was in the very act of forming to front and rear, fell
upon those opposed to him with such vigour that the Indians, unable to
withstand the charge of his cavalry, broke from their ranks, and fled
for shelter to the elephants as to a friendly wall.[107] Upon this
the drivers of the elephants urged these animals forward against the
cavalry; but the Macedonian phalanx itself now met them face to face,
and threw darts at the men on the elephants, and from one side and the
other struck the elephants themselves as they stood around them. This
kind of warfare was different from any of which they had experience in
former contests, for the huge beasts charged the ranks of the infantry,
and wherever they turned went crushing through the Macedonian phalanx
though in close formation; while the horsemen of the Indians, on seeing
that the infantry was now engaged in the action, again wheeled round
and charged the cavalry. But Alexander’s men, being far superior in
personal strength and military discipline, again routed them, and again
drove them back upon the elephants, and cooped them up among them.
Meanwhile the whole of Alexander’s cavalry had now been gathered into
one battalion, not in consequence of an order, but from being thrown
together in the course of the struggle, and wherever they fell upon the
ranks of the Indians they made great carnage before parting from them.
The elephants being now cooped up within a narrow space, did no less
damage to their friends than to their foes, trampling them under their
hoofs as they wheeled and pushed about. There resulted in consequence a
great slaughter of the cavalry, cooped up as it was in a narrow space
around the elephants. Many of the elephant drivers, moreover, had been
shot down, and of the elephants themselves some had been wounded, while
others, both from exhaustion and the loss of their mahouts, no longer
kept to their own side in the conflict, but, as if driven frantic by
their sufferings, attacked friend and foe quite indiscriminately, pushed
them, trampled them down, and killed them in all manner of ways. But
the Macedonians, who had a wide and open field, and could therefore
operate as they thought best, gave way when the elephants charged, and
when they retreated followed at their heels and plied them with darts;
whereas the Indians, who were in the midst of the animals, suffered far
more the effects of their rage. When the elephants, however, became
quite exhausted, and their attacks were no longer made with vigour, they
fell back like ships backing water, and merely kept trumpeting as they
retreated with their faces to the enemy. Then did Alexander surround
with his cavalry the whole of the enemy’s line, and signal that the
infantry, with their shields linked together so as to give the utmost
compactness to their ranks, should advance in phalanx. By this means the
cavalry of the Indians was, with a few exceptions, cut to pieces in the
action. Such also was the fate of the infantry, since the Macedonians
were now pressing upon them from every side. Upon this all turned to
flight wherever a gap could be found in the cordon of Alexander’s cavalry.


_Chapter XVIII.—Sequel of the battle and surrender of Pôros_

Meanwhile Krateros and all the other officers of Alexander’s army, who
had been left behind on the opposite bank of the Hydaspês, crossed
the river when they perceived that Alexander was winning a splendid
victory. These men, being fresh, were employed in the pursuit, instead of
Alexander’s exhausted troops, and they made no less a slaughter of the
Indians in the retreat than had been made in the engagement.

The loss of the Indians in killed fell little short of 20,000 infantry
and 3000 cavalry, and all their chariots were broken to pieces.[108] Two
sons of Pôros fell in the battle, and also Spitakês,[109] the chief of
the Indians of that district. The drivers of the elephants and of the
chariots were also slain and the cavalry officers and the generals in
the army of Pôros all....[110] The elephants, moreover, that escaped
destruction in the field were all captured. On Alexander’s side there
fell about 80 of the 6000 infantry who had taken part in the first
attack, 10 of the horse archers who first began the action, 20 of the
companion cavalry, and 200 of the other cavalry.[111]

When Pôros, who had nobly discharged his duties throughout the battle,
performing the part not only of a general, but also that of a gallant
soldier, saw the slaughter of his cavalry and some of his elephants
lying dead, and others wandering about sad and sullen without their
drivers, while the greater part of his infantry had been killed, he did
not, after the manner of Darius, the great king, abandon the field and
show his men the first example of flight, but, on the contrary, fought
on as long as he saw any Indians maintaining the contest in a united
body; but he wheeled round on being wounded in the right shoulder, where
only he was unprotected by armour in the battle. All the rest of his
person was rendered shot-proof by his coat of mail, which was remarkable
for its strength and the closeness with which it fitted his person, as
could afterwards be observed by those who saw him. When he found himself
wounded he turned his elephant round and began to retire. Alexander,
perceiving that he was a great man and valiant in fight, was anxious to
save his life, and for this purpose sent to him first of all Taxilês the
Indian. Taxilês, who was on horseback, approached as near the elephant
which carried Pôros as seemed safe, and entreated him, since it was no
longer possible for him to flee, to stop his elephant and listen to
the message he brought from Alexander. But Pôros, on finding that the
speaker was his old enemy Taxilês, turned round and prepared to smite
him with his javelin; and he would probably have killed him had not
Taxilês instantly put his horse to the gallop and got beyond the reach
of Pôros. But not even for this act did Alexander feel any resentment
against Pôros, but sent to him messenger after messenger, and last of
all Meroês, an Indian, as he had learned that Pôros and this Meroês
were old friends. As soon as Pôros heard the message which Meroês now
brought just at a time when he was overpowered by thirst, he made his
elephant halt and dismounted. Then, when he had taken a draught of water
and felt revived, he requested Meroês to conduct him without delay to
Alexander.[112]


_Chapter XIX.—Alexander makes Pôros his firm friend and ally—Founds two
cities—Death of his famous horse Boukephalas_

He was then conducted to Alexander, who, on learning that Meroês was
approaching with him, rode forward in front of his line with a few of
the Companions to meet him. Then reining in his horse he beheld with
admiration the handsome person and majestic stature of Pôros, which
somewhat exceeded five cubits. He saw, too, with wonder that he did not
seem to be broken and abased in spirit, but that he advanced to meet him
as a brave man would meet another brave man after gallantly contending
with another king in defence of his kingdom. Then Alexander, who was the
first to speak, requested Pôros to say how he wished to be treated. The
report goes that Pôros said in reply, “Treat me, O Alexander! as befits a
king;” and that Alexander, being pleased with his answer, replied, “For
mine own sake, O Pôros! thou shalt be so treated, but do thou, in thine
own behalf, ask for whatever boon thou pleasest,” to which Pôros replied
that in what he had asked everything was included. Alexander was more
delighted than ever with this rejoinder, and not only appointed Pôros to
govern his own Indians, but added to his original territory another of
still greater extent. Alexander thus treated this brave man as befitted
a king, and he consequently found him in all respects faithful and
devoted to his interests. Such, then, was the result of the battle in
which Alexander fought against Pôros[113] and the Indians of the other
side of the Hydaspês in the month of Mounychion of the year when Hêgemôn
was archon in Athens.[114]

Alexander founded two cities, one on the battlefield, and the other at
the point whence he had started to cross the river Hydaspês. The former
he called Nikaia in honour of his victory over the Indians, and the other
Boukephala[115] in memory of his horse Boukephalas, which died there,
not from being wounded by any one, but from toil and old age, for he was
about thirty years old,[116] and had heretofore undergone many toils
and dangers along with Alexander. This Boukephalas was never mounted
by any one except Alexander only, for he disdained all other riders.
He was of an uncommon size and of generous mettle. He had by way of a
distinguishing mark the head of an ox impressed upon him, and some say
that from this circumstance he got his name. But others say that though
he was black, he had on his forehead a white mark which bore a close
resemblance to the brow of an ox. In the country of the Ouxians this
horse disappeared from Alexander, who sent a proclamation through the
land that he would kill all the Ouxians if they did not bring him his
horse, and brought back he was immediately after the proclamation had
been issued[117]—so great was Alexander’s attachment to his favourite,
and so great was the fear of Alexander which prevailed among the
barbarians. Let so much honour be paid by me to this Boukephalas for
Alexander’s sake.


_Chapter XX.—Alexander conquers the Glausai, receives embassies from
Abisarês and other chiefs, and crosses the Akesinês_

When Alexander had duly honoured with splendid obsequies those who had
been slain in the battle, he offered to the gods in acknowledgment of his
victory the customary sacrifices, and celebrated athletic and equestrian
contests on the bank of the river Hydaspês, at the place where he first
crossed with his army. He then left Krateros behind with a part of the
army to build and fortify the cities which he was founding there, while
he advanced himself against the Indians whose country lay next to the
dominions of Pôros. Aristoboulos says that the name of the nation was the
Glaukanikoi, but Ptolemy calls them the Glausai.[118] By which of the
names it was called I take to be a matter of no consequence. Alexander
invaded their country with the half of the companion cavalry, picked men
from each phalanx of the infantry, all the horse-archers, the Agrianians,
and the other archers. The people everywhere surrendered on terms of
capitulation. In this manner he took seven-and-thirty cities, the
smallest of which contained not fewer than 5000 inhabitants, while many
contained upwards of 10,000. He took also a great many villages which
were not less populous than the towns; and this country he gave to Pôros
to rule,[119] and between him and Taxilês he effected a reconciliation.
He then sent Taxilês home to his capital.

At this time envoys came from Abisarês to say that their king surrendered
himself and his whole realm to Alexander.[120] Yet before the battle in
which Alexander had defeated Pôros, Abisarês was ready with his army to
fight on the side of Pôros. But he now sent his brother along with the
other envoys to Alexander, taking with them money and forty elephants as
a present. Envoys also arrived from the independent Indians, and from
another Indian ruler called Pôros.[121] Alexander ordered Abisarês to
come to him as quickly as possible, threatening that if he did not come
he would see him and his army arriving where he would not rejoice to see
them.

At this time Phratophernes, the satrap of Parthia and Hyrkania, at the
head of the Thracians who had been left with him came to Alexander.
There came also envoys from Sisikottos, the satrap of the Assakênians,
reporting that these people had slain their governor and revolted from
Alexander. Against these he sent Philippos and Tyriaspês to quell the
insurrection and restore tranquillity and order to the province.

Alexander himself advanced towards the river Akesinês.[122] This is the
only Indian river of which Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, has mentioned
the size. He states that where Alexander crossed it with his army in
boats and on inflated hides the current was so rapid that the waters
dashed with foam and fury against the large and jagged rocks with which
the channel was bestrewn. He informs us also that it was 15 stadia in
breadth; and while the passage was easy for those who crossed upon
inflated hides, not a few of those who were carried in boats perished
in the waters, as many of the boats were dashed to pieces by striking
against the rocks. From this description we may fairly conclude, if we
institute a comparison, that the size of the river Indus has been pretty
correctly stated by those who take it to have an average breadth of 40
stadia, while, where narrowest and of course deepest, it contracts to
a breadth of 15 stadia, which I take to be its actual breadth in many
parts of its course, for I conclude that Alexander selected a part of
the Akesinês where the passage was widest, and where the current would
consequently be slower than elsewhere.


_Chapter XXI.—Pursuit after Pôros, nephew of the great Pôros—Conquest of
the country between the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês—Passage of the latter
river_

After crossing the river he left Koinos there upon the bank with his own
brigade, and ordered him to superintend the passage of the river by those
troops which had been left behind to collect corn and other supplies
from the part of India which was now under his authority. Pôros he sent
home to his capital with orders to select the best fighting men of the
Indians, and to muster all the elephants he possessed, and to rejoin
him with these. He resolved to pursue in person the other Pôros—the bad
one—with the lightest troops in his army, for word had been brought
that he had fled from the country of which he was the ruler; for, while
hostilities still subsisted between Alexander and the other Pôros, this
Pôros had sent envoys to Alexander offering to surrender into his hands
both his person and the country over which he ruled, but this more from
enmity to Pôros than friendliness to Alexander. On learning therefore
that Pôros had not only been set at liberty, but had his kingdom restored
to him, and that too with a large accession of territory, he was overcome
with fear, not so much of Alexander as of his namesake Pôros, and fled
from his country, taking with him as many fighting men as he could
persuade to accompany him in his flight.

Alexander, while marching to overtake him, arrived at the
Hydraôtês—another Indian river, not less in breadth than the Akesinês,
but not so rapid.[123] Over all the country which he overran he planted
garrisons in the most suitable places, so that the troops under Krateros
and Koinos might, while scouring it far and near for forage, traverse
it in safety to join him. He then despatched Hêphaistiôn with a force
comprising two divisions of infantry, his own regiment of cavalry and
that of Dêmêtrios, and one-half of the archers, into the country of that
Pôros who had revolted. He received orders to hand over the country to
the other Pôros, and when he had reduced all the independent Indian
tribes bordering on the banks of the Hydraôtês, to place these also
under the rule of Pôros. He himself then crossed the river Hydraôtês,
where he met with none of the difficulties which had attended the
passage of the Akesinês. When he was advancing into the country beyond
the Hydraôtês he found most of the natives willing to surrender on
capitulation, while some met him in arms, and others were captured when
attempting to escape and reduced to submission.


_Chapter XXII.—Alexander marches against the Kathaians—Takes Pimprama,
and lays siege to Sangala_

Alexander meanwhile had learned that the Kathaians[124] and other tribes
of independent Indians[125] were preparing to meet him in battle if he
invaded their country, and were inviting the neighbouring tribes, which
were independent like themselves, to coöperate with them. He learned also
that the city near which they meant to engage him was strongly fortified,
and was called Sangala.[126] The Kathaians themselves enjoyed the highest
reputation for courage and skill in the art of war, and the same warlike
spirit characterised the Oxydrakai, another Indian race, and the Malloi,
who were also an Indian race, for when shortly before this time Pôros
and Abisarês had marched against them with their armies, and had besides
stirred up many of the independent Indians against them, they were
obliged, as it turned out, to retreat without accomplishing anything at
all adequate to the scale of their preparations.

Alexander, on receiving this intelligence, marched rapidly against the
Kathaians, and on the second day after he had left the river Hydraôtês
arrived at a city named Pimprama, belonging to an Indian race called the
Adraïstai,[127] which surrendered on terms of capitulation. Alexander
gave his troops rest the next day, and on the third day advanced to
Sangala, where the Kathaians and the neighbouring tribes that had joined
them were mustered before the city, and drawn up in battle-order on a
low hill, which was not on all sides precipitous. They lay encamped
behind their waggons, which, by encircling the hill in three rows,
protected the camp with a triple barricade. Alexander, on perceiving
the great number of the barbarians, and the nature of the position they
occupied, drew up his army in the order which seemed best suited to the
circumstances, and at once despatched against them the horse-archers just
as they were, with orders to ride along and shoot at the Indians from
a distance, so as not only to prevent them from making a sortie before
his own dispositions should be completed, but to wound them within their
stronghold even before the battle began. Upon his right wing he posted
the corps of horseguards and the cavalry regiment of Kleitos, next to
these the hypaspists, and then the Agrianians. The left wing he assigned
to Perdikkas, who commanded his own cavalry regiment and the battalions
of the footguards. The archers he formed into two bodies, and placed them
upon each wing. While he was making these dispositions the infantry and
cavalry which formed the rearguard arrived upon the field. This cavalry
he divided in two parts, and led one to each wing, and with the infantry
that had arrived he closed up the ranks of the phalanx more densely. Then
he took the cavalry which had been drawn up on the right and advanced
against the waggons ranged on the left wing of the Indians, where the
position seemed easier to assault, and where the waggons were not so
closely packed together.


_Chapter XXIII.—Alexander drives the Kathaians into Sangala, which he
invests on every side_

But when the Indians, instead of sallying out from behind their waggons
to attack the cavalry as it advanced, mounted upon them, and began
to shoot from the top of them, Alexander saw that this was not work
for cavalry, and so, having dismounted, he led on foot the phalanx of
infantry against them. The Macedonians found no difficulty in driving the
Indians from the first row of waggons, but on the other hand the Indians,
having formed in line in front of the second row, were able to force back
their assailants with greater ease, standing as they did more compactly
together, and in a narrower circle, while the Macedonians had less room
in which to operate against them. At this time they quietly drew back the
waggons of the first row, and through the gaps each man, as he found an
opportunity, assailed the enemy in an irregular way.[128] Yet even from
these waggons they were forcibly driven by the phalanx of infantry, and
even at the third row they no longer held ground, but fled with all the
haste they could into the city and shut themselves up within its gates.
Alexander that same day encamped with his infantry around the city, as
far at least as the phalanx enabled him to surround it, for the wall
was of such great extent that his camp did not completely environ it.
Opposite the part where the gap was left, and where also was a lake not
far from the walls, he posted the cavalry all round the lake, as he knew
it not to be deep, and at the same time anticipated that the Indians,
terrified by their previous defeat, would abandon the city during the
night. The event showed he had conjectured aright, for about the second
watch the most of them dropped down from the wall and came upon the
outposts of the cavalry. The foremost of them were cut to pieces by the
sentinels, but those in the rear, perceiving that the lake was guarded
all round, withdrew into the city. Alexander now encompassed the city
with a double stockade, except where the lake shut it in, and around the
lake he posted guards to keep still stricter watch. He resolved also to
bring up the military engines against the place for battering down the
walls. Some deserters, however, came to him from the city and informed
him that the Indians intended that very night to escape from the city
by way of the lake where the gap occurred in the stockade. So at that
point he stationed Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, with three divisions of the
hypaspists, each 1000 strong, all the Agrianians, and a single line of
archers, and pointed out to him the particular spot where the barbarians,
as he conjectured, were likeliest to attempt forcing their passage. “And
now,” said he, “when thou perceivest the barbarians forcing their way at
this point, do thou with the army arrest their advance, and order the
trumpets to sound the signal; and do you, sirs,” he added, turning to the
officers, “as soon as the signal is given, each of you with your men in
battle-order, hasten towards the noise wherever the trumpet summons you.
I shall not myself stand idly by away from the broil.”


_Chapter XXIV.—Alexander captures Sangala, razes it to the ground, and
advances to the river Hyphasis_

Such were the directions he gave, and Ptolemy in that place collected
as many as he could of the waggons which the enemy had left behind
in their first flight, and placed them athwart so that the fugitives
might imagine there were many obstacles to their escaping by night. He
ordered the stakes, which had been cut but not fixed in the ground, to
be formed into stockades at different points between the lake and the
wall. All this was done by the soldiers during the night. But when it
was now about the fourth watch the barbarians, in accordance with the
information Alexander had received, opened the gates which fronted the
lake and rushed towards it at full speed. They did not, however, escape
the vigilance either of the picquets posted there, or of Ptolemy who lay
behind ready to support them; and just then the trumpeters gave him the
signal, and he advanced against the barbarians with his troops which were
under arms and drawn up ready for action. The waggons, moreover, as well
as the stockade, which had been constructed between the wall and the
lake, impeded the fugitives; and as soon as the trumpet sounded the alarm
Ptolemy with his men fell upon them and killed them, one after another,
as they slunk out from the waggons. Upon this the Indians fled back once
more to the city for refuge, and as many as 500 of them were slain in the
retreat.

Meanwhile Pôros also arrived, bringing with him the remainder of his
elephants and a force of 5000 Indians, and the military engines which had
been constructed by Alexander were now being brought up to the wall. But
the Macedonians, before any part of it was battered down, took the city
by storm, having undermined the wall, which was of brick, and planted
ladders against it all round. In the capture 17,000 of the Indians
were slaughtered, and more than 70,000 were captured, together with
300 waggons and 500 horsemen.[129] The loss in Alexander’s army during
all the siege was somewhat under 100 killed, but the proportion of the
wounded to the number killed was higher than usual, for there were 1200
wounded, including some officers, and among these Lysimachos, a member of
the body-guard.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.—EUMENÊS.]

Alexander having buried the dead according to custom, sent Eumenês,
his secretary, in command of 300 horsemen to the two cities which had
revolted along with Sangala, to tell those who held them that Sangala
had been captured, and that Alexander would not at all deal hardly with
them if they remained where they were and received him in a friendly
way, for that none of the independent Indians who had voluntarily
surrendered themselves had received any ill-treatment at his hands. But
they had already learned that Sangala had been stormed by Alexander,
and being terrified by the news had left the cities and were in flight.
When Alexander was informed of their flight he hastened after them, but
as they had a long start of him most of them baffled his efforts to
overtake them. Those, however, who were left behind in the retreat when
their strength failed were taken by the troops and slaughtered to the
number of about 500. As he gave up the design of pursuing the fugitives
any farther, he drew back to Sangala and razed the city to the ground.
The land belonging to it he made over to those Indians who had formerly
been independent, but who had voluntarily submitted to him. He then sent
Pôros with his own forces to the cities which had submitted to introduce
garrisons within them, but he himself with his army advanced to the river
Hyphasis[130] to conquer the Indians who dwelt beyond it. Nor did there
appear to him any end of the war as long as an enemy remained to be
encountered.


_Chapter XXV.—Alexander finding the army unwilling to advance beyond the
Hyphasis, convokes his officers and addresses them on the subject_

It was reported that the country beyond the Hyphasis was exceedingly
fertile, and that the inhabitants were good agriculturists, brave in
war, and living under an excellent system of internal government; for
the multitude was governed by the aristocracy, who exercised their
authority with justice and moderation. It was also reported that the
people there had a greater number of elephants than the other Indians,
and that those were of superior size and courage. This information only
whetted Alexander’s eagerness to advance farther, but the Macedonians now
began to lose heart when they saw the king raising up without end toils
upon toils and dangers upon dangers. The army, therefore, began to hold
conferences at which the more moderate men bewailed their condition,
while others positively asserted that they would follow no farther though
Alexander himself should lead the way. When this came to Alexander’s
knowledge he convoked the officers in command of brigades, before the
disorder and despondency should be further developed among the soldiers,
and he thus addressed them:

“On seeing that you, O Macedonians and allies! no longer follow me into
dangers with your wonted alacrity, I have summoned you to this assembly
that I may either persuade you to go farther, or be persuaded by you to
turn back. If you have reason to complain of past labours, and of me your
leader, I need say no more. But if by those labours you have acquired
Ionia,[131] and the Hellespont with the two Phrygias, Kappadokia,
Paphlagonia, Lydia, Karia, Lykia, and Pamphylia, as well as Phoenikia
and Egypt, together with Hellenic Lybia, part of Arabia, Hollow Syria,
Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sousiana, Persis, and Media, and all the provinces
governed by the Medes and Persians, not to mention other states which
were never subject to them; if in addition we have conquered the regions
beyond the Kaspian Gates, those beyond Kaukasos, the Tanais[132] also,
and the country beyond, Baktria, Hyrkania, and the Hyrkanian Sea; if we
have driven the Skythians back into their deserts, and if besides, the
Indus, Hydaspês, Akesinês, and Hydraôtês flow through territories that
are ours, why should you hesitate to pass the Hyphasis also and add the
tribes beyond it to your Macedonian conquests? Are you afraid there are
other barbarians who may yet successfully resist you, although of those
we have already met some have willingly submitted, others have been
captured in flight, while others have left us their deserted country to
be distributed either to our allies or to those who have voluntarily
submitted to us?”


_Chapter XXVI.—Continuation of Alexander’s Speech_

“For my part, I think that to a man of spirit there is no other aim and
end of his labours except the labours themselves, provided they be such
as lead him to the performance of glorious deeds. But if any one wishes
to know the limits of the present warfare, let him understand that the
river Ganges and the Eastern Sea are now at no great distance off. This
sea, I am confident, is connected with the Hyrkanian Sea, because the
Great Ocean flows round the whole earth.[133] I shall besides prove
to the Macedonians and their allies that the Indian Gulf is connected
with the Persian, and the Hyrkanian Sea with the Indian Gulf. From the
Persian Gulf our fleet will sail round to Lybia as far as the Pillars
of Heraklês.[134] From these pillars all the interior of Lybia becomes
ours, and thus all Asia shall belong to us,[135] and the boundaries of
our empire in that direction will coincide with those which the deity has
made the boundaries of the earth. But, if we now turn back, many warlike
nations extending beyond the Hyphasis to the Eastern Sea, and many others
lying northwards between these and Hyrkania, to say nothing of their
neighbours the Skythian tribes, will be left behind us unconquered, so
that if we turn back there is cause to fear lest the conquered nations,
as yet wavering in their fidelity, may be instigated to revolt by those
who are still independent. Our many labours will in that case be all
completely thrown away, or we must enter on a new round of toils and
dangers. But persevere, O Macedonians and allies! glory crowns the deeds
of those who expose themselves to toils and dangers. Life, signalised
by deeds of valour, is delightful, and so is death, if we leave behind
us an immortal name. Know ye not that it was not by staying at home
in Tiryns[136] or Argos, or even in Peloponnêsos or Thebes, that our
ancestor was exalted to such glory, that from being a man he became, or
was thought to be, a god. Nor were the labours few even of Dionysos, who
ranks as a god far above Heraklês. But we have advanced beyond Nysa,
and the rock Aornos, which proved impregnable to Heraklês, is in our
possession. Add, then, the rest of Asia to our present acquisitions—the
smaller part of it to the greater. Could we ourselves, think you, have
achieved any great and memorable deeds if, sitting down at home in
Macedonia, we had been content without exertion merely to preserve our
own country, by repelling the attacks of the neighbouring Thracians,
Illyrians, and Triballians, or those Greeks whose disposition to us is
unfriendly?

“If, indeed, while leading you, I had myself shrunk from the toils and
dangers to which you were exposed, you would not without good reason be
dispirited in prospect of undertaking fresh enterprises, seeing that
while you alone shared the toils, it was for others you procured the
rewards. But our labours are in common; I, equally with you, share in
the dangers, and the rewards become the public property. For the land is
yours, and you are its satraps; and among you the greater part of its
treasures has already been distributed. And when all Asia is subdued
then, by heaven, I will not merely satisfy, but exceed every man’s hopes
and wishes. Such of you as wish to return home I shall send back to your
own country, or even myself will lead you back. But those who remain here
I will make objects of envy to those who go back.”


_Chapter XXVII—Koinos, replying to Alexander, states the grievances of
the army_

When Alexander had spoken to this and the like effect, a long silence
followed, because those present neither dared to speak freely in
opposition to the king, nor yet wished to assent to what he proposed.
Alexander again and again requested that any one who wished should speak,
even if his views differed from those which he had himself expressed. But
the silence was unbroken for a long time, till at last Koinos, the son of
Polemokratês, summoned up courage and spoke to this effect:

“Forasmuch as you do not wish, O king! to rule Macedonians by constraint,
but say that you will lead them by persuasion, or suffering yourself to
be persuaded by them, will not have recourse to compulsion, I intend to
speak, not on behalf of myself and fellow-officers who have been honoured
above the other soldiers, and have most of us received splendid rewards
of our labours, and from having been highly exalted above others are
more zealous than others to serve you in all things, but in behalf of
the great body of the army. Yet on behalf of this army I intend not to
say what may be agreeable to the men, but what I think will be conducive
to your present interests and safest for the future. I feel bound by my
age not to conceal what appears to be the best course to follow; bound
by the high authority conferred on me by yourself, and bound also by the
unhesitating boldness which I have hitherto exhibited in all enterprises
of danger. The more I look to the number and magnitude of the exploits
performed under your command by us who set out with you from home, the
more does it seem to me expedient to place some limit to our toils and
dangers. For you see yourself how many Macedonians and Greeks started
with you, and how few of us are left. From our ranks you sent away home
from Baktra the Thessalians[137] as soon as you saw they had no stomach
for further toils, and in this you acted wisely. Of the other Greeks,
some have been settled in the cities founded by you, where all of them
are not willing residents; others still share our toils and dangers.
They and the Macedonian army have lost some of their numbers in the
fields of battle; others have been disabled by wounds; others have been
left behind in different parts of Asia, but the majority have perished
by disease. A few only out of many survive, and these few possessed no
longer of the same bodily strength as before, while their spirits are
still more depressed.[138] All those, whose parents are still living,
have a yearning to see them—a yearning to see their wives and children—a
yearning to see were it but their native land itself—a desire pardonable
in men who would return home in great splendour derived from your
munificence, and raised from humble to high rank, and from indigence to
wealth. Seek not, therefore, to lead them against their inclinations, for
you will not find them the same men in the face of dangers, if they enter
without heart into their contests with the enemy. But do you also, if it
agree with your wishes, return home with us, see your mother once more,
settle the affairs of the Greeks, and carry to the house of your fathers
those your great and numerous victories. Then having so done, form, if
you so wish, a fresh expedition against these same tribes of eastern
Indians, or, if you prefer, against the shores of the Euxine Sea, or
against Karchêdon,[139] and the parts of Lybia beyond the Karchêdonians.
It will then be your part to unfold your purpose, and then other
Macedonians and other Greeks will follow you—young men full of vigour
instead of old men worn out with toils—men for whom war, through their
inexperience of it, has no immediate terrors, and eager to set out from
the hope of future rewards. They will also naturally follow you with the
greater alacrity, from seeing that the companions of your former toils
and dangers have returned home wealthy instead of poor, and raised to
high distinction from their original obscurity. Moderation, in the midst
of success, is, O king! the noblest of virtues, for though, at the head
of so brave an army, you have nothing to dread from mortal foes, yet the
visitations of the deity cannot be foreseen, and man cannot, therefore,
guard against them.”


_Chapter XXVIII.—Alexander mortified by the refusal of his army to
advance, secludes himself in his tent, but in the end resolves to return_

When Koinos had concluded his address, those present are said to have
signified their approval of what he said by loud applause, while many
by their streaming tears showed still more expressively their aversion
to encounter further dangers, and how welcome to them was the idea of
returning. But Alexander, who resented the freedom with which Koinos
had spoken, and the hesitation displayed by the other generals, broke up
the conference; but next day while his wrath was still hot he summoned
the same men again, and told them that he was going forward himself, but
would not force any of the Macedonians to accompany him against their
wishes, for he would find men ready to follow their king of their own
free will. But those who wished to go away were free to go home, and
might tell their friends there that they had returned, and left their
king in the midst of his enemies. It is said that with these words he
withdrew into his tent, and did not admit any of his companions to see
him on that day, nor even till the third day after, waiting to see
whether a change of mood, such as often takes place in an assemblage
of soldiers, would manifest itself among the Macedonians and the
allies, and make them readier to yield to his persuasions. But when a
deep silence again reigned throughout the camp, and the soldiers were
evidently offended by his wrath without their minds being changed by it,
he began none the less, as Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, states, to offer
there sacrifice for the passage of the river; but when on sacrificing
he found the omens were against him, he then assembled the oldest of
the Companions, and especially his intimate friends among them, and as
everything indicated that to return was his most expedient course he
intimated to the army that he had resolved to march back.


_Chapter XXIX.—Alexander erects altars on the banks of the Hyphasis to
mark the limits of his advance, recrosses the Hydraôtês and Akesinês and
regains the Hydaspês_

Then they shouted, as a mixed multitude would shout when rejoicing,
and many of them shed tears. Some of them even approached the royal
pavilion, and invoked many blessings on Alexander, because by them and
them only did he permit himself to be vanquished. He then divided the
army into brigades, which he ordered to prepare twelve altars[140] to
equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in
point of breadth, to serve as thank-offerings to the gods who had led
him so far as a conqueror, and also as a memorial of his own labours.
When the altars had been constructed, he offered sacrifice upon them
with the customary rites, and celebrated a gymnastic and equestrian
contest. Having thereafter committed all the country west of the river
Hyphasis to the government of Pôros, he marched back to the Hydraôtês.
After crossing this river, he retraced his steps to the Akesinês, and on
arriving there found the city which he had ordered Hêphaistiôn to fortify
completely built.[141] Herein he settled as many of the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood as were willing to make it their domicile, and such
also of the mercenary soldiers as were now unfit for further service. He
then began to make preparations for the downward voyage to the Great Sea.

At this time Arsakês,[142] ruler of the country adjoining the dominions
of Abisarês, together with the brother of Abisarês and his other
relatives, came to him, bringing presents such as the Indians consider
the most valuable, and some thirty elephants sent by Abisarês. They
represented that Abisarês was prevented from coming in person by
illness—a statement which the ambassadors sent by Alexander to Abisarês
corroborated. Alexander, readily believing that such was the case, made
Abisarês satrap of his own dominions, and moreover placed Arsakês under
his jurisdiction. Having then fixed the amount which was to be paid as
tribute, he again offered sacrifice near the river Akesinês. He then
recrossed that river, and reached the Hydaspês, where he employed his
army in repairing the damage caused by the rains to the cities of Nikaia
and Boukephala, and set the other affairs of the country in order.


SIXTH BOOK


_Chapter I.—Alexander mistakes the Indus for the upper Nile—Prepares to
sail down stream to the sea_

When Alexander had got ready upon the banks of the Hydaspês a large
number of thirty-oared galleys, and others of one bank and a half of
oars, besides numerous horse transports and every other requisite for
the easy conveyance of an army by river, he resolved to sail down the
Hydaspês[143] to the Great Sea. As he had before this seen crocodiles in
the river Indus, and in no other river but the Nile only, and had besides
seen beans of the same species as those which Egypt produces[144] growing
near the banks of the Akesinês, and as he had heard that this river falls
into the Indus, he was led to think that he had discovered the sources of
the Nile. His idea was that this river rose somewhere among the Indians
and pursued its course through a vast tract of desert country, where it
lost the name of the Indus, and that from the time when it began to flow
through the inhabited parts of the world it was called the Nile both by
the Aithiopians, who lived there and by the Egyptians, just as Homer also
changed its name, calling it the river Egypt after Egypt, the country
where at last it discharges itself into the Inner Sea.[145] Accordingly
when he was writing to his mother Olympias about the country of the
Indians, he mentioned, it is said, among other things that he thought he
had discovered the sources of the Nile, actually basing on such slight
and contemptible evidence his judgements respecting questions of so much
importance. When, however, he investigated with special care the facts
relating to the river Indus, he ascertained from the natives that the
Hydaspês unites with the Akesinês, and the Akesinês with the Indus, to
which the other two rivers lose both their waters and their names. He
learned further that the Indus discharges itself into the Great Sea by
two mouths, and that it has no connection with the Egyptian country.
He is said to have then deleted what he had written about the Nile in
the letter to his mother, and as he had set his mind on sailing down
the rivers to the Great Sea he ordered a fleet for this purpose to be
prepared for him. Adequate crews for the vessels were supplied by the
Phoenicians, Cyprians, Karians, and Egyptians who accompanied the army.


_Chapter II.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês_

At this time Koinos, who was one of Alexander’s most faithful
companions, took ill and died, and his master buried him with all the
magnificence circumstances allowed. He then assembled the Companions and
all the ambassadors of the Indians who had come to him, and in their
presence appointed Pôros king of all the Indian territories already
subjugated—seven nations in all, containing more than 2000 cities.
He then made the following distribution of his army. He took in the
ships along with himself all the hypaspists, and the archers, and the
Agrianians, and the corps of horse-guards.[146] Krateros commanding
a division of the infantry and cavalry, conducted it along the right
bank of the Hydaspês, while Hêphaistiôn on the opposite bank advanced
in command of the largest and best division of the army, to which the
elephants, now about 200 in number, were attached. These generals were
instructed to march with all possible speed to where the palace of
Sôpeithês[147] was situated. Philippos, the satrap of the province
lying west of the Indus in the direction of the Baktrians, received
orders to follow them with his troops after an interval of three days,
but the cavalry of the Nysaians he now sent back to Nysa. The command
of the whole naval squadron was entrusted to Nearchos, while the pilot
of Alexander’s own ship was Onêsikritos, who, in the narrative which he
composed about the wars of Alexander, among his other lies, described
himself as the commander of the fleet, although he was in reality only
a pilot. According to Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, whose authority I
principally follow, the ships numbered collectively eighty thirty-oared
galleys, but the whole fleet, including the horse-transports and the
small craft and other river boats consisting of those that formerly plied
on the rivers and those recently built for the present service, did not
fall much short of 2000.[148]


_Chapter III.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês continued_

When all the preparations had been completed, the army at break of day
began to embark. Alexander himself sacrificed according to custom both
to the gods and to the river Akesinês as the seers directed. After he
had embarked he poured a libation into the river, from his station on
the prow, out of a golden bowl, and invoked not only the Hydaspês, but
also the Akesinês, as he had learned that the Akesinês was the greatest
of all the confluents of the Hydaspês, and that their point of junction
was not far off. He invoked likewise the Indus, into which the Akesinês
falls after receiving the Hydaspês. He further poured out libations to
his ancestor Heraklês, and to Ammôn[149] and every other god to whom it
was his custom to sacrifice, and then he ordered the signal for starting
on the voyage to be given by sound of trumpet. The fleet as soon as the
signal sounded began the voyage in due order, for directions had been
given at what distances the luggage-boats, the horse-transports, and
the war-galleys should keep apart from each other to prevent collisions
which would be inevitable if the ships sailed at random down the channel.
Even the fast sailers were not allowed to break rank by out-distancing
the others. The noise caused by the rowing was great beyond all
precedent, proceeding as it did from a vast number of boats being rowed
simultaneously, and swelled by the shouts of the officers directing the
rowing to begin or to stop, commingled with the shouts of the rowers,
which rung like the war-cry when they joined together in keeping time
to the dashing of the oars. The banks, moreover, being in many places
higher than the ships, and compressing the sound within a narrow compass,
sent the echoes, greatly increased by the compression itself, flying
to and fro between them. The ravines also which occasionally opened on
the river on either of its shores served further to swell the din by
reverberating amid their solitudes the thuds of the oars. The appearance
of the war-horses on the decks of the transports struck the barbarians,
who saw them through the lattice work, with such wonder and astonishment,
that the throng which lined the shores to witness the departure of the
fleet accompanied it to a great distance, for in the country of the
Indians horses had never before been seen on shipboard, nor was there
any tradition to the effect that the Indian expedition of Dionysos was
of a naval character. Those Indians also who had already submitted to
Alexander, as soon as they heard the shouts of the rowers and the dashing
of the oars, ran down to the edge of the river and followed the fleet,
singing their wild native chaunts, for the Indians have been peculiarly
distinguished among the nations as lovers of dance and song, ever since
Dionysos and his attendant Bacchanals made their festive progress through
the realms of India.[150]


_Chapter IV.—Alexander accelerates his voyage to frustrate the plans of
the Malloi and Oxydrakai, and reaches the turbulent confluence of the
Hydaspês and Akesinês_

Alexander sailing thus,[151] halted on the third day at the place where
he had ordered Hêphaistiôn and Krateros to pitch their camps right
opposite each other, each on his own side of the river.[152] Having
waited here for two days until Philippos arrived with the rest of the
army, he sent that general forward with the detachment he had brought
with him to the river Akesinês, with orders to continue his march along
the banks of that river. He also sent Krateros and Hêphaistiôn off
again with instructions how they were to conduct the march. He himself
continued his voyage down the river Hydaspês, which was found throughout
the passage to be nowhere less than twenty stadia in breadth. Mooring his
boats wherever he could on the banks, he subjected the Indians who lived
near the Hydaspês to his authority, some having surrendered on terms
of capitulation, and such as resorted to arms, having been subdued by
force. He then sailed rapidly to the country of the Malloi and Oxydrakai,
because he had ascertained that they were the most numerous and warlike
of all the Indian tribes in those parts, and news had reached him that
they had conveyed their children, and their wives for safety into their
strongest cities, and that they meant themselves to give him a hostile
reception. He in consequence prosecuted the voyage with still greater
speed, so that he might attack them before they had settled their plans,
and while their preparations were still incomplete and they were in a
state of confusion and alarm. On the fifth day after he had started
from the place where he had halted, and been joined by Krateros and
Hêphaistiôn, he reached the junction of the Hydaspês and Akesinês. Where
these rivers unite the one river formed from them is very narrow, and
not only is the current swift from the narrowness of the channel, but
the waters whirl round in monstrous eddies, curl up in great billows,
and dash so violently that the roar of the surge is distinctly heard by
those who are still a great distance off. All this had been previously
reported by the natives to Alexander, and he had repeated the information
to the soldiers; but, notwithstanding, when the army in approaching the
confluence caught the roar of the stream, the sailors simultaneously
suspended the action of the oars, not at any order from the boatswains,
who had become mute from astonishment, but because they were stunned with
terror by the thundering noise.[153]


_Chapter V.—Dangers encountered by the fleet at the confluence—Plan of
the operations which followed—Voyage down the Akesinês_

When they were not far from the meeting of the rivers, the pilots
enjoined the rowers to put all their strength to the oars to clear the
rapids, so that the vessels might not be caught and capsized in the
eddies, but by the exertions of the rowers might overcome the whirling
of the waters. The merchant vessels accordingly, if they happened to be
whirled round by the current, suffered no damage from the eddy, beyond
the alarm caused to the men on board, for these vessels, being of a round
form, were kept upright by the current itself, and settled into the
proper course. But the ships of war did not escape so unscathed from the
eddying stream, for, owing to their length, they were not upheaved in
the same way as the others on the seething surges, and if they had two
banks of oars, the lower oars were not raised much above the level of the
water. When the broad sides, therefore, of these vessels were exposed
to the eddying current, their oars, if not lifted in proper time, were
caught by the water and the blades snapped asunder. Many of the ships
were thus damaged, and two which fell foul of each other sunk with the
greater part of their crews. But when the river began to widen out, the
current was no longer so rapid and dangerous, and the impetuosity of the
eddies diminished. Alexander therefore brought his fleet to moorings
on the right bank where there was a protection from the strength of
the current and a roadstead for the ships. Here was also a headland
projecting into the river which afforded facilities for collecting the
wrecks and whatever living freight they brought. He saved the survivors;
and when he had repaired the damaged craft, ordered Nearchos to sail
downward till he reached the confines of the nation called the Malloi. He
made himself an inroad into the territories of the barbarians who refused
their submission,[154] and prevented them sending succours to the Malloi.
He then rejoined the fleet.

Hêphaistiôn, Krateros, and Philippos had there already united their
forces. He then transported to the other side of the river Hydaspês
the elephants, the brigade of Polysperchôn, the archers, and Philippos
with the troops under his command, and appointed Krateros to conduct
this expedition. Nearchos he despatched in command of the fleet, and
instructed him to start on the voyage three days before the departure of
the army. The rest of his forces he divided into three parts. Hêphaistiôn
was directed to set out five days in advance, so that if any of the
enemy fled forward before the division commanded by the king in person
they might be captured, when endeavouring to escape in that direction,
by falling into Hêphaistiôn’s hands. He gave also a part of the army to
Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, with orders to follow him three days later, so
that such of the enemy as fled backward from his own troops might fall
into the hands of those under Ptolemy.[155] The detachment that marched
in advance he ordered to wait until he himself should come up at the
confluence of the Akesinês and Hydraôtês,[156] where Krateros and Ptolemy
had orders to join him with their divisions.


_Chapter VI.—Alexander invades the territories of the Malloi_

Alexander selected for his own division the hypaspists, the archers,
the Agrianians, the corps of foot-guards under Peithôn, all the
horse-archers, and the half of the companion cavalry, and led them
through a waterless tract of country against the Malloi,[157] a race of
independent Indians. On the first day he encamped near a small stream
which was twenty stadia distant from the river Akesinês. Having dined
there and allowed the army a short time for repose, he ordered every
man to fill whatever vessel he had with water. He then marched during
the remainder of the day and all night a distance of about 400 stadia,
and with the dawn arrived before a city to which many of the Malloi had
fled for refuge. As they never imagined that Alexander would come to
attack them through the waterless desert, most of them were abroad in the
fields, and without their arms; and just as it was manifest that he led
his forces by this route because of the difficulties it presented, so did
it appear to the enemy past belief that he would conduct an army by a way
so perilous. He thus fell upon them unexpectedly, and slew most of them
without their even turning to offer resistance, since they were unarmed.
The rest he shut up within the city, and as the phalanx of infantry had
not yet arrived, he posted the cavalry in a cordon round the wall, thus
making it serve for a stockade. No sooner, however, did the infantry come
up than he despatched Perdikkas with his own cavalry regiment and that
of Kleitos, together with the Agrianians, to another city of the Malloi,
into which many of the Indians of that district had fled for refuge.
He was enjoined to blockade the men in the city, but not to attempt
to storm the place until his own arrival, so that no one might escape
and carry the news of Alexander’s approach to the other barbarians. He
then made an assault upon the wall, which the barbarians abandoned on
seeing it could no longer hold out, since many had been killed during
the siege, and others disabled for fighting by reason of their wounds.
They fled into the citadel, which, being seated on a commanding height
and difficult of access, they continued to defend for some time. As
the Macedonians, however, vigorously pressed the attack at all points,
while Alexander himself was seen everywhere urging forward the work, the
citadel was stormed, and all the men who had fled to it for refuge were
put to the sword to the number of 2000.[158]

Perdikkas meanwhile reached the city whither he had been sent, but on
learning that the inhabitants had not long before fled from it, he rode
away at full gallop on the track of the fugitives, while the light troops
followed him on foot as fast as they could. Some of the fugitives he
overtook and killed, but such as had been too quick for him made their
escape to the river marshes.[159]


_Chapter VII.—Siege and capture of several Mallian strongholds_

Alexander having dined and allowed his troops to rest till the first
watch of the night, began to march forward, and having travelled a great
distance in the night, arrived at the river Hydraôtês at daybreak. There
he learned that many of the Malloi had already crossed to the other bank,
but he fell upon others who were in the act of crossing and slew many
of them during the passage. He crossed the river along with them, just
as he was, and by the same ford. He then closely pursued the fugitives
who had outstripped him in their retreat. Many of these he slew and he
captured others, but most of them escaped to a position of great natural
strength which was also strongly fortified.[160] But when the infantry
came up with him, Alexander sent Peithôn with his own brigade and two
squadrons of cavalry against the fugitives. This detachment attacked the
stronghold, captured it at the first assault, and made slaves of all who
had fled into it, except, of course, those who had fallen in the attack.
Then Peithôn and his men, their task fulfilled, returned to the camp.

Alexander himself next led his army against a certain city of the
Brachmans,[161] because he had learned that many of the Malloi had fled
thither for refuge. On reaching it he led the phalanx in compact ranks
against all parts of the wall. The inhabitants, on finding the walls
undermined, and that they were themselves obliged to retire before the
storm of missiles, left the walls and fled to the citadel, and began
to defend themselves from thence. But as a few Macedonians had rushed
in along with them, they rallied, and turning round in a body upon the
pursuers, drove some from the citadel and killed twenty-five of them in
their retreat. Upon this Alexander ordered his men to apply the scaling
ladders to the citadel on all its sides, and to undermine its walls; and
when an undermined tower had fallen and a breach had been made in the
wall between two towers, thus exposing the citadel to attack in that
quarter, Alexander was seen to be the first man to scale and lay hold of
the wall. Upon seeing this, the rest of the Macedonians for very shame
ascended the wall at various points, and quickly had the citadel in their
hands. Some of the Indians set fire to their houses, in which they were
caught and killed, but most part fell fighting. About 5000 in all were
killed, and, as they were men of spirit, a few only were taken prisoners.


_Chapter VIII.—Alexander defeats the Malloi at the Hydraôtês_

He remained there one day to give his army rest, and next day he
moved forward to attack the rest of the Malloi. He found their cities
abandoned, and ascertained that the inhabitants had fled into the desert.
There he again allowed the army a day’s rest, and next day sent Peithôn
and Dêmêtrios, the cavalry commander, back to the river with their own
troops, and as many battalions of light-armed infantry as the nature of
the work required. He directed them to march along the edge of the river,
and if they came upon any of those who had fled for refuge to the jungle,
of which there were numerous patches along the river-bank, to put them
all to death unless they voluntarily surrendered. The troops under these
two officers captured many of the fugitives in these jungles and killed
them.

He marched himself against the largest city of the Malloi, to which
he was informed many men from their other cities had fled for safety.
The Indians, however, abandoned this place also when they heard that
Alexander was approaching. They then crossed the Hydraôtês, and with
a view to obstruct Alexander’s passage, remained drawn up in order of
battle upon the banks, because they were very steep. On learning this,
he took all the cavalry which he had with him, and marched to that part
of the Hydraôtês where he had been told the Malloi were posted; and the
infantry were directed to follow after him. When he came to the river
and descried the enemy drawn up on the opposite bank, he plunged at
once, just as he was after the march, into the ford, with the cavalry
only. When the enemy saw Alexander now in the middle of the stream they
withdrew in haste, but yet in good order, from the bank, and Alexander
pursued them with the cavalry only. But when the Indians perceived he
had nothing but a party of horse with him, they faced round and fought
stoutly, being about 50,000 in number. Alexander, perceiving that their
phalanx was very compact, and his own infantry not on the ground, rode
along all round them, and sometimes charged their ranks, but not at close
quarters. Meanwhile the Agrianians and other battalions of light-armed
infantry, which consisted of picked men, arrived on the field along with
the archers, while the phalanx of infantry was showing in sight at no
great distance off. As they were threatened at once with so many dangers,
the Indians wheeled round, and with headlong speed fled to the strongest
of all the cities that lay near.[162] Alexander killed many of them in
the pursuit, while those who escaped to the city were shut up within its
walls. At first, therefore, he surrounded the place with his horsemen as
soon as they came up from the march. But when the infantry arrived he
encamped around the wall on every side for the remainder of this day—a
time too short for making an assault, to say nothing of the great fatigue
his army had undergone, the infantry from their long march, and the
cavalry by the continuous pursuit, and especially by the passage of the
river.


_Chapter IX.—Alexander assails the chief stronghold of the Malloi, scales
the wall of the citadel, into which he leaps down though alone_

On the following day, dividing his army into two parts, he himself
assaulted the wall at the head of one division, while Perdikkas led
forward the other. Upon this the Indians, without waiting to receive the
attack of the Macedonians, abandoned the walls and fled for refuge to the
citadel. Alexander and his troops therefore burst open a small gate, and
entered the city long before the others. But Perdikkas and the troops
under his command entered it much later, having found it no easy work to
surmount the walls. The most of them, in fact, had neglected to bring
scaling ladders, for when they saw the wall left without defenders they
took it for granted that the city had actually been captured. But when
it became clear that the enemy was still in possession of the citadel,
and that many of them were drawn up in front of it to repel attack, the
Macedonians endeavoured to force their way into it, some by sapping the
walls, and others by applying the scaling ladders wherever that was
practicable. Alexander, thinking that the Macedonians who carried the
ladders were loitering too much, snatched one from the man who carried
it, placed it against the wall, and began to ascend, cowering the while
under his shield. The next to follow was Peukestas, who carried the
sacred shield which Alexander had taken from the temple of the Ilian
Athênâ, and which he used to keep with him and have carried before
him in all his battles.[163] Next to him Leonnatos, an officer of the
bodyguard, ascended by the same ladder; and by a different ladder Abreas,
one of those soldiers who for superior merit drew double pay[164] and
allowances. The king was now near the coping of the wall, and resting his
shield against it, was pushing some of the Indians within the fort, and
had cleared the parapet by killing others with his sword. The hypaspists,
now alarmed beyond measure for the king’s safety, pushed each other in
their haste up the same ladder and broke it, so that those who were
already mounting it fell down and made the ascent impracticable for
others.

Alexander, while standing on the wall, was then assailed on every side
from the adjacent towers, for none of the Indians had the courage to come
near him. He was assailed also by men in the city, who threw darts at
him from no great distance off, for it so happened that a mound of earth
had been thrown up in that quarter close to the wall. Alexander was,
moreover, a conspicuous object both by the splendour of his arms[165]
and the astonishing audacity he displayed. He then perceived that if he
remained where he was, he would be exposed to danger without being able
to achieve anything noteworthy, but if he leaped down into the citadel
he might perhaps by this very act paralyse the Indians with terror, and
if he did not, but necessarily incurred danger, he would in that case
not die ignobly, but after performing great deeds worth being remembered
by the men of after times. Having so resolved, he leaped down from the
wall into the citadel. Then, supporting himself against the wall, he slew
with his sword some who assailed him at close quarters, and in particular
the governor of the Indians, who had rushed upon him too boldly. Against
another Indian whom he saw approaching, he hurled a stone to check his
advance, and another he similarly repelled. If any one came within nearer
reach, he again used his sword. The barbarians had then no further wish
to approach him, but standing around assailed him from all quarters with
whatever missiles they carried or could lay their hands on.


_Chapter X.—Alexander is dangerously wounded within the citadel_

At this crisis Peukestas, and Abreas the dimoirite, and after them
Leonnatos, the only men who succeeded in reaching the top of the wall
before the ladder broke, leaped down and began fighting in front of
the king. But there Abreas fell, pierced in the forehead by an arrow.
Alexander himself was also struck by one which pierced through his
cuirass into his chest above the pap, so that, as Ptolemy says, air
gurgled from the wound along with the blood. But sorely wounded as he
was, he continued to defend himself as long as his blood was still warm.
Since much blood, however, kept gushing out with every breath he drew,
a dizziness and faintness seized him, and he fell where he stood in a
collapse upon his shield. Peukestas then bestrode him where he fell,
holding up in front of him the sacred shield which had been taken from
Ilion, while Leonnatos protected him from side attacks. But both these
men were severely wounded, and Alexander was now on the point of swooning
away from the loss of blood. As for the Macedonians, they were at a
loss how to make their way into the citadel, because those who had seen
Alexander shot at upon the wall and then leap down inside it had broken
down the ladders up which they were rushing in all haste, dreading lest
their king, in recklessly exposing himself to danger, should come by some
hurt. In their perplexity they devised various plans for ascending the
wall. It was made of earth, and so some drove pegs into it, and swinging
themselves up by means of these, scrambled with difficulty to the top.
Others ascended by mounting one upon the other. The man who first reached
the top flung himself headlong from the wall into the city, and was
followed by the others. There, when they saw the king fallen prostrate,
they all raised loud lamentations and outcries of grief. And now around
his fallen form a desperate struggle ensued, one Macedonian after another
holding his shield in front of him. In the meantime, some of the soldiers
having shattered the bar by which the gate in the wall between the towers
was secured, made their way into the city a few at a time, and others,
when they saw that a rift was made in the gate, put their shoulders
under it, and having then pushed it into the space within the wall,
opened an entrance into the citadel in that quarter.


_Chapter XI.—Dangerous nature of Alexander’s wound—Arrian refutes some
current fictions relating to this accident_

Upon this some began to kill the Indians, and in the massacre spared
none, neither man, woman, nor child. Others bore off the king upon his
shield. His condition was very low, and they could not yet tell whether
he was likely to survive. Some writers have asserted that Kritodêmos, a
physician of Kôs, an Asklêpiad by birth,[166] extracted the weapon from
the wound by making an incision where the blow had struck. Other writers,
however, say that as no surgeon was present at this terrible crisis,
Perdikkas, an officer of the bodyguard, at Alexander’s own desire, made
an incision into the wound with his sword and removed the weapon. Its
removal was followed by such a copious effusion of blood that Alexander
again swooned, and the swoon had the effect of staunching the flux. Many
fictions also have been recorded by historians concerning this accident,
and Fame, receiving them from the original inventors, has preserved
them to our own day, nor will she cease to transmit the falsehoods to
one generation after another except they be finally suppressed by this
history.

The common account, for example, is that this accident befell Alexander
among the Oxydrakai, but in fact it occurred among the Malloi an
independent Indian nation. The city belonged to the Malloi, and the men
who wounded Alexander were Malloi. They had certainly agreed to combine
with the Oxydrakai and give battle to the common enemy, but Alexander had
thwarted this design by his sudden and rapid march through the waterless
country, whereby these tribes were prevented from giving each other
mutual help. To take another instance, according to the common account,
the last battle fought with Darius (that at which he fled, nor paused in
his flight till he was seized by the soldiers of Bêssos and murdered at
Alexander’s approach) took place at Arbêla, just as the previous battle
came off at Issos, and the first cavalry action at the Granikos. Now this
cavalry action was really fought at the Granikos, and the next battle
with Darius at Issos. But Arbêla is distant from the field where Darius
and Alexander had their last battle 600 stadia according to those authors
who make the distance greatest, and 500 stadia according to those who
make it least. But Ptolemy and Aristoboulos say that the battle took
place at Gaugamêla near the river Boumodos. Gaugamêla, however, was not
a city, but merely a good-sized village, a place of no distinction,
and bearing a name which offends the ear. This seems to me the reason
why Arbêla, which was a city, has carried off the glory of the great
battle.[167] But if we must perforce consider that this battle took
place near Arbêla, though fought at so great a distance off, then we may
as well say that the sea fight at Salamis came off near the Isthmus of
Corinth, and the sea-fight at Artemision in Euboia, near Aigina or Sunium.

With regard again to those who protected Alexander with their shields in
his peril, all agree that Peukestas was of the number, but with respect
to Leonnatos and Abreas the dimoirite, they are no longer in harmony.
Some say that Alexander received a blow on his helmet from a bludgeon
and fell down in an access of dizziness, and that on regaining his
feet he was hit by a dart which pierced through his breastplate into
his chest. But Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, says that this wound in his
chest was the only one he received. I take, however, the following to be
the greatest error into which the historians of Alexander have fallen.
Some have written that Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, along with Peukestas
mounted the ladder together with Alexander; that Ptolemy held his shield
over him when he was lying on the ground, and that he thence received
the surname of Sôtêr.[168] And yet Ptolemy himself has recorded that he
was not present at this conflict, but was fighting elsewhere against
other barbarians, in command of a different division of the army. Let me
mention these facts in digressing from my narrative that the men of after
times may not regard it as a matter of indifference how these great deeds
and great sufferings are reported.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.—PTOLEMY SÔTÊR.]


_Chapter XII.—Distress and anxiety of the army at the prospect of
Alexander’s death_

While Alexander remained at this place to be cured of his wound, the
first news which reached the camp whence he had started to attack the
Malloi was that he had died of his wound. Then there arose at first a
loud lamentation from the whole army, as the mournful tidings spread
from man to man. But when their lamentation was ended, they gave way
to despondency and anxious doubts about the appointment of a commander
to the army, for among the officers many could advance claims to that
dignity which both to Alexander and the Macedonians seemed of equal
weight. They were also in fear and doubt how they could be conducted
home in safety, surrounded as they were on all hands by warlike nations,
some not yet reduced, but likely to fight resolutely for their freedom,
while others would to a certainty revolt when relieved from their fear of
Alexander. They seemed besides to be just then among impassable rivers,
while the whole outlook presented nothing but inextricable difficulties
when they wanted their king. But on receiving word that he was still
alive, they could hardly think it true, or persuade themselves that he
was likely to recover. Even when a letter came from the king himself
intimating that he would soon come down to the camp, most of them from
the excess of fear which possessed them distrusted the news, for they
fancied that the letter was a forgery concocted by his body-guards and
generals.


_Chapter XIII.—Joy of the army on seeing Alexander after his recovery—His
officers rebuke him for his rashness_

On coming to know this, Alexander, anxious to prevent any commotions
arising in the army, as soon as he could bear the fatigue, had himself
conveyed to the banks of the river Hydraôtês, and embarking there,
he sailed down the river to reach the camp, at the junction of the
Hydraôtês and the Akesinês, where Hêphaistiôn commanded the land forces
and Nearchos the fleet. When the vessel which carried the king was now
approaching the camp, he ordered the awning to be removed from the
poop that he might be visible to all. They were, however, even yet
incredulous, supposing that the freight of the vessel was Alexander’s
dead body, until he neared the bank, when he raised his arm and stretched
out his hand to the multitude. Then the men raised a loud cheer, and
lifted up their hands, some towards heaven and some towards Alexander
himself. Tears even started involuntarily to the eyes of not a few at
the unexpected sight. Some of the hypaspists brought him a litter where
he was carried ashore from the vessel, but he called for his horse. When
he was seen once more on horseback, the whole army greeted him with loud
acclamations, which filled with their echoes the shores and all the
surrounding hills and dales. On approaching his tent he dismounted that
he might be seen walking. Then the soldiers crowded round him, touching
some his hands, others his knees, and others nothing but his raiment.
Some, satisfied with nothing more than a near view, went away with
expressions of admiration. Others again covered him with garlands, and
others with the flowers of the clime and the season.

Nearchos says that he was offended with certain of his friends who
reproached him for exposing himself to danger when leading the army,
for this, they said, was not the duty of a commander, but of a common
soldier, and it seems to me that Alexander resented these remarks because
he felt their truth, and knew he had laid himself open to censure. Owing,
however, to his prowess in fighting and his love of glory, he, like other
men who are swayed by some predominant pleasure, yielded to temptation,
lacking sufficient force of will to hold aloof from dangers. Nearchos
also says that a certain elderly Boiôtian (whose name he does not give)
observing that Alexander resented the censures of his friends, and was
giving them sour looks, approached him, and in the Boiôtian tongue thus
addressed him: “O Alexander, it is for heroes to do great deeds,” and
then he subjoined an Iambic verse, the purport of which was that he who
did any great deed was bound also to suffer.[169] The man, it is said,
not only found favour with Alexander, but was admitted afterwards to
closer intimacy.


_Chapter XIV.—Submission of the Malloi, Oxydrakai, and others—Voyage down
the Hydraôtês and Akesinês to the Indus_

At this time envoys came to Alexander from the Malloi who still survived,
tendering the submission of the nation; and from the Oxydrakai came the
leading men of their cities and their provincial governors, besides 150
of their most eminent men, entrusted with full powers to conclude a
treaty. They brought with them those presents which the Indians consider
the choicest, and, like the Malloi, tendered the submission of their
nation. Their error in so long delaying to send an embassy was, they
said, pardonable, for they were attached more than others to freedom
and autonomy, and their freedom they had preserved intact from the
time Dionysos came to India until Alexander’s arrival. Since, however,
Alexander was also, according to current report, of the race of the
gods, they were willing, if he so pleased, to receive whatever satrap
Alexander might appoint, pay the tribute he chose to impose, and give
as many hostages as he required. Upon this he asked for a 1000 men, the
flower of the nation, to be retained, if he thought good, as hostages,
but, if not, to be employed as auxiliaries until he had finished the war
against the other Indians. They selected accordingly 1000 men, their
best and tallest, and sent them to him, together with 500 chariots and
their charioteers, though these were not demanded. Alexander appointed
Philippos as satrap over that nation and over the Malloi who still
survived. The hostages he sent back, but he kept the chariots.

When these arrangements had been completed, and many vessels had been
built in the interval while his wound was healing, he put on board the
fleet 1700 of the cavalry companions, the same number of light-armed
troops as before, and about 10,000 infantry, and sailed a short distance
down the river Hydraôtês. But when the Hydraôtês fell into the Akesinês
he continued the voyage down the latter river (which in preference to
the Hydraôtês gives its name to the united stream) until he reached the
junction of the Akesinês with the Indus. For these four vast rivers which
are all navigable yield up their waters to the river Indus, but not each
of them under its own special name. For the Hydaspês discharges into the
Akesinês, and the single stream then forms what is called the Akesinês.
But this Akesinês again unites with the Hydraôtês, and after absorbing
this river is still the Akesinês. The Akesinês after this receives the
Hyphasis,[170] and still keeping its own name falls into the Indus, but
after the junction it resigns its name to that river. Hence I am ready to
believe that the Indus from this point to where it bifurcates to form the
Delta expands to a breadth of 100 stadia or even more in places where it
spreads out more like a lake than a river.


_Chapter XV.—Appointment of Satraps—Voyage down the Indus to the
dominions of Mousikanos, who tenders his submission_

There at the confluence of the Akesinês and Indus he waited until
Perdikkas arrived with his forces. This general in the course of his
march had subjugated the Abastanoi,[171] one of the independent tribes.
Meanwhile there arrived at the camp other thirty-oared galleys and
transport vessels which had been built for him among the Xathroi,[172]
another independent tribe of Indians whose submission he had received.
From the Ossadioi[173] also, another independent tribe, came envoys
offering the submission of their nation. Alexander then fixed the
confluence of the Akesinês and Indus as the boundary of the satrapy of
Philippos, and left with him all the Thracians and as many foot-soldiers
as seemed sufficient for the defence of his province. Then he ordered
a city to be founded there at the very confluence of the rivers,[174]
hoping it would become a great city and make a name for itself in the
world. He ordered also the construction of dockyards. At this time the
Baktrian Oxyartês, the father of Alexander’s wife Roxana, arrived, and on
him he bestowed the satrapy of the Parapamisadai after dismissing the
previous satrap Tyriaspês, who had been reported guilty of irregularities
in the exercise of his authority.

Then he transported Krateros, with the bulk of the army and the
elephants, to the left side of the river Indus, because the route along
that bank of the river seemed easier for an army heavily accoutred, and
because the tribes inhabiting those parts were not quite friendly. He
sailed himself down to the capital of the Sôgdoi, where he fortified
another city, constructed other dockyards, and repaired his damaged
vessels. He then appointed Oxyartês and Peithôn satraps of the country
which extended from the confluence of the Indus and Akesinês to the sea,
together with the whole sea-board of India.[175]

Krateros he again despatched with the army [through the country of the
Arachôtians and Drangians]; while he sailed down himself to the realm
of Mousikanos,[176] which was reported to be the most opulent in India,
because that sovereign had neither come to surrender himself and his
country, nor sent envoys to seek his friendship. He had not even sent
presents to show the respect due to a mighty king, nor had he asked any
favour from Alexander. He therefore made the voyage down the river so
rapidly that he reached the frontiers of the country of Mousikanos before
that prince had even heard that Alexander had started to attack him.
Mousikanos, dismayed by his sudden arrival, hastened to meet him, taking
the choicest presents India could offer and all his elephants with him.
He offered to surrender both his nation and himself, and acknowledged his
error, which was the most effective way with Alexander to obtain from him
whatever one wanted. Alexander therefore granted Mousikanos a full pardon
on account of his submission and penitence, expressed much admiration of
his capital and his realm, and confirmed him in his sovereignty. Krateros
was then ordered to fortify the citadel which protected the capital, and
this work was executed while Alexander was still on the spot. A garrison
was placed in the fortress, which he thought suitable for keeping the
surrounding tribes in subjection.


_Chapter XVI.—Campaign against Oxykanos and Sambos_

Then he took the archers and the Agrianians and the cavalry which was
sailing with him, and marched against the governor of a district in
that part of the country whose name was Oxykanos, because he neither
came himself nor sent envoys to offer the surrender of himself and his
country.[177] At the first assault he took by storm the two largest
cities under the rule of Oxykanos, in the second of which that chief
himself was taken prisoner. The booty he gave to the army, but the
elephants he led away and reserved for himself. The other cities in
the same country surrendered without attempting resistance wherever he
advanced; so much were the minds of all the Indians paralysed with abject
terror by Alexander and the success of his arms.

He then advanced against Sambos, whom he had appointed satrap of the
Indian mountaineers, and who was reported to have fled on hearing that
Mousikanos had been pardoned by Alexander, and was ruling his own
land, for he and Mousikanos were on hostile terms. But when Alexander
approached the city called Sindimana,[178] which formed the metropolis of
the country of Sambos, the gates were thrown open on his arrival, and the
members of the household of Sambos with his treasure (of which they had
reckoned up the amount) and his elephants went forth to meet him. Sambos,
these men informed him, had fled, not from hostility to Alexander, but
from fears to which the pardon of Mousikanos had given rise. He captured
besides another city,[179] which had at this time revolted, and he put to
death all those Brachmans who had instigated the revolt. These Brachmans
are the philosophers of the Indians, and of their philosophy, if so it
may be called, I shall give an account in my work which describes India.


_Chapter XVII.—Mousikanos is captured by Peithôn and executed—Alexander
reaches Patala at the apex of the Indus Delta_

Meantime he received word that Mousikanos had revolted. Thereupon he
despatched the satrap Peithôn, the son of Agênor, against him with an
adequate force, while he marched himself against the cities which had
been placed under the rule of Mousikanos. Some of these he razed to
the ground after reducing the inhabitants to slavery; into others he
introduced garrisons and fortified their citadels. When these operations
were finished he returned to the camp and the fleet—whither Mousikanos
was conducted, who had been taken prisoner by Peithôn. Alexander ordered
the rebel to be taken to his own country and hanged there, together with
all those Brachmans who had instigated him to revolt. Then there came to
him the ruler of the country of the Patalians, which, as I have stated,
consists of the Delta formed by the river Indus, and is larger than the
Egyptian Delta. This chief surrendered to him the whole of his land, and
entrusted both himself and all his possessions to him. Alexander sent him
back to his government with orders to make all due preparations for the
reception of his expedition. He then sent away Krateros into Karmania
by the route through the Arachôtians and the Sarangians,[180] leading
the brigades of Attalos, Meleager, and Antigenês, along with some of
the archers and such of the companions and other Macedonians as he was
sending home to Macedonia as unfit for further service. He also sent away
the elephants with him. The rest of the army, except that portion which
with himself was sailing down to the sea, was placed under the command of
Hêphaistiôn. Peithôn, who led the horse-lancers and the Agrianians, he
transported to the opposite bank so that he might not be on that side of
the river by which Hêphaistiôn was to advance. Peithôn was instructed to
put colonists into the cities which had just been fortified, to suppress
any insurrection which the Indians might attempt, to introduce settled
order among them, and then to join him at Patala.

On the third day after Alexander had started on the voyage, he was
informed that the Prince of Patala was fleeing from that city, taking
with him most of its inhabitants, and leaving the country deserted.
He accordingly accelerated his voyage down the river, and on reaching
Patala found that both the city itself and the cultivated lands which lay
around it had been deserted by the inhabitants. But he despatched his
lightest troops in pursuit of the fugitives, and when some of these had
been captured sent them on to their countrymen to bid them take courage
and return, for they were free to inhabit their city and cultivate their
lands as formerly; and so most of them did return.[181]


_Chapter XVIII.—Alexander orders wells to be dug in the district round
Patala, and sails down the western arm of the Indus_

After directing Hêphaistiôn to construct a citadel in Patala, he sent out
men into the adjacent country, which was waterless, to dig wells[182] and
make it habitable. Some of the barbarians in the neighbourhood attacked
them, and, as they fell upon them quite unexpectedly, killed several of
their number, but as the assailants lost many on their own side, they
fled to the desert. The men were thus able to complete the work they were
sent to execute, especially as Alexander, on learning that they had been
attacked by the barbarians, had sent additional troops to take part in
the work.

Near Patala the stream of the Indus is divided into two large
rivers,[183] both of which retain the name of the Indus till they enter
the sea. Here Alexander set about the construction of a roadstead and
dock, and when some satisfactory progress had been made with these
undertakings, he resolved to sail down to the mouth of the right arm of
the river.[184] To Leonnatos he gave the command of about 1000 cavalry
and 8000 heavy and light infantry, and despatched him to move down the
island of Patala, holding along the shore in a line with the squadron of
ships. He set out himself on a voyage down the right arm of the river,
taking with him the fastest vessels with one and a half bank of oars,
all the thirty-oared galleys, and several of the smaller craft. As the
Indians of that region had fled, he had no pilot to direct his course,
and this made the navigation all the more difficult. Then on the second
day after he had started a storm arose, and the gale blowing against the
current made deep furrows in the river, and battered the hulls of the
vessels so violently that most of his ships were damaged, while some of
the thirty-oared galleys were completely wrecked, though the sailors
managed to run them on shore before they went all to pieces in the
water. Other vessels were therefore constructed; and Alexander, having
despatched the quickest of the light-armed troops some distance into
the interior, captured some Indians, whom he employed in piloting his
fleet for the rest of the voyage. But when they found themselves where
the river expands to the vast breadth of 200 stadia the wind blew strong
from the outer sea, and the oars could scarcely be raised in the swell.
They therefore again drew toward the shore for refuge, and the fleet was
steered by the pilots into the mouth of a canal.


_Chapter XIX.—The fleet is damaged by the tide, halts at an island in the
Indus, and thence reaches the open sea_

While the fleet was at anchor here, a vicissitude to which the Great Sea
is subject occurred, for the tide ebbed, and their ships were left on
dry ground. This phenomenon, of which Alexander and his followers had
no previous experience, caused them no little alarm, and greater still
was their dismay, when in due course of time the tide advanced, and the
hulls of the vessels were floated aloft. Those vessels which it found
settled in the soft mud were uplifted without damage, and floated again,
nothing the worse for the strain; but as for those vessels which had been
left on a drier part of the beach, and were not firmly embedded, some
on the advance of a massive wave fell foul of each other, while others
were dashed upon the strand and shattered in pieces.[185] Alexander
caused these vessels to be repaired as well as circumstances allowed,
and despatched men in advance down the river in two boats to explore an
island at which the natives informed him he must anchor on his way to the
sea. They said that the name of the island was Killouta.[186] When he
learned that the island had harbours, was of great extent, and yielded
water, he ordered the rest of the fleet to make its way thither, but he
himself with the fastest sailing ships advanced beyond the island to see
the mouth of the river, and ascertain whether it offered a safe and easy
passage out into the open main. When they had proceeded about 200 stadia
beyond the island, they descried another which lay out in the sea. Then
they returned to the island in the river, and Alexander, having anchored
his ships near its extremity, offered sacrifice to those gods to whom, he
said, Ammôn had enjoined him to sacrifice. On the following day he sailed
down to the other island which lay in the ocean, and approaching close to
it also, offered other sacrifices to other gods and in another manner.
These sacrifices, like the others, he offered under sanction of an oracle
given by Ammôn. He then advanced beyond the mouths of the river Indus,
and sailed out into the great main to discover, as he declared, whether
any land lay anywhere near in the sea, but, in my opinion, chiefly that
it might be said that he had navigated the great outer sea of India. He
then sacrificed bulls to the god Pôseidôn, which he threw into the sea;
and following up the sacrifice with a libation, he threw the goblet and
bowls of gold into the bosom of the deep as thanks-offerings, beseeching
the god to conduct in safety the naval expedition which he intended
to despatch under Nearchos to the Persian Gulf and the mouths of the
Euphrates and Tigris.


_Chapter XX.—Alexander after returning to Patala sails down the eastern
arm of the Indus_

On his return to Patala, he found the citadel fortified, and Peithôn
arrived with his troops after completing the objects of his expedition.
Hêphaistiôn was then ordered to prepare what was requisite for the
fortification of the harbour, and the construction of a dockyard,
for here at the city of Patala, which stands where the river Indus
bifurcates, he meant to leave behind him a very considerable naval
squadron.

He himself sailed down again to the Great Sea by the other mouth of the
Indus,[187] to ascertain by which of the mouths it was easier to reach
the ocean. The mouths of the river Indus are about 1800 stadia distant
from each other.[188] When he was approaching the mouth, he came to a
large lake formed by the river in widening out, unless, indeed, this
watery expanse be due to rivers which discharge their streams into it
from the surrounding districts, and give it the appearance of a gulf
of the sea;[189] for salt-water fish were now seen in it of larger
size than the fish in our sea. Having anchored in the lake, at a place
selected by the pilots, he left there most of the soldiers under the
command of Leonnatos and all the boats, while he himself with the
thirty-oared galleys, and the vessels with one and a half bank of oars
passed beyond the mouth of the Indus, and sailing out into the sea by
this other route, satisfied himself that the mouth of the Indus on this
side was easier to navigate than the other. He then anchored his fleet
near the beach, and taking with him some of the cavalry, proceeded along
the shore a three days’ journey, examining what sort of a country it
was for a coasting voyage, and ordering wells to be sunk for supplying
sea-farers with water. He then returned to the fleet, and sailed back
to Patala. He sent, however, a part of the army to complete the work of
digging wells along the shore, with instructions to return to Patala
on their completing this service. Sailing down again to the lake, he
constructed there another harbour and other docks, and, having left a
garrison in the place, he collected sufficient food to supply the army
for four months, and made all other necessary preparations for the voyage
along the coast.


_Chapter XXI.—Alexander crosses the river Arabios and invades the Oreitai_

The season of the year was impracticable for navigation from the
prevalence of the Etesian winds, which do not blow there as with us
from the north, but come as a south wind from the Great Ocean. It was
ascertained that from the beginning of winter, that is from the setting
of the Pleiades,[190] till the winter solstice, the weather was suitable
for making voyages, because the mild breezes which then blow steadily
seaward from the land, which is drenched by this time with heavy rains,
favour coasting voyages, whether made by oar or by sail. Nearchos, who
had been appointed to the command of the fleet, was waiting for the
season for coasting, but Alexander set out from Patala, and advanced with
the whole of his army to the river Arabios.[191] He then took half of the
hypaspists and archers, the infantry brigades called foot companions,
the corps of companion cavalry, and a squadron from each division of the
other cavalry, and all the horse archers, and turned towards the sea,
which lay on the left, not only to dig as many wells as possible for
the use of the expedition while coasting those shores, but also to fall
suddenly upon the Oreitai (an Indian tribe in those parts which had long
been independent), because they had rendered no friendly service either
to himself or the army. The command of the troops which he did not take
with him was entrusted to Hêphaistiôn. There was settled near the river
Arabios another[192] independent tribe called the Arabitai, and, as
these neither thought themselves a match for Alexander, nor yet wished
to submit to him, they fled into the desert when they learned that he
was marching against them. But Alexander having crossed the Arabios,
which was neither broad nor deep, traversed the most of the desert, and
found himself by daybreak near the inhabited country. Then leaving orders
with the infantry to follow him in regular line, he set forward with
the cavalry, which he divided into squadrons, to be spread over a wide
extent of the plain, and it was thus he marched into the country of the
Oreitai.[193] All who turned to offer resistance were cut down by the
cavalry, but many were taken prisoners. He then encamped near a small
sheet of water, and on being joined by the troops under Hêphaistiôn still
continued his progress, and arrived at the village called Rambakia,[194]
which was the largest in the dominions of the Oreitai. He was pleased
with the situation, and thought that if he colonised it, it would become
a great and prosperous city. He therefore left Hêphaistiôn behind him to
carry this scheme into effect.


_Chapter XXII.—Submission of the Oreitai—Description of the Gadrôsian
desert_

He then took again the half of the hypaspists and Agrianians, and the
corps of cavalry and the horse-archers, and marched forward to the
frontiers of the Gadrôsoi and the Oreitai, where he was informed his way
would lie through a narrow defile before which the combined forces of the
Oreitai and the Gadrôsoi were lying encamped, resolved to prevent his
passage. They were in fact drawn up there, but when they were apprised of
Alexander’s approach most of them deserted the posts they were guarding
and fled from the pass. Then the leaders of the Oreitai came to him
to surrender themselves and their nation. He ordered them to collect
the multitude of the Oreitai, and send them away to their homes, since
they were not to be subjected to any bad treatment. Over these people
he placed Apollophanês as satrap. Along with him he left Leonnatos, an
officer of the body-guard in Ora,[195] in command of all the Agrianians,
some of the archers and cavalry, and the rest of the Grecian mercenary
infantry and cavalry, and instructed him to remain in the country till
the fleet sailed past its shores, to settle a colony in the city, and
establish order among the Oreitai, so that they might be readier to pay
respect and obedience to the satrap. He himself with the great bulk of
the army (for Hêphaistiôn had now rejoined him with his detachment)
advanced to the country of the Gadrôsoi[196] by a route mostly desert.

Aristoboulos says that myrrh-trees larger than the common kind grow
plentifully in this desert, and that the Phoenicians who followed
the army as suttlers collected the drops of myrrh which oozed out in
great abundance from the trees (their stems being large and hitherto
uncropped), and conveyed away the produce loaded on their beasts of
burden. He says also that this desert yields an abundance of odoriferous
roots of nard, which the Phoenicians likewise collected; but much of
it was trodden down by the army, and the sweet perfume thus crushed
out of it was from its great abundance diffused far and wide over the
country.[197] Other kinds of trees are found in the desert, one in
particular which had a foliage like that of the laurel, and grew in
places washed by the waves of the sea. These trees when the tide ebbed
were left in dry ground, but when it returned they looked as if they grew
in the sea. The roots of some were always washed by the sea, since they
grew in hollows from which the water never receded, and yet trees of this
kind were not destroyed by the brine. Some of these trees attained here
the great height of 30 cubits. They happened to be at that season in
bloom, and their flower closely resembled the white violet,[198] which,
however, it far surpassed in the sweetness of its perfume. Another kind
of thorny stalk is mentioned, which grew on dry land, and was armed with
a thorn so strong that when it got entangled in the dress of some who
were riding past, it rather pulled the rider down from his horse than
was itself torn away from its stalk. When hares are running past these
bushes the thorns are said to fasten themselves in the fur so that the
hares are caught like birds with bird-lime or fish with hooks. These
thorns were, however, easily cut through with steel, and when severed the
stalk yielded juice even more abundant and more acid than what flows from
fig-trees in springtime.[199]


_Chapter XXIII.—Alexander marching through Gadrôsia endeavours to collect
supplies for the fleet_

Thence he marched through the country of the Gadrôsoi by a difficult
route, on which it was scarcely possible to procure the necessaries of
life, and which often failed to yield water for the army. They were
besides compelled to march most of the way by night, and at too great a
distance from the sea; for Alexander wished to go along the sea-coast,
both to see what harbours it had, and to make in the course of his march
whatever preparations were possible for the benefit of the fleet, either
by making his men dig wells or seek out markets and anchorages. The
maritime parts of Gadrôsia were, however, entirely desert. Nevertheless
he sent Thoas, the son of Mandradôros, down to the sea with a few
horsemen to see if there happened to be any anchorage or water not far
from the sea, or anything else that could supply the wants of the fleet.
This man on returning reported that he found some fishermen upon the
beach living in stifling huts, which had been constructed by heaping up
mussel shells, while the roofs were formed of the backbones of fish. He
also reported that these fishermen had only scanty supplies of water,
obtained with difficulty by their digging through the shingle, and that
what they got was far from sweet.[200]

When Alexander came to a district of the Gadrôsian country where corn
was more abundant, he seized it, placed it upon the beasts of burden,
and having marked it with his own seal ordered it to be conveyed to the
sea. But when he was coming to the halting station nearest the sea,
the soldiers paid but little regard to the seal, and even the guards
themselves made use of the corn and gave a share of it to such as
were most pinched with hunger. Indeed, they were so overcome by their
sufferings, that, as reason dictated, they took more account of the
impending danger with which they now stood face to face than of the
unseen and remote danger of the king’s resentment. Alexander, however,
forgave the offenders when made aware of the necessity which had prompted
their act. He himself scoured the country in search of provisions, and
sent Krêtheus the Kallatian[201] with all the supplies he could collect
for the use of the army which was sailing round with the fleet. He also
ordered the natives to grind all the corn they could collect in the
interior districts, and convey it, for sale to the army, along with dates
and sheep. He besides sent Telephos, one of the companions, to another
locality with a small supply of ground corn.


_Chapter XXIV.—Difficulties encountered on the march through Gadrôsia_

He then advanced towards the capital of the Gadrôsoi, called Poura,[202]
and arrived there in sixty days after he had started from Ora. Most
of Alexander’s historians admit that all the hardships which his army
suffered in Asia are not to be compared with the miseries which it here
experienced. Nearchos is the only author who says that Alexander did
not take that route in ignorance of its difficulty, but that he chose
it on learning that no one had as yet traversed it with an army except
Semiramis when she fled from India. The natives of the country say that
she escaped with only twenty men of all her army, while even Cyrus, the
son of Kambyses, escaped with only seven. For Cyrus, they say, did in
truth enter this region to invade India, but lost, before reaching it,
the greater part of his army from the difficulties which beset his march
through the desert. When Alexander heard these accounts he was seized, it
is said, with an ambition to outrival both Cyrus and Semiramis. Nearchos
says that this motive, added to his desire to be near the coast in order
to keep the fleet supplied with provisions, induced him to march by this
route; but that the blazing heat and want of water destroyed a great part
of the army, and especially the beasts of burden, which perished from the
great depth of the sand, and the heat which scorched like fire, while a
great many died of thirst. For they met, he says, with lofty ridges of
deep sand not hard and compact, but so loose that those who stepped on it
sunk down as into mud or rather into untrodden snow. The horses and mules
besides suffered still more severely both in ascending and descending
the ridges, because the road was not only uneven, but wanted firmness.
The great distances also between the stages were most distressing to the
army, compelled as it was at times from want of water to make marches
above the ordinary length. When they traversed by night all the stage
they had to complete and came to water in the morning, their distress was
all but entirely relieved. But if as the day advanced they were caught
still marching owing to the great length of the stage, then suffer they
did, tortured alike by raging heat and thirst unquenchable.


_Chapter XXV.—Sufferings of the army in the Gadrôsian desert_

The soldiers destroyed many of the beasts of burden of their own accord.
For when their provisions ran short they came together and killed most
of the horses and mules. They ate the flesh of these animals, which they
professed had died of thirst and perished from the heat. No one cared to
look very narrowly into the exact nature of what was doing, both because
of the prevailing distress and also because all were alike implicated in
the same offence. Alexander himself was not unaware of what was going
on, but he saw that the remedy for the existing state of things was
to pretend ignorance of it rather than permit it as a matter that lay
within his cognisance. It was therefore no longer easy to convey the
soldiers labouring under sickness, nor others who had fallen behind on
the march from exhaustion. This arose not only from the want of beasts
of burden, but also because the men themselves took to destroying the
waggons when they could no longer drag them forward owing to the deepness
of the sand. They had done this even in the early stages of the march,
because for the sake of the waggons they had to go not by the shortest
roads, but those easiest for carriages. Thus some were left behind on
the road from sickness, others from fatigue or the effects of the heat
or intolerable thirst, while there were none who could take them forward
or remain to tend them in their sickness. For the army marched on apace,
and in the anxiety for its safety as a whole the care of individuals
was of necessity disregarded. As they generally made their marches by
night, some of the men were overcome by sleep on the way, but on awaking
afterwards those who still had some strength left followed close on the
track of the army, and a few out of many saved their lives by overtaking
it. The majority perished in the sand like shipwrecked men at sea.

Another disaster also befell the army which seriously affected the men
themselves as well as the horses and the beasts of burden. For the
country of the Gadrôsians, like that of the Indians, is supplied with
rains by the Etesian winds; but these rains do not fall on the Gadrôsian
plains, but on the mountains to which the clouds are carried by the
wind, where they dissolve in rain without passing over the crests of
the mountains. When the army on one occasion lay encamped for the night
near a small winter torrent for the sake of its water, the torrent which
passes that way about the second watch of the night became swollen by
rains which had fallen unperceived by the army, and came rushing down
with so great a deluge that it destroyed most of the women and children
of the camp-followers, and swept away all the royal baggage and whatever
beasts of burden were still left. The soldiers themselves, after a hard
struggle, barely escaped with their lives, and a portion only of their
weapons. Many of them besides came by their death through drinking, for
if when jaded by the broiling heat and thirst they fell in with abundance
of water, they quaffed it with insatiable avidity till they killed
themselves. For this reason Alexander generally pitched his camp not in
the immediate vicinity of the watering-places, but some twenty stadia
off to prevent the men and beasts from rushing in crowds into the water
to the danger of their lives, as well as to prohibit those who had no
self-control from polluting the water for the rest of the troops by their
stepping into the springs or streams.


_Chapter XXVI.—Incidents of the march through Gadrôsia_

Here I feel myself bound not to pass over in silence a noble act
performed by Alexander, perhaps the noblest in his record, which occurred
either in this country or, as some other authors have asserted, still
earlier, among the Parapamisadai. The story is this. The army was
prosecuting its march through the sand under a sun already blazing high
because a halt could not be made till water, which lay on the way farther
on was reached, and Alexander himself, though distressed with thirst,
was nevertheless with pain and difficulty marching on foot at the head
of his army, that the soldiers might, as they usually do in a case of
the kind, more cheerfully bear their hardships when they saw the misery
equalised. But in the meantime some of the light-armed soldiers, starting
off from the army, found water collected in the shallow bed of a torrent
in a small and impure spring. Having, with difficulty, collected this
water they hastened off to Alexander as if they were the bearers of some
great boon. As soon as they came near the king they poured the water
into a helmet, and offered it to him. He took it and thanked the men who
brought it, but at once poured it upon the ground in the sight of all. By
this deed the whole army was inspired with fresh vigour to such a degree
that one would have imagined that the water poured out by Alexander had
supplied a draught to the men all round. This deed I commend above all
others, as it exhibits Alexander’s power of endurance as well as his
wonderful tact in the management of an army.

The army met also with the following adventure in this country. The
guides, becoming uncertain of the way, at last declared that they could
no longer recognise it, because all its tracks had been obliterated by
the sands which the wind blew over them. Amid the deep sands, moreover,
which had been everywhere heaped up to a uniform level, nothing rose up
from which they could conjecture their path, not even the usual fringe
of trees, nor so much as the sure landmark of a hill-crest. Nor had they
practised the art of finding their way by observation of the stars by
night or of the sun by day, as sailors do by watching one or other of the
Bears—the Phoenicians the Lesser Bear, and all other nations the Greater.
Alexander, at last perceiving that he should direct his march to the
left, rode away forward, taking a small party of horsemen with him. But
when their horses were tired out by the heat, he left most of his escort
behind, and rode on with only five men and found the sea. Having scraped
away the shingle on the beach, he found water, both fresh and pure, and
then went back and brought his whole army to this place. And for seven
days they marched along the sea-coast, and procured water from the beach.
As the guides by this time knew the way, he led his expedition thence
into the interior parts.


_Chapter XXVII.—Appointment of satraps—Alexander learns that the satrap
Philippos had been murdered in India—Punishes satraps who had misgoverned_

When he arrived at the capital of the Gadrôsians he then gave his army a
rest. Apollophanês he deposed from his satrapy because he found out that
he had utterly disregarded his instructions. He appointed Thoas to be
satrap over the people of this district, but, as he took ill and died,
Siburtios received the vacant office. The same man had also recently
been appointed by Alexander satrap of Karmania, but now the government
of the Arachotians and Gadrôsians was committed to him, and Tlêpolemos,
the son of Pythophanês, got Karmania. The king was already advancing
into Karmania when tidings reached him that Philippos, the satrap of
the Indian country, had been plotted against by the mercenaries and
treacherously murdered; but that the Macedonian bodyguards of Philippos
had put to death his murderers whom they had caught in the very act, and
others whom they had afterwards seized. On learning what had occurred
he sent a letter to India addressed to Eudêmos and Taxilês directing
them to assume the administration of the province previously governed by
Philippos until he could send a satrap to govern it.

When he arrived in Karmania, Krateros joined him, bringing the rest of
the army and the elephants. He brought also Ordanês, whom he had made
prisoner for revolting and attempting to make a revolution. Thither came
also Stasanôr, the satrap of the Areians and Zarangians, accompanied by
Pharismanes, the son of Phrataphernês, the satrap of the Parthyaians
and Hyrkanians. There came besides the generals who had been left with
Parmenion over the army in Media, Kleander and Sitalkês and Hêrakôn,
who brought with them the greater part of their army. Against Kleander
and Sitalkês both the natives and the soldiers themselves brought many
accusations, as that they had pillaged temples, despoiled ancient tombs,
and perpetrated other outrageous acts of injustice and tyranny against
their subjects. When these charges were proved against them, he put them
to death, to make others who might be left as satraps, or governors, or
chiefs of districts, stand in fear of suffering a like punishment if they
violated their duty. This was the means which above all others served to
keep in due order and obedience the nations which Alexander had conquered
in war or which had voluntarily submitted to him, numerous as they were,
and so far remote from each other, because under his sceptre the ruled
were not allowed to be unjustly treated by their rulers. Hêrakôn on this
occasion was acquitted of the charge, but was soon afterwards punished,
because he was convicted by the men of Sousa of having plundered the
temple of their city. Stasanôr and Phrataphernês in setting out to join
Alexander, took with them a multitude of beasts of burden and many
camels, because they learned that he was taking the route through the
Gadrôsians, and conjectured that his army would suffer, as it actually
did. These men arrived therefore very opportunely, as did also their
camels and their beasts of burden. For Alexander distributed all these
animals to the officers one by one, to the squadrons and centuries of
the cavalry, and to the companies of the infantry as far as their number
sufficed.


_Chapter XXVIII.—Alexander holds rejoicings in Karmania on account of
his Indian victories—List of his body-guards—Nearchos reports to him the
safety of the fleet_

Some authors have recorded, though I cannot believe what they state,
that he made his progress through Karmania stretched at length with his
companions on two covered waggons joined together, enjoying the while the
music of the flute, and followed by the soldiers crowned with garlands
and making holiday. They say also that food and all kinds of good cheer
were provided for them along the roads by the Karmanians, and that these
things were done by Alexander in imitation of the Bacchic revelry of
Dionysos, because it was said of that deity that, after conquering the
Indians, he traversed, in this manner, a great part of Asia, and received
the name of Thriambos in addition to that of Dionysos, and that for this
very reason the splendid processions in honour of victories in war were
called _Thriamboi_.[203] But neither Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, nor
Aristoboulos has mentioned these doings in their narratives, nor any
other writer whose testimony on such subjects it would be safe to trust,
and as for myself I have done enough in recording them as unworthy of
belief. But in the account I now proceed to offer I follow Aristoboulos.
In Karmania Alexander offered sacrifice in thanksgiving to the gods for
his victory over the Indians, and the preservation of his army during
its march through Gadrôsia. He celebrated also a musical and a gymnastic
contest. He then appointed Peukestas to be one of his body-guards, having
already resolved to make him the satrap of Persis. He wished him, before
his promotion to the satrapy, to experience this honour and mark of
confidence for the service he rendered among the Malloi. Up to this time
the number of his body-guards was seven—Leonnatos, the son of Anteas;
Hêphastiôn, the son of Amyntôr; Lysimachos, the son of Agathoklês;
Aristonous, the son of Peisaios, who were all Pellaians; Perdikkas, the
son of Orontês from Orestis; Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, and Peithôn, the
son of Krateuas, who were both Heordaians—Peukestas, who had held the
shield over Alexander, was added to them as an eighth.

At this time Nearchos, having sailed round the coast of Ora and Gadrôsia,
and that of the Ichthyophagoi, put into port in the inhabited parts of
the Karmanian coast, and going up thence into the interior with a few
followers related to Alexander the incidents of the voyage which he had
made for him in the outer sea. He was sent down again to sea, to sail
round to the land of the Sousians and the outlets of the river Tigris.
How he sailed from the river Indus to the Persian Sea and the mouth of
the Tigris, I shall describe in a separate work, wherein I shall follow
Nearchos himself, as the history which he composed in the Greek language
had Alexander for its subject. Perhaps at some future time I shall
produce this work if my own inclination and the deity prompt me to the
task.




Q. CURTIUS RUFUS




HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, BY Q. CURTIUS RUFUS


EIGHTH BOOK


_Chapter IX.—Description of India_

Alexander, not to foster repose which naturally sets rumours in
circulation, advanced towards India, always adding more to his glory by
warfare than by his acts after victory.

India lies almost entirely towards the east,[204] and it is of less
extent in breadth than in length.[205] The southern parts rise in hills
of considerable elevation.[206] The country is elsewhere level, and hence
many famous rivers which rise in Mount Caucasus traverse the plains with
languid currents. The Indus is colder than the other rivers, and its
waters differ but little in colour from those of the sea. The Ganges,
which is the greatest of all rivers in the east, flows down to the south
country, and running in a straight bed washes great mountain-chains until
a barrier of rocks diverts its course towards the east. Both rivers
enter the Red Sea.[207] The Indus wears away its banks, absorbing into
its waters great numbers of trees and much of the soil. It is besides
obstructed with rocks by which it is frequently beaten back. Where it
finds the soil soft and yielding it spreads out into pools and forms
islands. The Acesines increases its volume. The Ganges, in running
downward to the sea, intercepts the Iomanes,[208] and the two streams
dash against each other with great violence. The Ganges in fact presents
a rough face to the entrance of its affluent, the waters of which though
beaten back in eddies, hold their own.

The Dyardanes is less frequently mentioned, as it flows through the
remotest parts of India. But it breeds not only crocodiles, like the
Nile, but dolphins also, and various aquatic monsters unknown to other
nations.[209] The Ethimanthus, which curves time after time in frequent
maeanders, is used up for irrigation by the people on its banks. Hence
it contributes to the sea but a small and nameless residue of its
waters.[210] The country is everywhere intersected with many rivers
besides these, but they are obscure, their course being too short
to bring them into prominent notice. The maritime tracts, however,
are most parched up by the north wind. This wind is prevented by the
mountain-summits from penetrating to the interior parts, which for this
reason are mild and nourish the crops.[211] But so completely has nature
altered the regular changes of the season in these regions that, when
other countries are basking under the hot rays of the sun, India is
covered with snow; and on the other hand, when the world elsewhere is
frost-bound, India is oppressed with intolerable heat. The reason why
nature has thus inverted her order is not apparent; the sea, at any rate,
by which India is washed does not differ in colour from other seas. It
takes its name from King Erythrus, and hence ignorant people believe that
its waters are red.[212]

The soil produces flax from which the dress ordinarily worn by the
natives is made.[213] The tender side of the barks of trees receives
written characters like paper.[214] The birds can be readily trained
to imitate the sounds of human speech.[215] The animals except those
imported are unknown among other nations. The same country yields fit
food for the rhinoceros, but this animal is not indigenous.[216] The
elephants are more powerful than those tamed in Africa, and their size
corresponds to their strength.[217] Gold is carried down by several
rivers, whose loitering waters glide with slow and gentle currents.[218]
The sea casts upon the shores precious stones and pearls, nor has
anything contributed more to the opulence of the natives, especially
since they spread the community of evil to foreign nations; for these
offscourings of the boiling sea are valued at the price which fashion
sets on coveted luxuries.[219]

The character of the people is here, as elsewhere, formed by the position
of their country and its climate. They cover their persons down to the
feet with fine muslin, are shod with sandals,[220] and coil round their
heads cloths of linen (cotton). They hang precious stones as pendants
from their ears, and persons of high social rank, or of great wealth,
deck their wrist and upper arm with bracelets of gold. They frequently
comb, but seldom cut, the hair of their head. The beard of the chin they
never cut at all, but they shave off the hair from the rest of the face,
so that it looks polished.[221] The luxury of their kings, or as they
call it, their magnificence, is carried to a vicious excess without a
parallel in the world.

When the king condescends to show himself in public his attendants carry
in their hands silver censers, and perfume with incense all the road by
which it is his pleasure to be conveyed. He lolls in a golden palanquin,
garnished with pearls, which dangle all round it, and he is robed in fine
muslin embroidered with purple and gold. Behind his palanquin follow
men-at-arms and his bodyguards, of whom some carry boughs of trees,
on which birds are perched trained to interrupt business with their
cries.[222] The palace is adorned with gilded pillars clasped all round
by a vine embossed in gold, while silver images of those birds which most
charm the eye diversify the workmanship. The palace is open to all comers
even when the king is having his hair combed and dressed. It is then
that he gives audience to ambassadors, and administers justice to his
subjects. His slippers being after this taken off, his feet are rubbed
with scented ointments. His principal exercise is hunting; amid the
vows and songs of his courtesans he shoots the game enclosed within the
royal park. The arrows, which are two cubits long, are discharged with
more effort than effect, for though the force of these missiles depends
on their lightness they are loaded with an obnoxious weight. He rides
on horseback when making short journeys, but when bound on a distant
expedition he rides in a chariot (howdah) mounted on elephants, and,
huge as these animals are, their bodies are covered completely over with
trappings of gold. That no form of shameless profligacy may be wanting,
he is accompanied by a long train of courtesans carried in golden
palanquins, and this troop holds a separate place in the procession
from the queen’s retinue, and is as sumptuously appointed. His food is
prepared by women, who also serve him with wine, which is much used by
all the Indians. When the king falls into a drunken sleep his courtesans
carry him away to his bedchamber, invoking the gods of the night in their
native hymns.[223]

Amid this corruption of morals who would expect to find the culture of
philosophy? Notwithstanding, they have men whom they call philosophers,
of whom one class lives in the woods and fields, and is extremely
uncouth. These think it glorious to anticipate the hour of destiny, and
arrange to have themselves burned alive when age has destroyed their
activity, or the failure of health has made life burdensome. They regard
death if waited for as a disgrace to their life, and when dissolution
is simply the effect of old age funeral honours are denied to the dead
body. They think that the fire is polluted unless the pyre receives the
body before the breath has yet left it.[224] Those philosophers again who
lead a civilised life in cities are said to observe the motions of the
heavenly bodies, and to predict future events on scientific principles.
These believe that no one accelerates the day of his death who can
without fear await its coming.[225]

They regard as gods whatever objects they value, especially trees, to
violate which is a capital offence.[226] Their months they make to
consist each of fifteen days, but they nevertheless assign to the year
its full duration. They mark the divisions of time by the course of the
moon, not like most nations when that planet shows a full face, but when
she begins to appear horned, and hence, by fixing the duration of a
month to correspond with this phase of the moon, they have their months
one-half shorter than the months of other people.[227] Many other things
have been related of them, but to interrupt with them the progress of the
narrative I consider quite out of place.


_Chapter X.—Campaign in the regions west of the Indus—Alexander captures
Nysa, and visits Mount Merus—Siege of Mazaga, and its surrender_

Alexander had no sooner entered India than the chiefs of various tribes
came to meet him with proffers of service. He was, they said, the third
descendant of Jupiter who had visited their country, and that while
Father Bacchus and Hercules were known to them merely by tradition, him
they saw present before their eyes. To these he accorded a gracious
reception, and intending to employ them as his guides, he bade them to
accompany him. But when no more chiefs came to surrender, he despatched
Hephaestion and Perdiccas in advance with a part of his army to reduce
whatever tribes declined his authority. He ordered them to proceed to the
Indus and build boats for transporting the army to the other side of that
river. Since many rivers would have to be crossed, they so constructed
the vessels that, after being taken to pieces, the sections could be
conveyed in waggons, and be again pieced together. He himself, leaving
Craterus to follow with the infantry, pressed forward with the cavalry
and light troops, and falling in with the enemy easily routed them, and
chased them into the nearest city. Craterus had now rejoined him, and the
king, wishing to strike terror into this people, who had not yet proved
the Macedonian arms, gave previous orders that when the fortifications
of the city under siege had been burned, not a soul was to be left
alive. Now, in riding up to the walls he was wounded by an arrow, but he
captured the place, and having massacred all the inhabitants, vented his
rage even upon the buildings.[228]

Having conquered this obscure tribe, he moved thence towards the city
of Nysa. The camp, it so happened, was pitched under the walls on woody
ground, and as the cold at night was more piercing than had ever before
been felt, it made the soldiers shiver. But they were fortunate enough
to have at hand the means of making a fire, for felling the copses they
kindled a flame, and fed it with faggots, so that it seized the tombs of
the citizens, which, being made of old cedar wood, spread the fire they
had caught in all directions till every tomb was burned down. The barking
of dogs was now heard from the town, followed by the clamour of human
voices _from the camp_. Thus the citizens discovered that the enemy had
arrived, and the Macedonians that they were close to the city.

The king had now drawn out his forces and was assaulting the walls,
when some of the defenders risked an engagement. These were, however,
overpowered with darts, so that dissensions broke out among the Nysaeans,
some advising submission, but others the trial of a battle. Alexander,
on discovering that their opinions were divided, instituted a close
blockade, but forbade further bloodshed.

After a while they surrendered, unable to endure longer the miseries
of a blockade. Their city, so they asserted, was founded by Father
Bacchus, and this was in fact its origin. It was situated at the foot
of a mountain which the inhabitants call Meros, whence the Greeks took
the license of coining the fable that Father Bacchus had been concealed
in the thigh of Jupiter. The king learned from the inhabitants where
the mountain lay, and sending provisions on before, climbed to its
summit with his whole army.[229] There they saw the ivy-plant and the
vine growing in great luxuriance all over the mountain, and perennial
waters gushing from its slopes. The juices of the fruits were various
and wholesome since the soil favoured the growth of chance-sown seeds,
and even the crags were frequently overhung with thickets of laurel
and spikenard. I attribute it not to any divine impulse, but to wanton
folly, that they wreathed their brows with chaplets of gathered ivy and
vine-leaves, and roved at large through the woods like bacchanals; so
that, when the folly initiated by a few had, as usually happens, suddenly
infected the whole multitude,[230] the slopes and peaks of the mountain
rang with the shouts of thousands paying their homage to the guardian
divinity of the grove. Nay, they even flung themselves down full length
on the greensward, or on heaps of leaves as if peace reigned all around.
The king himself, so far from looking askance at this extemporaneous
revel, supplied with a liberal hand all kinds of viands for feasting, and
kept the army engaged for ten days in celebrating the orgies of Father
Bacchus. Who then can deny that even distinguished glory is a boon for
which mortals are oftener indebted to fortune than to merit, seeing that
when they had abandoned themselves to feasting and were drowsed with wine
the enemy had not even the courage to fall upon them, being terrified no
less by the uproar and howling made by the revellers than if the shouts
of warriors rushing to battle had rung in their ears. The like good
fortune afterwards protected them in the presence of their enemies when
on returning from the ocean they gave themselves up to drunken festivity.

From Nysa they came to a region called Daedala.[231] The inhabitants
had deserted their habitations and fled for safety to the trackless
recesses of their mountain forests. He therefore passed on to Acadira,
which he found burned, and like Daedala deserted by the flight of the
inhabitants. Necessity made him therefore change his plan of operations.
For having divided his forces he showed his arms at many points at once,
and the inhabitants taken by surprise were overwhelmed with calamities
of every kind. Ptolemy took a greater number of cities, and Alexander
himself those that were more important. This done, he again drew together
his scattered forces. Having next crossed the river Choaspes,[232]
he left Coenus to besiege an opulent city—the inhabitants called it
Beira[233]—while he himself went on to Mazaga.

Assacanus, its previous sovereign, had lately died, and his mother
Cleophis now ruled the city and the realm. An army of 38,000 infantry
defended the city which was strongly fortified both by nature and art.
For on the east, an impetuous mountain-stream with steep banks on both
sides barred approach to the city, while to south and west nature, as if
designing to form a rampart, had piled up gigantic rocks, at the base of
which lay sloughs and yawning chasms hollowed in the course of ages to
vast depths, while a ditch of mighty labour drawn from their extremity
continued the line of defence. The city was besides surrounded with a
wall 35 stadia in circumference which had a basis of stonework supporting
a superstructure of unburnt, sun-dried bricks. The brick-work was bound
into a solid fabric by means of stones so interposed that the more
brittle material rested upon the harder, while moist clay had been used
for mortar. Lest, however, the structure should all at once sink, strong
beams had been laid upon these, supporting wooden floors which covered
the walls and afforded a passage along them.[234]

Alexander while reconnoitring the fortifications, and unable to fix
on a plan of attack, since nothing less than a vast mole, necessary
for bringing up his engines to the walls, would suffice to fill up the
chasms, was wounded from the ramparts by an arrow which chanced to hit
him in the calf of the leg. When the barb was extracted, he called for
his horse, and without having his wound so much as bandaged, continued
with unabated energy to prosecute the work on hand. But when the injured
limb was hanging without support, and the gradual cooling, as the blood
dried, aggravated the pain, he is reported to have said that though he
was called, as all knew, the son of Jupiter, he felt notwithstanding all
the defects of the weak body.[235] He did not, however, return to the
camp till he had viewed every thing and ordered what he wanted to be
done. Accordingly some of the soldiers began, as directed, to destroy
the houses outside the city and to take from the ruins much material for
raising a mole, while others cast into the hollows large trunks of trees,
branches and all, together with great masses of rock. When the mole had
now been raised to a level with the surface of the ground, they proceeded
to erect towers; and so zealously did the soldiers prosecute the works,
that they finished them completely within nine days. These the king,
before his wound had as yet closed, proceeded to inspect. He commended
the troops, and then from the engines which he had ordered to be
propelled a great storm of missiles was discharged against the defenders
on the ramparts. What had most effect in intimidating the barbarians was
the spectacle of the movable towers, for to works of that description
they were utter strangers. Those vast fabrics moving without visible
aid, they believed to be propelled by the agency of the gods.[236] It
was impossible, they said, that those javelins for attacking walls—those
ponderous darts hurled from engines could be within the compass of
mortal power. Giving up therefore the defence as hopeless, they withdrew
into the citadel, whence, as nothing but to surrender was open to the
besieged, they sent down envoys to the king to sue for pardon.[237] This
being granted, the queen came with a great train of noble ladies who
poured out libations of wine from golden bowls. The queen herself, having
placed her son, still a child, at Alexander’s knees, obtained not only
pardon, but permission to retain her former dignity, for she was styled
queen, and some have believed that this indulgent treatment was accorded
rather to the charms of her person than to pity for her misfortunes. At
all events she afterwards gave birth to a son who received the name of
Alexander, whoever his father may have been.


_Chapter XI.—Siege and capture of the Rock Aornis_

Polypercon being despatched hence with an army to the city of Nora,
defeated the undisciplined multitude which he encountered, and pursuing
them within their fortifications compelled them to surrender the place.
Into the king’s own hands there fell many inconsiderable towns, deserted
by their inhabitants who had escaped in time with their arms and seized
a rock called Aornis. A report was current that this stronghold had been
in vain assaulted by Hercules, who had been compelled by an earthquake
to raise the siege. The rock being on all sides steep and rugged,
Alexander was at a loss how to proceed, when there came to him an elderly
man familiar with the locality accompanied by two sons, offering, if
Alexander would make it worth his while, to show him a way of access to
the summit. Alexander agreed to give him eighty talents, and, keeping
one of his sons as a hostage, sent him to make good his offer. Mullinus
(Eumenês?), the king’s secretary, was put in command of the light-armed
men, for these, as had been decided, were to climb to the summit by a
detour, to prevent their being seen by the enemy.

This rock does not, like most eminences, grow up to its towering top by
gradual and easy acclivities, but rises up straight just like the _meta_,
which from a wide base tapers off in ascending till it terminates in
a sharp pinnacle.[238] The river Indus, here very deep and enclosed
between rugged banks, washes its roots. In another quarter are swamps and
craggy ravines; and only by filling up these could an assault upon the
stronghold be rendered practicable. A wood which was contiguous the king
directed to be cut down. The trees where they fell were stripped of their
leaves and branches which would otherwise have proved an impediment to
their transport. He himself threw in the first trunk, whereupon followed
a loud cheer from the army, a token of its alacrity, no one refusing
a labour to which the king was the first to put his hand. Within the
seventh day they had filled up the hollows, and then the king directed
the archers and the Agrianians to struggle up the steep ascent. He
selected besides from his personal staff[239] thirty of the most active
among the young men, whom he placed under the command of Charus and
Alexander. The latter he reminded of the name which he bore in common
with himself.

And at first, because the peril was so palpable, a resolution was
passed that the king should not hazard his safety by taking part in the
assault.[240] But when the trumpet sounded the signal, the audacious
prince at once turned to his body-guards, and bidding them to follow was
the first to assail the rock. None of the Macedonians then held back, but
all spontaneously left their posts and followed the king. Many perished
by a dismal fate, for they fell from the shelving crags and were engulfed
in the river which flowed underneath—a piteous sight even for those who
were not themselves in danger. But when reminded by the destruction of
their comrades what they had to dread for themselves, their pity changed
to fear, and they began to lament not for the dead but for themselves.

And now they had attained a point whence they could not return without
disaster unless victorious, for as the barbarians rolled down massive
stones upon them while they climbed, such as were struck fell headlong
from their insecure and slippery positions. Alexander and Charus,
however, whom the king had sent in advance with the thirty chosen men,
reached the summit, and had by this time engaged in a hand-to-hand fight;
but since the barbarians discharged their darts from higher ground, the
assailants received more wounds than they inflicted. So then Alexander,
mindful alike of his name and his promise, in fighting with more spirit
than judgment, fell pierced with many darts. Charus, seeing him lying
dead, made a rush upon the enemy, caring for nothing but revenge. Many
received their death from his spear and others from his sword. But as he
was single-handed against overwhelming odds, he sank lifeless on the body
of his friend.[241]

The king, duly affected by the death of these heroic youths and the other
soldiers, gave the signal for retiring. It conduced to the safety of the
troops that they retreated leisurely, preserving their coolness, and
that the barbarians, satisfied with having driven them down hill, did
not close on them when they withdrew. But, though Alexander had resolved
to abandon the enterprise, deeming the capture of the rock hopeless,
he still made demonstrations of persevering with the siege, for by his
orders the avenues were blocked, the towers advanced, and the working
parties relieved when tired. The Indians, on seeing his pertinacity, by
way of demonstrating not only their confidence but their triumph, devoted
two days and nights to festivity and beating their national music out of
their drums. But on the third night the rattle of the drums ceased to be
heard. Torches, however, which, as the night was dark, the barbarians
had lighted to make their flight safer down the precipitous crags, shed
their glare over every part of the rocks.

The king learned from Balacrus, who had been sent forward to reconnoitre,
that the Indians had fled and abandoned the rock. He thereupon gave a
signal that his men should raise a general shout, and he thus struck
terror into the fugitives as they were making off in disorder. Then many,
as if the enemy were already upon them, flung themselves headlong over
the slippery rocks and precipices and perished, while a still greater
number, who were hurt, were left to their fate by those who had descended
without accident. Although it was the position rather than the enemy he
had conquered, the king gave to this success the appearance of a great
victory by offering sacrifices and worship to the gods. Upon the rock he
erected altars dedicated to Minerva and Victory. To the guides who had
shown the way to the light-armed detachment which had been sent to scale
the rock he honourably paid the stipulated recompense, even although
their performance had fallen short of their promises. The defence of the
rock and the country surrounding was entrusted to Sisocostus.


_Chapter XII.—Alexander marches to the Indus, crosses it, and is
hospitably received by Omphis, King of Taxila_

Thence he marched towards Embolima, but on learning that the pass
which led thereto was occupied by 20,000 men in arms under Erix,[242]
he hurried forward himself with the archers and slingers, leaving the
heavy-armed troops under the command of Coenus to advance leisurely.
Having dislodged those men who beset the defile, he cleared the passage
for the army which followed. The Indians, either from disaffection to
their chief or to court the favour of the conqueror, set upon Erix during
his flight and killed him. They brought his head and his armour to
Alexander, who did not punish them for their crime, but to condemn their
example gave them no reward. Having left this pass, he arrived after the
sixteenth encampment at the river Indus, where he found that Hephaestion,
agreeably to his orders, had made all the necessary preparations for the
passage across it.

The sovereign of the territories on the other side was Omphis,[243] who
had urged his father to surrender his kingdom to Alexander, and had
moreover at his father’s death sent envoys to enquire whether it was
Alexander’s pleasure that he should meanwhile exercise authority or
remain in a private capacity till his arrival. He was permitted to assume
the sovereignty, but modestly forbore to exercise its functions. He had
extended to Hephaestion marks of civility, and given corn gratuitously to
his soldiers, but he had not gone to join him, from a reluctance to make
trial of the good faith of any but Alexander. Accordingly, on Alexander’s
approach, he went to meet him at the head of an army equipped for the
field. He had even brought his elephants with him, which, posted at short
intervals amidst the ranks of the soldiery, appeared to the distant
spectator like towers.

Alexander at first thought it was not a friendly but a hostile army that
approached, and had already ordered the soldiers to arm themselves, and
the cavalry to divide to the wings, and was ready for action. But the
Indian prince, on seeing the mistake of the Macedonians, put his horse
to the gallop, leaving orders that no one else was to stir from his
place. Alexander likewise galloped forward, not knowing whether it was an
enemy or a friend he had to encounter, but trusting for safety perhaps
to his valour, perhaps to the other’s good faith. They met in a friendly
spirit, as far as could be gathered from the expression of each one’s
face, but from the want of an interpreter to converse was impossible.
An interpreter was therefore procured, and then the barbarian prince
explained that he had come with his army to meet Alexander that he might
at once place at his disposal all the forces of his empire, without
waiting to tender his allegiance through deputies. He surrendered, he
said, his person and his kingdom to a man who, as he knew, was fighting
not more for fame than fearing to incur the reproach of perfidy.

The king, pleased with the simple honesty of the barbarian, gave him his
right hand as a pledge of his own good faith, and confirmed him in his
sovereignty. The prince had brought with him six-and-fifty elephants, and
these he gave to Alexander, with a great many sheep of an extraordinary
size, and 3000 bulls of a valuable breed, highly prized by the rulers of
the country. When Alexander asked him whether he had more husbandmen or
soldiers, he replied that as he was at war with two kings he required
more soldiers than field labourers. These kings were Abisares and Porus,
but Porus was superior in power and influence. Both of them held sway
beyond the river Hydaspes, and had resolved to try the fortune of war
whatever invader might come.

Omphis, under Alexander’s permission, and according to the usage of the
realm, assumed the ensigns of royalty along with the name which his
father had borne. His people called him Taxiles, for such was the name
which accompanied the sovereignty, on whomsoever it devolved. When,
therefore, he had entertained Alexander for three days with lavish
hospitality, he showed him on the fourth day what quantity of corn he
had supplied to Hephaestion’s troops, and then presented him and all his
friends with golden crowns, and eighty talents besides of coined silver.
Alexander was so exceedingly gratified with this profuse generosity
that he not only sent back to Omphis the presents he had given, but
added a thousand talents from the spoils which he carried, along with
many banqueting vessels of gold and silver, a vast quantity of Persian
drapery, and thirty chargers from his own stalls, caparisoned as when
ridden by himself.

This liberality, while it bound the barbarian to his interests, gave
at the same time the deepest offence to his own friends. One of
them, Meleager, who had taken too much wine at supper, said that he
congratulated Alexander on having found in India, if nowhere else, some
one worthy of a thousand talents. The king, who had not forgotten what
remorse he had suffered when he killed Clitus for audacity of speech,
controlled his temper, but remarked that envious persons were nothing but
their own tormentors.


_Chapter XIII.—Alexander and Porus confront each other on opposite banks
of the Hydaspes_

On the following day envoys from Abisares reached the king, and, as they
had been instructed, surrendered to him all that their master possessed.
After pledges of good faith had been interchanged, they were sent back
to their sovereign. Alexander, thinking that by the mere prestige of
his name Porus also would be induced to surrender, sent Cleochares
to tell him in peremptory terms that he must pay tribute and come to
meet his sovereign at the very frontiers of his own dominions. Porus
answered that he would comply with the second of these demands, and when
Alexander entered his realm he would meet him, but come armed for battle.
Alexander had now resolved to cross the Hydaspes, when Barzaentes, who
had instigated the Arachosians to revolt, was brought to him in chains,
along with thirty captured elephants, an opportune reinforcement against
the Indians, since these huge beasts more than the soldiery constituted
the hope and main strength of an Indian army.

Samaxus was also brought in chains, the king of a small Indian state,
who had espoused the cause of Barzaentes. Alexander having then put the
traitor and his accomplice under custody, and consigned the elephants to
the care of Taxiles, advanced till he reached the river Hydaspes, where
on the further bank Porus had encamped to prevent the enemy from landing.
In the van of his army he had posted 85 elephants of the greatest size
and strength, and behind these 300 chariots and somewhere about 30,000
infantry, among whom were the archers, whose arrows, as already stated,
were too ponderous to be readily discharged. He was himself mounted
on an elephant which towered above all its fellows, while his armour,
embellished with gold and silver, set off his supremely majestic person
to great advantage. His courage matched his bodily vigour, and his wisdom
was the utmost attainable in a rude community.

The Macedonians were intimidated not only by the appearance of the enemy,
but by the magnitude of the river to be crossed, which, spreading out
to a width of no less than four stadia in a deep channel which nowhere
opened a passage by fords, presented the aspect of a vast sea. Yet its
rapidity did not diminish in proportion to its wider diffusion, but it
rushed impetuously like a seething torrent compressed into a narrow bed
by the closing in of its banks. Besides, at many points the presence of
sunken rocks was revealed where the waves were driven back in eddies.
The bank presented a still more formidable aspect, for, as far as the
eye could see, it was covered with cavalry and infantry, in the midst of
which, like so many massive structures, stood the huge elephants, which,
being of set purpose provoked by their drivers, distressed the ear with
their frightful roars. The enemy and the river both in their front,
struck with sudden dismay the hearts of the Macedonians, disposed though
they were to entertain good hopes, and knowing from experience against
what fearful odds they had ere now contended. They could not believe that
boats so unhandy could be steered to the bank or gain it in safety. In
the middle of the river were numerous islands to which both the Indians
and Macedonians began to swim over, holding their weapons above their
heads. Here they would engage in skirmishes, while each king endeavoured
from the result of these minor conflicts to gauge the issue of the final
struggle. In the Macedonian army were Symmachus and Nicanor, both young
men of noble lineage, distinguished for their hardihood and enterprise,
and from the uniform success of their side in whatever they assayed,
inspired with a contempt for every kind of danger. Led by these, a party
of the boldest youths, equipped with nothing but lances, swam over to the
island when it was occupied by crowds of the enemy.

Armed with audacious courage, the best of all weapons, they slew many
of the Indians, and might have retired with glory if temerity when
successful could ever keep within bounds. But while with contempt and
pride they waited till succours reached the enemy, they were surrounded
by men who had unperceived swum over to the island, and were overthrown
by discharges of missiles. Such as escaped the enemy were either swept
away by the force of the current or swallowed up in its eddies. This
fight exalted the confidence of Porus, who had witnessed from the bank
all its vicissitudes.

Alexander, perplexed how to cross the river, at last devised a plan
for duping the enemy. In the river lay an island larger than the rest,
wooded and suitable for concealing an ambuscade. A deep hollow, moreover,
which lay not far from the bank in his own occupation, was capable of
hiding not only foot-soldiers but mounted cavalry. To divert, therefore,
the attention of the enemy from a place possessing such advantages, he
ordered Ptolemy with all his squadrons of horse to ride up and down at
a distance from the island in view of the enemy, and now and then to
alarm the Indians by shouting, as if he meant to make the passage of
the river.[244] For several days Ptolemy repeated this feint, and thus
obliged Porus to concentrate his troops at the point which he pretended
to threaten.

The island was now beyond view of the enemy.[245] Alexander then gave
orders that his own tent should be pitched on a part of the bank looking
the other way, that the guard of honour which usually attended him should
be posted before it, and that all the pageantry of royal state should
be paraded before the eyes of the enemy on purpose to deceive them. He
besides requested Attalus, who was about his own age, and not unlike him
in form and feature, especially when seen from a distance, to wear the
royal mantle, and so make it appear as if the king in person was guarding
that part of the bank without any intention of crossing the river. The
state of the weather at first hindered, but afterwards favoured, the
execution of this design, fortune making even untoward circumstances turn
out to his ultimate advantage. For when the enemy was busy watching the
troops under Ptolemy which occupied the bank lower down, and Alexander
with the rest of his forces was making ready to cross the river and reach
the land over against the island already mentioned, a storm poured down
torrents of rain, against which even those under cover could scarcely
protect themselves. The soldiers, overcome by the fury of the elements,
deserted the boats and ships, and fled back for safety to land, but the
din occasioned by their hurry and confusion could not be heard by the
enemy amid the roar of the tempest. All of a sudden the rain then ceased,
but clouds so dense overspread the sky that they hid the light, and made
it scarcely possible for men conversing together to see each other’s
faces.

Any other leader but Alexander would have been appalled by the darkness
drawn over the face of heaven just when he was starting on a voyage
across an unknown river, with the enemy perhaps guarding the very bank
to which his men were blindly and imprudently directing their course.
But the king deriving glory from danger and regarding the darkness
which terrified others as his opportunity, gave the signal that all
should embark in silence, and ordered that the galley which carried
himself should be the first to be run aground on the other side. The
bank, however, towards which they steered was not occupied by the enemy,
for Porus was in fact still intently watching Ptolemy only. Hence all
the ships made the passage in safety except just one, which stuck on a
rock whither it had been driven by the wind. Alexander then ordered the
soldiers to take their arms and to fall into their ranks.


_Chapter XIV.—Battle with Porus on the left bank of the Hydaspes—Porus
being defeated surrenders_

He was already in full march at the head of his army, which he had
divided into two columns, when the tidings reached Porus that the bank
was occupied by a military force, and that the crisis of his fortunes
was now imminent. In keeping with the infirmity of our nature, which
makes us ever hope the best, he at first indulged the belief that this
was his ally Abisares come to help him in the war as had been agreed
upon. But soon after, when the sky had become clearer, and showed the
ranks to be those of the enemy, he sent 100 chariots and 4000 horse
to obstruct their advance. The command of this detachment he gave to
his brother Hages.[246] Its main strength lay in the chariots, each of
which was drawn by four horses and carried six men, of whom two were
shield-bearers, two, archers posted on each side of the chariot, and the
other two, charioteers, as well as men-at-arms, for when the fighting
was at close-quarters they dropped the reins and hurled dart after dart
against the enemy.

But on this particular day these chariots proved to be scarcely of
any service, for the storm of rain, which, as already said, was of
extraordinary violence, had made the ground slippery, and unfit for
horses to ride over, while the chariots kept sticking in the muddy
sloughs formed by the rain, and proved almost immovable from their
great weight. Alexander, on the other hand, charged with the utmost
vigour, because his troops were lightly armed and unencumbered. The
Scythians and Dahae first of all attacked the Indians, and then the king
launched Perdiccas with his horse upon their right wing. The fighting
had now become hot everywhere, when the drivers of the chariots rode
at full speed into the midst of the battle, thinking they could thus
most effectively succour their friends. It would be hard to say which
side suffered most from this charge, for the Macedonian foot-soldiers,
who were exposed to the first shock of the onset, were trampled down,
while the charioteers were hurled from their seats, when the chariots in
rushing into action jolted over broken and slippery ground. Some again of
the horses took fright and precipitated the carriages not only into the
sloughs and pools of water, but even into the river itself.

A few which were driven off the field by the darts of the enemy made
their way to Porus, who was making most energetic preparations for the
contest. As soon as he saw his chariots scattered amid his ranks, and
wandering about without their drivers, he distributed his elephants to
his friends who were nearest him. Behind them he had posted the infantry
and the archers and the men who beat the drums, the instruments which the
Indians use instead of trumpets to produce their war music. The rattle
of these instruments does not in the least alarm the elephants, their
ears, through long familiarity, being deadened to the sound. An image
of Hercules was borne in front of the line of infantry, and this acted
as the strongest of all incentives to make the soldiers fight well. To
desert the bearers of this image was reckoned a disgraceful military
offence, and they had even ordained death as a penalty for those who
failed to bring it back from the battlefield, for the dread which the
Indians had conceived for the god when he was their enemy had been toned
down to a feeling of religious awe and veneration.

The sight not only of the huge beasts, but even of Porus himself, made
the Macedonians pause for a time, for the beasts, which had been placed
at intervals between the armed ranks, presented, when seen from a
distance, the appearance of towers, and Porus himself not only surpassed
the standard of height to which we conceive the human figure to be
limited, but, besides this, the elephant on which he was mounted seemed
to add to his proportions, for it towered over all the other elephants
even as Porus himself stood taller than other men. Hence Alexander, after
attentively viewing the king and the army of the Indians, remarked to
those near him, “I see at last a danger that matches my courage. It is
at once with wild beasts and men of uncommon mettle that the contest now
lies.” Then turning to Coenus, “When I,” he said, “along with Ptolemy,
Perdiccas, and Hephaestion, have fallen upon the enemy’s left wing, and
you see me in the heat of the conflict, do you then advance the right
wing,[247] and charge the enemy when their ranks begin to waver. And you,
sirs,” he added, turning to Antigenes, Leonnatus, and Tauron, “must bear
down upon their centre, and press them hard in front. The formidable
length and strength of our pikes will never be so useful as when they are
directed against these huge beasts and their drivers. Hurl, then, their
riders to the ground, and stab the beasts themselves. Their assistance
is not of a kind to be depended on, and they may do their own side more
damage than ours, for they are driven against the enemy by constraint,
while terror turns them against their own ranks.”

Having spoken thus he was the first to put spurs to his horse. And
now, as had been arranged, Coenus, upon seeing that Alexander was at
close-quarters with the enemy, threw his cavalry with great fury upon
their left wing. The phalanx besides, at the first onset, broke through
the centre of the Indians. But Porus ordered his elephants to be driven
into action where he had seen cavalry charging his ranks. The slow-footed
unwieldy animals, however, were unfitted to cope with the rapid movements
of horses, and the barbarians were besides unable to use even their
arrows. These weapons were really so long and heavy that the archers
could not readily adjust them on the string unless by first resting their
bow upon the ground. Then, as the ground was slippery and hindered their
efforts, the enemy had time to charge them before they could deliver
their blows.

[Illustration: FIG. 11.—INDIAN BOWMAN.]

The king’s authority was in these circumstances unheeded, and, as usually
happens when the ranks are broken, and fear begins to dictate orders
more peremptorily than the general himself, as many took the command
upon themselves as there were scattered bodies of troops. Some proposed
that these bodies should unite, others that they should form separate
detachments, some that they should wait to be attacked, others that they
should wheel round and charge the enemy in the rear. No common plan of
action was after all concerted. Porus, however, with a few friends in
whom the sense of honour was stronger than fear, rallied his scattered
forces, and marching in front of his line advanced against the enemy with
the elephants. These animals inspired great terror, and their strange
dissonant cries frightened not only the horses, which shy at everything,
but the men also, and disordered the ranks, so that those who just
before were victorious began now to look round them for a place to which
they could flee. Alexander thereupon despatched against the elephants the
lightly-armed Agrianians and the Thracians, troops more serviceable in
skirmishing than in close combat. They assailed the elephants and their
drivers with a furious storm of missiles, and the phalanx, on seeing the
resulting terror and confusion, steadily pressed forward.

Some, however, by pursuing too eagerly, so irritated the animals
with wounds that they turned their rage upon them, and they were in
consequence trampled to death under their feet, thus warning others to
attack them with greater caution. The most dismal of all sights was when
the elephants would, with their trunks, grasp the men, arms and all, and
hoisting them above their heads, deliver them over into the hands of
their drivers. Thus the battle was doubtful, the Macedonians sometimes
pursuing and sometimes fleeing from the elephants, so that the struggle
was prolonged till the day was far spent. Then they began to hack the
feet of the beasts with axes which they had prepared for the purpose,
having besides a kind of sword somewhat curved like a scythe, and called
a chopper, wherewith they aimed at their trunks. In fact, their fear of
the animals led them not only to leave no means untried for killing them,
but even for killing them with unheard-of forms of cruelty.

Hence the elephants, being at last spent with wounds, spread havoc among
their own ranks, and threw their drivers to the ground, who were then
trampled to death by their own beasts. They were therefore driven from
the field of battle like a flock of sheep, as they were maddened with
terror rather than vicious. Porus, meanwhile, being left in the lurch by
the majority of his men, began to hurl from his elephant the darts with
which he had beforehand provided himself, and while many were wounded
from afar by his shot he was himself exposed as a butt for blows from
every quarter. He had already received nine wounds before and behind,
and became so faint from the great loss of blood that the darts were
dropped rather than flung from his feeble hands. But his elephant, waxing
furious though not yet wounded, kept charging the ranks of the enemy
until the driver, perceiving the king’s condition—his limbs failing
him, his weapons dropping from his grasp, and his consciousness almost
gone—turned the beast round and fled.

Alexander pursued, but his horse being pierced with many wounds fainted
under him, and sank to the ground, laying the king down gently rather
than throwing him from his seat.[248] The necessity of changing his horse
retarded of course his pursuit. In the meantime the brother of Taxiles,
the Indian King whom Alexander had sent on before, advised Porus not to
persist in holding out to the last extremity, but to surrender himself to
the conqueror.[249] Porus, however, though his strength was exhausted,
and his blood nearly spent, yet roused himself at the well-known voice,
and said, “I recognise the brother of Taxiles, who gave up his throne and
kingdom.” Therewith he flung at him the one dart that had not slipped
from his grasp, and flung it too with such force that it pierced right
through his back to his chest.[250] Having roused himself to this last
effort of valour, he began to flee faster than before, but his elephant,
which had by this time received many wounds, was now, like himself, quite
exhausted, so that he stopped the flight, and made head against the
pursuers with his remaining infantry.

Alexander had now come up, and knowing how obstinate Porus was, forbade
quarter to be given to those who resisted.[251] The infantry therefore,
and Porus himself, were assailed with darts from all points, and as he
could no longer bear up against them he began to slip from his elephant.
The Indian driver, thinking the king wished to alight, made the elephant
kneel down in the usual manner. On seeing this the other elephants also
knelt down, for they had been trained to lower themselves when the royal
elephant did so. Porus and his men were thus placed entirely at the mercy
of the conqueror. Alexander, supposing that he was dead, ordered his body
to be stripped,[252] and men then ran forward to take off his breastplate
and robes, when the elephant turned upon them in defence of its master,
and lifting him up placed him once more on its back.

Upon this the animal was on all sides overwhelmed with darts, and when
it was stabbed to death, Porus was placed upon a waggon. But the king
perceiving him to lift up his eyes, forgot all animosity, and being
deeply moved with pity, said to him, “What the plague! what madness
induced you to try the fortune of war with me, of whose exploits you have
heard the fame, especially when in Taxiles you had a near example of my
clemency to those who submit to me?” He answered thus: “Since you propose
a question, I shall answer with the freedom which you grant by asking
it. I used to think there was no one braver than myself, for I knew my
own strength, but had not yet experienced thine. The result of the war
has taught me that you are the braver man, but even in ranking next to
you, I consider myself to be highly fortunate.” Being asked again how he
thought the victor should treat him, “in accordance,” he replied, “with
the lesson which this day teaches—a day in which you have witnessed how
readily prosperity can be blasted.”

By giving this admonition he gained more than if he had resorted to
entreaty, for Alexander, in consideration of the greatness of his
courage which scorned all fear, and which adversity could not break
down, extended pity to his misfortunes and honour to his merits.[253] He
ordered his wounds to be as carefully attended to as if he had fought in
his service, and when he had recovered strength, he admitted him into
the number of his friends, and soon after presented him with a larger
kingdom than that which he had.[254] And in truth his nature had no more
essential or more permanent quality than a high respect for true merit
and renown; but he estimated more candidly and impartially glory in an
enemy than in a subject. In fact, he thought that the fabric of his
fame might be pulled down by his own people, while it could but receive
enhanced lustre the greater those were whom he vanquished.


NINTH BOOK


_Chapter I.—Alexander’s speech to his soldiers after the victory—Abisares
sends him an embassy_

Alexander rejoicing in a victory so memorable, which led him to believe
that the East to its utmost limits had been opened up to his arms,
sacrificed to the sun,[255] and having also summoned the soldiers to a
general meeting, he praised them for their services, that they might with
the greater alacrity undertake the wars that yet remained. He pointed
out to them that all power of opposition on the part of the Indians had
been quite overthrown in the battle just fought. What now remained for
them was a noble spoil. The much-rumoured riches of the East abounded
in those very regions, to which their steps were now bent. The spoils
accordingly which they had taken from the Persians had now become cheap
and common. They were going to fill with pearls, precious stones, gold,
and ivory, not only their private abodes, but all Macedonia and Greece.
The soldiers who coveted money as well as glory, and who had never known
his promises to fail, on hearing all this, readily placed their services
at his command. He sent them away full of good hope, and ordered ships to
be built in order that when he had overrun all Asia, he might be able to
visit the sea which formed the boundary of the world.

In the neighbouring mountains was abundance of timber fit for building
ships, and the men in hewing down the trees came upon serpents of most
extraordinary size.[256] There they also found the rhinoceros, an animal
rarely met with elsewhere. This is not the name it bears among the
Indians, but one given it by the Greeks, who were ignorant of the speech
of the country.[257] The king having built two cities, one on each side
of the river which he had lately crossed, presented each of the generals
with a crown, in addition to a thousand pieces of gold. Others also
received rewards in accordance either with the place which they held in
his friendship, or the value of the services which they had rendered.
Abisares, who had sent envoys to Alexander before the battle with Porus
had come off, now sent others to assure him that he was ready to do
whatever he commanded, provided only he was not obliged to surrender his
person; for he could neither live, he said, without having the power of a
king, nor have that power if he were to be kept in captivity. Alexander
bade them tell their master that if he grudged to come to Alexander,
Alexander would go to him.


_Chapter I. Continued.—Alexander advancing farther into the interior of
India, passes through forests and deserts—Crosses the Hydraotes—Besieges
and captures Sangala, and enters the kingdom of Sopithes, who receives
him with great hospitality and shows him a dog and lion fight_

After crossing a river some distance farther on, he advanced into the
interior parts of India. The forests there extended over an almost
boundless tract of country, and abounded with umbrageous trees of
stateliest growth, that rose to an extraordinary height. Numerous
branches, which for size equalled the trunk of ordinary trees, would bend
down to the earth, and then shoot straight up again at the point where
they bent upward, so that they had more the appearance of a tree growing
from its own root than of a bough branching out from its stem.[258] The
climate is salubrious, for the dense shade mitigates the violence of the
heat, and copious springs supply the land with abundance of water. But
here, also, were multitudes of serpents, the scales of which glittered
like gold. The poison of these is deadlier than any other, since their
bite was wont to prove instantly fatal, until a proper antidote was
pointed out by the natives.[259] From thence they passed through deserts
to the river Hyarôtis, the banks of which were covered with a dense
forest, abounding with trees not elsewhere seen, and filled with wild
peacocks.[260] Decamping hence, he came to a town that lay not far off.
This he captured by a general attack all round the walls, and having
received hostages, imposed a tribute upon the inhabitants.[261] He came
next to a great city—great at least for that region—and found it not only
encompassed with a wall, but further defended by a morass.[262]

The barbarians nevertheless sallied out to give battle, taking their
waggons with them, which they fastened together each to each. For weapons
of offence some had pikes and others axes, and they were in the habit
of leaping nimbly from waggon to waggon if they saw their friends hard
pressed and wished to help them. This mode of fighting being quite new to
the Macedonians, at first alarmed them,[263] since they were wounded by
enemies beyond their reach, but coming afterwards to look with contempt
upon a force so undisciplined, they completely surrounded the waggons
and began stabbing all the men that offered resistance. The king then
commanded the cords which fastened the waggons together to be cut[264]
that it might be easier for the soldiers to beset each waggon separately.
The enemy after a loss of 8000 men withdrew into the town.[265] Next day
the walls were escaladed all round and captured. A few were indebted for
their safety to their swiftness of foot. Those who swam across the sheet
of water when they saw the city was sacked, carried great consternation
to the neighbouring towns, where they reported that an invincible army,
one of gods assuredly, had arrived in the country.

Alexander having sent Perdiccas with a body of light troops to ravage
the country, and given another detachment to Eumenes to be employed in
bringing the barbarians to submission, marched himself with the rest
of the army against a strong city within which the inhabitants of some
other cities had taken refuge. The citizens sent deputies to appease the
king’s anger, but continued all the same to make warlike preparations. A
dissension, it seems, had arisen among them and divided their counsels,
some preferring to submit to the last extremities rather than surrender,
others thinking that resistance on their part would be altogether
futile. But as no consultation was held in common, those who were bent
on surrendering threw open the gates and admitted the enemy. Alexander
would have been justified in making the advocates of resistance feel his
displeasure, but he nevertheless pardoned them all without exception, and
after taking hostages marched forward to the next city. As the hostages
were led in the van of the army, the defenders on the wall recognised
them to be their own countrymen, and invited them to a conference.
Here they were prevailed on to surrender, when they were informed of
the king’s clemency to the submissive, and his severity if opposed. In
a similar way he gained over other towns, and placed them under his
protection.

They entered next the dominions of King Sopithes,[266] whose nation
in the opinion of the barbarians excels in wisdom, and lives under
good laws and customs. Here they do not acknowledge and rear children
according to the will of the parents, but as the officers entrusted with
the medical inspection of infants may direct, for if they have remarked
anything deformed or defective in the limbs of a child they order it to
be killed.[267] In contracting marriages they do not seek an alliance
with high birth, but make their choice by the looks, for beauty in the
children is a quality highly appreciated.

Alexander had brought up his army before the capital of this nation where
Sopithes was himself resident. The gates were shut, but as no men-at-arms
showed themselves either on the walls or towers, the Macedonians were
in doubt whether the inhabitants had deserted the city, or were hiding
themselves to fall upon the enemy by surprise. The gate, however, was
on a sudden thrown open, and the Indian king with two grown-up sons
issued from it to meet Alexander. He was distinguished above all the
other barbarians by his tall and handsome figure. His royal robe, which
flowed down to his very feet, was all inwrought with gold and purple.
His sandals were of gold and studded with precious stones, and even his
arms and wrists were curiously adorned with pearls. At his ears he wore
pendants of precious stones which from their lustre and magnitude were
of an inestimable value. His sceptre too was made of gold and set with
beryls,[268] and this he delivered up to Alexander with an expression of
his wish that it might bring him good luck, and be accepted as a token
that he surrendered into his hands his children and his kingdom.

His country possesses a noble breed of dogs, used for hunting, and said
to refrain from barking when they sight their game which is chiefly the
lion.[269] Sopithes wishing to show Alexander the strength and mettle of
these dogs, caused a very large lion to be placed within an enclosure
where four dogs in all were let loose upon him. The dogs at once fastened
upon the wild beast, when one of the huntsmen who was accustomed to work
of this kind tried to pull away by the leg one of the dogs which with the
others had seized the lion, and when the limb would not come away, cut
it off with a knife. The dog could not even by this means be forced to
let go his hold, and so the man proceeded to cut him in another place,
and finding him still clutching the lion as tenaciously as before, he
continued cutting away with his knife one part of him after another. The
brave dog, however, even in dying kept his fangs fixed in the lion’s
flesh; so great is the eagerness for hunting which nature has implanted
in these animals, as testified by the accounts transmitted to us.

I must observe, however, that I copy from preceding writers more than
I myself believe, for I neither wish to guarantee statements of the
truth of which I am doubtful, nor yet to suppress what I find recorded.
Alexander therefore leaving Sopithes in possession of his kingdom,
advanced to the river Hyphasis, where he was rejoined by Hephaestion who
had subdued a district situated in a different direction. Phegeus,[270]
who was king of the nearest nation, having beforehand ordered his
subjects to attend to the cultivation of their fields according to their
wont, went forth to meet Alexander with presents and assurances that
whatever he commanded he would not fail to perform.


_Chapter II.—Alexander obtains information about the Ganges and the
strength of the army kept by Agrammes, king of the Prasians—His speech to
the soldiers to induce them to advance to the Ganges_

The king made a halt of two days with this prince, designing on the third
day to cross the river, the passage of which was difficult, not only
from its great breadth, but also because its channel was obstructed with
rocks. Having therefore requested Phegeus to tell him what he wanted
to know, he learned the following particulars: Beyond the river lay
extensive deserts which it would take eleven days to traverse.[271] Next
came the Ganges, the largest river in all India, the farther bank of
which was inhabited by two nations, the Gangaridae and the Prasii,[272]
whose king Agrammes[273] kept in the field for guarding the approaches
to his country 20,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2000
four-horsed chariots, and, what was the most formidable force of all, a
troop of elephants which he said ran up to the number of 3000.

All this seemed to the king to be incredible, and he therefore asked
Porus, who happened to be in attendance, whether the account was true.
He assured Alexander in reply that, as far as the strength of the nation
and kingdom was concerned, there was no exaggeration in the reports, but
that the present king was not merely a man originally of no distinction,
but even of the very meanest condition. His father was in fact a barber,
scarcely staving off hunger by his daily earnings, but who, from his
being not uncomely in person, had gained the affections of the queen,
and was by her influence advanced to too near a place in the confidence
of the reigning monarch. Afterwards, however, he treacherously murdered
his sovereign; and then, under the pretence of acting as guardian to
the royal children, usurped the supreme authority, and having put the
young princes to death begot the present king, who was detested and held
cheap by his subjects, as he rather took after his father than conducted
himself as the occupant of a throne.

The attestation of Porus to the truth of what he had heard made the king
anxious on manifold grounds; for while he thought contemptuously of the
men and elephants that would oppose him, he dreaded the difficult nature
of the country that lay before him, and in particular, the impetuous
rapidity of the rivers. The task seemed hard indeed, to follow up and
unearth men removed almost to the uttermost bounds of the world. On the
other hand, his avidity of glory and his insatiable ambition forbade
him to think that any place was so far distant or inaccessible as to be
beyond his reach. He did indeed sometimes doubt whether the Macedonians
who had traversed all those broad lands and grown old in battlefields
and camps, would be willing to follow him through obstructing rivers and
the many other difficulties which nature would oppose to their advance.
Overflowing and laden with booty, they would rather, he judged, enjoy
what they had won than wear themselves out in getting more. They could
not of course be of the same mind as himself, for while he had grasped
the conception of a world-wide empire, and stood as yet but on the
threshold of his labours, they were now worn out with toil, and longed
for the time when, all their dangers being at length ended, they might
enjoy their latest winnings. In the end ambition carried the day against
reason; and, having summoned a meeting of the soldiers, he addressed them
very much to this effect:

“I am not ignorant, soldiers, that during these last days the natives of
this country have been spreading all sorts of rumours designed expressly
to work upon your fears; but the falsehood of those who invent such
lies is nothing new in your experience. The Persians in this sort of
way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the plains
of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you
crossed by a ford, and that by means of a bridge. Fame is never brought
to a clearness in which facts can be seen as they are. They are all
magnified when she transmits them. Even our own glory, though resting
on a solid basis, is more indebted for its greatness to rumour than to
reality. Who but till the other day believed that it was possible for
us to bear the shock of those monstrous beasts that looked like so many
ramparts, or that we could have passed the Hydaspes, or conquered other
difficulties which after all were more formidable to hear of than they
proved to be in actual experience. By my troth we had long ago fled from
Asia could fables have been able to scare us.

“Can you suppose that the herds of elephants are greater than of other
cattle when the animal is known to be rare, hard to be caught, and
harder still to tame?[274] It is the same spirit of falsehood which
magnifies the number of horse and foot possessed by the enemy; and with
respect to the river, why, the wider it spreads the liker it becomes to
a placid pool. Rivers, as you know, that are confined between narrow
banks and choked by narrow channels flow with torrent speed, while on
the other hand the current slackens as the channel widens out. Besides,
all the danger is at the bank where the enemy waits to receive us as we
disembark; so that, be the breadth of the river what it may, the danger
is all the same when we are in the act of landing. But let us suppose
that these stories are all true, is it then, I ask, the monstrous size
of the elephants or the number of the enemy that you dread? As for the
elephants, we had an example of them before our eyes in the late battle
when they charged more furiously upon their own ranks than upon ours, and
when their vast bodies were cut and mangled by our bills and axes. What
matters it then whether they be the same number as Porus had, or be 3000,
when we see that if one or two of them be wounded, the rest swerve aside
and take to flight. Then again, if it be no easy task to manage but a
few of them, surely when so many thousands of them are crowded together,
they cannot but hamper each other when their huge unwieldy bodies want
room either to stand or run. For myself, I have such a poor opinion of
the animals that, though I had them, I did not bring them into the field,
being fully convinced they occasion more danger to their own side than to
the enemy.

“But it is the number, perhaps, of the horse and foot that excites your
fears! for you have been wont, you know, to fight only against small
numbers, and will now for the first time have to withstand undisciplined
multitudes! The river Granicus is a witness of the courage of the
Macedonians unconquered in fighting against odds;[275] so too is Cilicia
deluged with the blood of the Persians, and Arbela, where the plains
are strewn with the bones of your vanquished foes. It is too late, now
that you have depopulated Asia by your victories, to begin counting the
enemy’s legions. When we were crossing the Hellespont, it was then we
should have thought about the smallness of our numbers, for now Scythians
follow us, Bactrian troops are here to assist us, Dahans and Sogdians are
serving in our ranks. But it is not in such a throng I put my trust. It
is to your hands, Macedonians, I look. It is your valour I take as the
gage and surety of the deeds I mean to perform.

“As long as it is with you I shall stand in battle, I count not the
number either of my own or the enemy’s army. Do ye only, I entreat, keep
your minds full of alacrity and confidence. We are not standing on the
threshold of our enterprise and our labours, but at their very close. We
have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloth and
cowardice prevent, we shall thence return in triumph to our native land,
having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. Act not then like
foolish husbandmen who, when their crops are ripe, loose them out of hand
from sheer indolence to gather them. The prizes before you are greater
than the risks, for the country to be invaded not only teems with wealth,
but is at the same time feebly defended. So then I lead you not so much
to glory as to plunder. You have earned the right to carry back to your
own country the riches which that sea casts upon its shores; and it would
ill become you if through fear you should leave anything unattempted
or unperformed. I conjure you then by that glory of yours whereby ye
soar above the topmost pinnacle of human greatness—I beseech you by my
services unto you, and yours unto me (a strife in which we still contend
unconquered), that ye desert not your foster-son, your fellow-soldier,
not to say your king, just at the moment when he is approaching the
limits of the inhabited world.

“All things else you have done at my orders—for this one thing I shall
hold myself to be your debtor. I, who never ordered you upon any service
in which I did not place myself in the fore-front of the danger, I who
have often with mine own buckler covered you in battle, now entreat you
not to shatter the palm which is already in my grasp, and by which, if
I may so speak without incurring the ill-will of heaven, I shall become
the equal of Hercules and Father Bacchus. Grant this to my entreaties,
and break at last your obstinate silence. Where is that familiar shout,
the wonted token of your alacrity? Where are the cheerful looks of my
Macedonians? I do not recognise you, soldiers, and, methinks, I seem not
to be recognised by you. I have all along been knocking at deaf ears.
I am trying to rouse hearts that are disloyal and crushed with craven
fears.”

When the soldiers, with their heads bent earthwards, still suppressed
what they felt, “I must,” he said, “have inadvertently given you some
offence that you will not even look at me. Methinks I am in a solitude.
No one answers me; no one so much as says me nay. Is it to strangers I
am speaking? Am I claiming anything unreasonable? Why, it is your glory
and your greatness we are asserting. Where are those whom but the other
day I saw eagerly striving which should have the prerogative of receiving
the person of their wounded king? I am deserted, forsaken, surrendered
into the hands of the enemy. But I shall still persist in going forward,
even though I should march alone. Expose me then to the dangers of
rivers, to the rage of elephants, and to those nations whose very names
fill you with terror. I shall find men that will follow me though I be
deserted by you. The Scythians and Bactrians, once our foemen, but now
our soldiers—these will still be with me.[276] Let me tell you, I had die
rather than be a commander on sufferance. Begone then to your homes, and
go triumphing because ye have forsaken your king![277] For my part, I
shall here find a place, either for the victory of which you despair, or
for an honourable death.”


_Chapter III.—Speech of Coenus on behalf of the army—Alexander’s
displeasure at the refusal of the soldiers to advance—He resolves to
return—Raises altars as memorials of his presence—Reaches the Acesines,
where Coenus dies—Reconciles Taxiles and Porus, and then sails down
stream_

But not even by this appeal could a single word be elicited from any of
the soldiers. They waited for the generals and chief captains to report
to the king that the men, exhausted with their wounds and incessant
labours in the field, did not refuse the duties of war, but were simply
unable to discharge them. The officers, however, paralysed with terror,
kept their eyes steadfastly fixed on the ground, and remained silent.
Then there arose, no one knew how, first a sighing and then a sobbing,
until, little by little, their grief began to vent itself more freely
in streaming tears, so that even the king, whose anger had been turned
into pity, could not himself refrain from tears, anxious though he was to
suppress them. At last, when the whole assembly had abandoned itself to
an unrestrained passion of weeping, Coenus, on finding that the others
were reluctant to open their lips, made bold to step forward to the
tribunal where the king stood, and signified that he had somewhat to say.
When the soldiers saw him removing his helmet from his head—a custom
observed in addressing the king—they earnestly besought him that he would
plead the cause of the army.

“May the gods,” he then said, “defend us from all disloyal thoughts; and
assuredly they do thus defend us. Your soldiers are now of the same mind
towards you as they ever were in times past, being ready to go wherever
you order them, ready to fight your battles, to risk their lives, and to
give your name in keeping to after ages. So then, if you still persist in
your purpose, all unarmed, naked and bloodless though we be, we either
follow you, or go on before you, according to your pleasure. But if you
desire to hear the complaints of your soldiers, which are not feigned,
but wrung from them by the sorest necessity, vouchsafe, I entreat you, a
favourable hearing to men who have most devotedly followed your authority
and your fortunes, and are ready to follow you wherever you may go. Oh,
sir! you have conquered, by the greatness of your deeds, not your enemies
alone, but your own soldiers as well.

“We again have done and suffered up to the full measure of the capacity
of mortal nature. We have traversed seas and lands, and know them better
than do the inhabitants themselves. We are standing now almost on the
earth’s utmost verge, and yet you are preparing to go to a sphere
altogether new—to go in quest of an India unknown even to the Indians
themselves. You would fain root out from their hidden recesses and dens
a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts, so that you may
traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun surveys. The thought is
altogether worthy of a soul so lofty as thine, but it is above ours; for
while thy courage will be ever growing, our vigour is fast waning to its
end.

“See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with how many wounds, and
gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are now blunt, our armour quite
worn out. We have been driven to assume the Persian garb since that of
our own country cannot be brought up to supply us. We have degenerated
so far as to adopt a foreign costume. Among how many of us is there to
be found a single coat of mail? Which of us has a horse? Cause it to be
inquired how many have servants to follow them, how much of his booty
each one has now left. We have conquered all the world, but are ourselves
destitute of all things. Can you think of exposing such a noble army as
this, all naked and defenceless, to the mercy of savage beasts, whose
numbers, though purposely exaggerated by the barbarians, must yet, as
I can gather from the lying report itself, be very considerable. If,
however, you are bent on penetrating still farther into India, that
part of it which lies towards the south is not so vast, and were this
subdued you could then quickly find your way to that sea which nature
has ordained to be the boundary of the inhabited world. Why do you make
a long circuit in pursuit of glory when it is placed immediately within
your reach, for even here the ocean is to be found. Unless, then, you
wish to go wandering about, we have already reached the goal unto which
your fortune leads you. I have preferred to speak on these matters in
your presence, O King! rather than to discuss them with the soldiers in
your absence, not that I have in view to gain thereby for myself the
good graces of the army here assembled, but that you might learn their
sentiments from my lips rather than be obliged to hear their murmurs and
their groans.”[278]

When Coenus had made an end of speaking there arose from all parts of
the audience assenting shouts, mingled with lamentations and confused
voices, calling Alexander king, father, lord, and master. And now
also the other officers, especially the seniors, who from their age
possessed all the greater authority, and could with a better grace beg
to be excused from any more service, united in making the same request.
Alexander therefore found himself unable either to rebuke them for their
stubbornness or to appease their angry mood. Being thus quite at a loss
what to do, he leaped down from the tribunal and shut himself up in the
royal pavilion, into which he forbade any one to be admitted except his
ordinary attendants. For two days he indulged his anger, but on the third
day he emerged from his seclusion, and ordered twelve altars of square
stone to be erected as a monument of his expedition. He ordered also the
fortifications around the camp to be drawn out wide, and couches of a
larger size than was required for men of ordinary stature to be left, so
that by making things appear in magnificent proportions he might astonish
posterity by deceptive wonders.[279]

From this place he marched back the way he had come, and encamped near
the river Acesines. There Coenus caught an illness, which carried him
off.[280] The king was doubtless deeply grieved by his death, but yet
he could not forbear remarking that it was but for the sake of a few
days he had opened a long-winded speech as though he alone were destined
to see Macedonia again. The fleet which he had ordered to be built was
now riding in the stream ready for service. Memnon also had meanwhile
brought from Thrace a reinforcement of 5000 cavalry, together with 7000
infantry sent by Harpalus. He also brought 25,000 suits of armour inlaid
with silver and gold, and these Alexander distributed to the troops,
commanding the old suits to be burned.[281] Designing now to make for the
ocean with a thousand ships, he left Porus and Taxiles, the Indian kings
who had been disagreeing and raking up old feuds, in friendly relations
with each other, strengthened by a marriage alliance; and as they had
done their utmost to help him forward with the building of his fleet,
he confirmed each in his sovereignty. He built also two towns, one of
which he called Nicaea, and the other Bucephala, dedicating the latter to
the memory of the horse which he had lost. Then leaving orders for the
elephants and baggage to follow him by land, he sailed down the river,
proceeding every day about 40 stadia, to allow the troops to land from
time to time where they could conveniently be put ashore.[282]


_Chapter IV.—Alexander subdues various tribes on his way to the
Indus—Disasters to his fleet at the meeting of the rivers—His campaign
against the Sudracae and Malli—Assails their chief stronghold and is left
standing alone on the wall_

Thus he came at length into the country where the river Hydaspes falls
into the Acesines, and thence flows down to the territories of the
Sibi.[283] These people allege that their ancestors belonged to the
army of Hercules, and that being left behind on account of sickness had
possessed themselves of the seats which their posterity now occupied.
They dressed themselves with the skins of wild beasts, and had clubs for
their weapons. They showed besides many other traces of their origin,
though in the course of time Greek manners and institutions had grown
obsolete. He landed among them, and marching a distance of 250 stadia
into the country beyond their borders, laid it waste, and took its
capital town by an assault made against the walls all round. The nation,
consisting of 40,000 foot-soldiers, had been drawn up along the bank of
the river to oppose his landing, but he nevertheless crossed the stream,
put the enemy to flight, and, having stormed the town, compelled all who
were shut up within its walls to surrender. Those who were of military
age were put to the sword, and the rest were sold as slaves.

He then laid siege to another town, but the defenders made so gallant
a resistance that he was repulsed with the loss of many of his
Macedonians.[284] He persevered, however, with the siege till the
inhabitants, despairing of their safety, set fire to their houses, and
cast themselves along with their wives and children into the flames.
War then showed itself in a new form, for while the inhabitants were
destroying their city by spreading the flames, the enemy were striving
to save it by quenching them, so completely does war invert natural
relations. The citadel of the town had escaped damage, and Alexander
accordingly left a garrison behind in it. He was himself conveyed by
means of boats around the fortress, for the three largest rivers in India
(if we except the Ganges) washed the line of its fortifications. The
Indus on the north flows close up to it, and on the south the Acesines
unites with the Hydaspes.[285]

But the meeting of the rivers makes the waters swell in great billows
like those of the ocean, and the navigable way is compressed into a
narrow channel by extensive mud-banks kept continually shifting by the
force of the confluent waters. When the waves, therefore, in thick
succession dashed against the vessels, beating both on their prows
and sides, the sailors were obliged to take in sail; but partly from
their own flurry, and partly from the force of the currents, they were
unable to execute their orders in time, and before the eyes of all two
of the large ships were engulphed in the stream. The smaller craft,
however, though they also were unmanageable, were driven on shore
without sustaining injury. The ship which had the king himself on board
was caught in eddies of the greatest violence, and by their force was
irresistibly driven athwart and whirled onward without answering the helm.

He had already stripped off his clothes preparatory to throwing himself
into the river, while his friends were swimming about not far off ready
to pick him up, but as it was evident that the danger was about equal
whether he threw himself into the water or remained on board, the boatmen
vied with each other in stretching to their oars, and made every exertion
possible for human beings to force their vessel through the raging
surges. It then seemed as though the waves were being cloven asunder,
and as though the whirling eddies were retreating, and the ship was thus
at length rescued from their grasp. It did not, however, gain the shore
in safety, but was stranded on the nearest shallows. One would suppose
that a war had been waged against the river. Alexander there erected as
many altars as there were rivers, and having offered sacrifices upon them
marched onward, accomplishing a distance of thirty stadia.

Thence he came into the dominions of the Sudracae and the Malli, who
hitherto had usually been at war with each other, but now drew together
in presence of the common danger. Their army consisted of 90,000
foot-soldiers, all fit for active service, together with 10,000 cavalry
and 900 war chariots. But when the Macedonians, who believed that they
had by this time got past all their dangers, found that they had still on
hand a fresh war, in which the most warlike nations in all India would
be their antagonists, they were struck with an unexpected terror, and
began again to upbraid the king in the language of sedition. “Though he
had been driven,” they said, “to give up the river Ganges and regions
beyond it, he had not ended the war, but only shifted it. They were now
exposed to fierce nations that with their blood they might open for him
a way to the ocean. They were dragged onward outside the range of the
constellations and the sun of their own zone, and forced to go to places
which nature meant to be hidden from mortal eyes.[286] New enemies were
for ever springing up with arms ever new, and though they put them all to
rout and flight, what reward awaited them? What but mists and darkness
and unbroken night hovering over the abyss of ocean? What but a sea
teeming with multitudes of frightful monsters—stagnating waters in which
expiring nature has given way in despair?”[287]

The king, troubled not by any fears for himself, but by the anxiety of
the soldiers about their safety, called them together, and pointed out
to them that those of whom they were afraid were weak and unwarlike;
that after the conquest of these tribes there was nothing in their way,
once they had traversed the distance now between them and the ocean, to
prevent their coming to the end of the world, which would be also the
end of their labours; that he had given way to their fears of the Ganges
and of the numerous tribes beyond that river, and turned his arms to a
quarter where the glory would be equal but the hazard less; that they
were already in sight of the ocean, and were already fanned by breezes
from the sea.[288] They should not then grudge him the glory to which he
aspired. They would overpass the limits reached by Hercules and Father
Bacchus, and thus at a small cost bestow upon their king an immortality
of fame. They should permit him to return from India with honour, and not
to escape from it like a fugitive.

Every assemblage, and especially one of soldiers, is readily carried
away by any chance impulse, and hence the measures for quelling a mutiny
are less important than the circumstances in which it originates. Never
before did so eager and joyous a shout ring out as was now sent forth by
the army asking him to lead them forward, and expressing the hope that
the gods would prosper his arms and make him equal in glory to those
whom he was emulating. Alexander, elated by these acclamations, at once
broke up his camp and advanced against the enemy, which was the strongest
in point of numbers of all the Indian tribes. They were making active
preparations for war, and had selected as their head a brave warrior of
the nation of the Sudracae.[289] This experienced general had encamped at
the foot of a mountain, and had ordered fires to be kindled over a wide
circuit to make his army appear so much the more numerous. He endeavoured
also at times, but in vain, to alarm the Macedonians when at rest by
making his men shout and howl in their own barbarous manner.

As soon as day dawned, the king, full of hope and confidence, ordered
his soldiers, who were eager for action, to take their arms and march
to battle. The barbarians, however, fled all of a sudden, but whether
through fear or dissensions that had arisen among them, there is no
record to show. At any rate, they escaped timeously to their mountain
recesses, which were difficult of approach. The king pursued the
fugitives, but to no purpose; however, he took their baggage.

Thence he came into the city of the Sudracae, into which most of the
enemy had fled,[290] trusting for safety as much to their arms as to the
strength of the fortifications. The king was now advancing to attack
the place, when a soothsayer warned him not to undertake the siege, or
at all events to postpone it, since the omens indicated that his life
would be in danger. The king fixing his eyes upon Demophon (for this was
the name of the soothsayer), said: “If any one should in this manner
interrupt thyself, while busied with thine art and inspecting entrails,
wouldst thou not regard him as impertinent and troublesome?” “I certainly
would so regard him,” said Demophon. Then rejoined Alexander, “Dost thou
not think then that when I am occupied with such important matters,
and not with the inspection of the entrails of cattle, there can be
any interruption more unseasonable to me than a soothsayer enslaved by
superstition?”[291] Without more loss of time than was required for
returning the answer, he ordered the scaling-ladders to be applied to
the wall, and while the others were hesitating to mount them, he himself
scaled the ramparts.[292]

The parapet which ran round the rampart was narrow, and was not marked
out along the coping with battlements and embrasures, but was built in an
unbroken line of breastwork, which obstructed assailants in attempting
to get over. The king then was clinging to the edge of the parapet,
rather than standing upon it, warding off with his shield the darts that
fell upon him from every side, for he was assailed by missiles from all
the surrounding towers. Nor were the soldiers able to mount the wall
under the storm of arrows discharged against them from above.[293] Still
at last a sense of shame overcame their fear of the greatness of the
danger, for they saw that by their hesitation the king would fall into
the hands of his enemies. But their help was delayed by their hurry, for
while every one strove to get soonest to the top of the wall, they were
precipitated from the ladders which they overloaded till they broke, thus
balking the king of his only hope. He was in consequence left standing in
sight of his numerous army, like a man in a solitude, whom all the world
has forsaken.


_Chapter V.—Alexander is severely wounded by an arrow within the
stronghold of the Sudracae—The arrow is extracted by Critobulus_

By this time his left hand, with which he was shifting his buckler
about, became tired with parrying the blows directed against him from
all round, and his friends cried out to him that he should leap down,
and were standing ready to catch him when he fell. But instead of taking
this course, he did an act of daring past all belief and unheard of—an
act notable as adding far more to his reputation for rashness than to his
true glory. For with a headlong spring he flung himself into the city
filled with his enemies, even though he could scarcely expect to die
fighting, since before he could rise from the ground he was likely to be
overpowered and taken prisoner. But, as luck would have it, he had flung
his body with such nice poise that he alighted on his feet, which gave
him the advantage of an erect attitude when he began fighting. Fortune
had also so provided that he could not possibly be surrounded, for an
aged tree which grew not far from the wall, had thrown out branches
thickly covered with leaves, as if for the very purpose of sheltering
the king. Against the huge bole of this tree he so planted himself that
he could not be surrounded, and as he was thus protected in rear, he
received on his buckler the darts with which he was assailed in front;
for single-handed though he was, not one of the many who set upon him
ventured to come to close-quarters with him, and their missiles lodged
more frequently in the branches of the tree than in his buckler.

What served him well at this juncture was the far-spread renown of his
name, and next to that despair, which above everything nerves men to die
gloriously. But as the numbers of the enemy were constantly increasing,
his buckler was by this time loaded with darts, and his helmet shattered
by stones, while his knees sank under him from the fatigue of his
protracted exertions. On seeing this, they who stood nearest incautiously
rushed upon him in contempt of the danger. Two of these he smote with his
sword, and laid them dead at his feet, and after that no one could muster
up courage enough to go near him. They only plied him with darts and
arrows from a distance off.

But though thus exposed as a mark for every shot, he had no great
difficulty in protecting himself while crouching on his knees, until an
Indian let fly an arrow two cubits long (for the Indians, as remarked
already, use arrows of this length), and pierced him through his armour
a little above his right side. Struck down by this wound, from which the
blood spirted in great jets, he let his weapon drop as if he were dying
without strength enough left to let his right hand extract the arrow. The
archer, accordingly, who had wounded him, exulting in his success, ran
forward with eager haste to strip his body. But Alexander no sooner felt
him lay hands on his person, than he became so exasperated by the supreme
indignity, I imagine, of the outrage, that he recalled his swooning
spirit, and with an upward thrust of his sword pierced the exposed side
of his antagonist. Thus there lay dead around the king three of his
assailants, while the others stood off like men stupefied.

Meanwhile he endeavoured to raise himself up with his buckler, that he
might die sword in hand, before his last breath left him, but finding he
had not strength enough for the effort, he grasped with his right hand
some of the defending boughs, and tried to rise with their help. His
strength was, however, inadequate even to support his body, and he fell
down again upon his knees, waving his hand as a challenge to the enemy
to meet him in close combat if any of them dared. At length Peucestas in
a different quarter of the town beat off the men who were defending the
wall, and following the king’s traces came to where he was. Alexander on
seeing him thought that he had come not to succour him in life, but to
comfort him in his death, and giving way through sheer exhaustion, fell
over on his shield.

Then came up Timaeus, and a little afterwards Leonnatus followed by
Aristonus.[294] The Indians, on discovering that the king was within
their walls, abandoned all other places and ran in crowds to where he
was, and pressed hard upon those who defended him. Timaeus, one of
such, after receiving many wounds and making a gallant struggle, fell.
Peucestas again, though pierced with three javelin wounds, held up his
buckler not for his own, but the king’s protection. Leonnatus, while
endeavouring to drive back the barbarians who were eagerly pressing
forward, was severely wounded in the neck, and fell down in a swoon at
the king’s feet. Peucestas was also now quite exhausted with the loss of
blood from his wounds and could no longer hold up his buckler. Thus all
the hope now lay in Aristonus, but he also was desperately wounded, and
could no longer sustain the onset of so many assailants. In the meantime
the rumour that the king had fallen reached the Macedonians.

What would have terrified others only served to stimulate their ardour,
for, heedless of every danger, they broke down the wall with their
pickaxes, and where they had made an entrance burst into the city and
massacred great numbers of the Indians, chiefly in the pursuit, no
resistance being offered except by a mere handful. They spared neither
old men, women, nor children, but held whomsoever they met to have been
the person by whom the king had been wounded, and in this way they at
length satiated their righteous indignation.

Clitarchus and Timagenes state that Ptolemy, who afterwards became a
king, was present at this fighting, but Ptolemy himself, who would not
of course gainsay his own glory, has recorded in his memoirs that he was
away at the time, as the king had sent him on an expedition elsewhere.
This instance shows how great was the carelessness of the authors who
composed these old books of history, or, it may be, their credulity,
which is just as great a dereliction of their duty. The king was carried
into a tent, where the surgeons cut off the wooden shaft of the arrow
which had pierced him, taking care not to stir its point. When his armour
was taken off they discovered that the weapon was barbed, and that it
could not be extracted without danger except by making an incision to
open the wound. But here again they were afraid lest in operating they
should be unable to staunch the flow of blood, for the weapon was large
and had been driven home with such force that it had evidently pierced to
the inwards.

Critobulus, who was famous for his surgical skill,[295] was nevertheless
swayed by fear in a case so precarious, and dreaded to put his hand to
the work lest his failure to effect a cure should recoil on his own head.
The king observing him to weep, and to be showing signs of fear, and
looking ghastly pale, said to him: “For what and how long are you waiting
that you do not set to work as quickly as possible? If die I must, free
me at least from the pain I suffer. Are you afraid lest you should
be held to account because I have received an incurable wound?” Then
Critobulus, at last overcoming, or perhaps dissembling his fear, begged
Alexander to suffer himself to be held while he was extracting the point,
since even a slight motion of his body would be of dangerous consequence.
To this the king replied that there was no need of men to hold him, and
then, agreeably to what had been enjoined him, he did not wince the least
during the operation.[296]

When the wound had then been laid wide open and the point extracted,
there followed such a copious discharge of blood that the king began to
swoon, while a dark mist came over his eyes, and he lay extended as if
he were dying. Every remedy was applied to staunch the blood, but all to
no purpose, so that the king’s friends, believing him to be dead, broke
out into cries and lamentations. The bleeding did, however, at last stop,
and the patient gradually recovered consciousness and began to recognise
those who stood around him. All that day and the night which followed the
army lay under arms around the royal tent. All of them confessed that
their life depended on his single breath, and they could not be prevailed
on to withdraw until they had ascertained that he had fallen into a quiet
sleep. Thereupon they returned to the camp entertaining more assured
hopes of his recovery.


_Chapter VI.—Alexander recovers and shows himself to the army—His
officers remonstrate with him for his recklessness in exposing his life
to danger—His reply to their appeal_

The king, who had now been kept for the space of seven days under
treatment for his wound without its being as yet cicatrised, on hearing
that a report of his death had gained a wide currency among the
barbarians, caused two ships to be lashed together and his tent to be
set up in the centre where it would be conspicuous to every one, so that
he might therefrom show himself to those who believed him to be dead.
By thus exposing himself to the view of the inhabitants he crushed the
hope with which the false report had inspired his enemies. He then sailed
down the river,[297] starting a good while before the rest of the fleet,
lest the repose which his weak bodily condition still required should be
disturbed by the noise of rowing. On the fourth day after he had embarked
he reached a country deserted by its inhabitants, but fruitful in corn
and well stocked with cattle. Here along with his soldiers he enjoyed a
welcome season of rest.

Now it was a custom among the Macedonians that the king’s especial
friends and those who had the guard of his person watched before his tent
during any occasional illness. This custom being now observed as usual,
they all entered his chamber in a body. Alexander fearing they might be
the bearers of some bad news, since they had all come together, enquired
whether they had come to inform him that the enemy had that moment
arrived. Then Craterus, who had been chosen by the others as their medium
to let the king know the entreaties of his friends, addressed him in
these terms: “Can you imagine,” he began, “that we could be more alarmed
by the enemy’s approach, even if they were already within our lines, than
we are concerned for your personal safety, by which, it seems, you set
but little store? Were the united powers of the whole world to conspire
against us, were they to cover the land all over with arms and men, to
cover the seas with fleets, and lead ferocious wild beasts against us,
we shall prove invincible to every foe when we have you to lead us. But
which of the gods can ensure that this the stay and star of Macedonia
will be long preserved to us when you are so forward to expose your
person to manifest dangers, forgetting that you draw into peril the lives
of so many of your countrymen? For which of us wishes to survive you,
or even has it within his power? Under your conduct and command we have
advanced so far that there is no one but yourself who can lead us back to
our hearths and homes.

“No doubt while you were still contending with Darius for the sovereignty
of Persia, one could not even think it strange (though no one wished
it) that you were ever ready and eager to rush boldly into danger, for
where the risk and the reward are fairly balanced, the gain is not only
more ample in case of success, but the solace is greater in case of
defeat. But that your very life should be paid as the price of an obscure
village, which of your soldiers, nay, what inhabitant of any barbarous
country that has heard of your greatness can tolerate such an idea? My
soul is struck with horror when I think of the scene which was lately
presented to our eyes.

“I cannot but tremble to relate that the hands of the greatest
dastards would have polluted the spoils stripped from the invincible
Alexander, had not fortune, looking with pity on us, interfered for your
deliverance. We are no better than traitors, no better than deserters,
all of us who were unable to keep up with you when you ran into danger;
and should you therefore brand us all with dishonour, none of us will
refuse to give satisfaction for that from the guilt of which he could
not secure himself. Show us, we beseech you then, in some other way, how
cheap you hold us. We are ready to go wherever you order. We solicit that
for us you reserve obscure dangers and inglorious battles, while you save
yourself for those occasions which give scope for your greatness. Glory
won in a contest with inferior opponents soon becomes stale, and nothing
can be more absurd than to let your valour be wasted where it cannot be
displayed to view.”

Ptolemy and others who were present addressed him in the same or similar
terms, and all of them, as one man, besought him with tears that, sated
as he was with glory, he would at last set some limits to that passion
and have more regard for his own safety, on which that of the public
depended. The affection and loyalty of his friends were so gratifying
to the king that he embraced them one by one with more than his usual
warmth, and requested them all to be seated.[298]

Then, in addressing them, he went far back in a review of his career and
said: “I return you, most faithful and most dutiful subjects and friends,
my most heartfelt thanks, not only because you at this time prefer my
safety to your own, but also because from the very outset of the war you
have lost no opportunity of showing by every pledge and token your kindly
feelings towards myself, so that I must confess my life has never been
so dear to me as it is at present, and chiefly so, that I may long enjoy
your companionship. At the same time, I must point out that those who are
willing to lay down their lives for me do not look at the matter from my
point of view, inasmuch as I judge myself to have deserved by my bravery
your favourable inclinations towards me, for you may possibly be coveting
to reap the fruit of my favour for a great length of time, perhaps even
in perpetuity, but I measure myself not by the span of age, but by that
of glory.

“Had I been contented with my paternal heritage, I might have spent my
days within the bounds of Macedonia, in slothful ease, to an obscure and
inglorious old age; although even those who remain indolently at home are
not masters of their own destiny, for while they consider a long life to
be the supreme good, an untimely death often takes them by surprise. I,
however, who do not count my years but by my victories, have already had
a long career of life, if I reckon aright the gifts of fortune. Having
begun to reign in Macedonia, I now hold the supremacy of Greece. I have
subdued Thrace and the people of Illyria; I give laws to the Triballi and
the Maedi,[299] and am master of Asia from the shores of Hellespont as
far south as the shores of the Indian Ocean. And now I am not far from
the very ends of the earth, which when I have passed I purpose to open
up to myself a new realm of nature—a new world. In the turning-point of
a single hour I crossed over from Asia into the borders of Europe.[300]
Having conquered both these continents in the ninth year of my reign,
and in my twenty-eighth year, do you think I can pause in the task
of completing my glory, to which, and to which only, I have entirely
devoted myself? No, I shall not fail in my duty to her, and wheresoever
I shall be fighting I shall imagine myself on the world’s theatre, with
all mankind for spectators. I shall give celebrity to places before
unnoted. I shall open up for all nations a way to regions which nature
has hitherto kept far distant.

“If fortune shall so direct that in the midst of these enterprises my
life be cut short, that would only add to my renown. I am sprung from
such a stock that I am bound to prefer living much to living long.[301]
Reflect, I pray you, that we have come to lands in the eyes of which the
name of a woman is the most famed for valour. What cities did Semiramis
build! What nations did she bring to subjection! What mighty works did
she plan! We have not yet equalled the glorious achievements of a woman,
and have we already had our fill of glory? No, I say. Let the gods,
however, but favour us, and things still greater remain for us yet to
do. But the countries we have not yet reached shall only become ours on
condition that we consider nothing little in which there is room for
great glory to be won. Do you but defend me against domestic treason
and the plots of my own household,[302] and I will fearlessly face the
dangers of battle and war.

“Philip was safer in the field of fight than in the theatre. He often
escaped the hands of his enemies—he could not elude those of his
subjects.[303] And if you examine how other kings also came by their end,
you can count more that were slain by their own people than by their
enemies. But now lastly, since an opportunity has presented itself to me
of disclosing a matter which I have for a long time been turning over
and over in my mind, I give you to understand that to me the greatest
rewards of all my toils and achievements will be this, that my mother
Olympias shall be deified as soon as she departs this life. If I be
spared, I shall myself discharge that duty, but if death anticipate me,
bear in memory that I have entrusted this office to you.” With these
words he dismissed his friends; but for a good many days he remained in
the same encampment.


_Chapter VII.—The affair of Biton and Boxus at Baktra—Embassy from the
Sudracae and Malli proffering submission—Alexander entertains his army
and the embassy at a sumptuous banquet—Single combat between a Macedonian
and an Athenian champion_

While these things were doing in India, the Greek soldiers who had been
recently drafted by the king into settlements around Bactra disagreed
among themselves and revolted, for the stronger faction, having killed
some of their countrymen who remained loyal, had recourse to arms, and
making themselves masters of the citadel of Bactra, which happened to be
carelessly guarded, forced even the barbarians to join their party. Their
leader was Athenodorus, who had also assumed the title of king, not so
much from an ambition to reign as from a wish to return to his native
country along with those who acknowledged his authority. Against his life
one Biton, a citizen of the same Greek state as himself, but who hated
him from envy, laid a plot, and having invited him to a banquet, had him
assassinated during the festivities by the hands of a native of Margiana
called Boxus. The day following Biton, in a general meeting which had
been convoked, persuaded the majority that Athenodorus had without
any provocation formed a plot to take away his life. Others, however,
suspected there had been foul play on Biton’s part, and by degrees this
suspicion spread itself about among the rest. The Greek soldiers,
therefore, took up arms to put Biton to death should an opportunity
present itself.

But the leading men appeased the anger of the multitude, and Biton
being thus freed from his imminent danger, contrary to what he had
anticipated, soon afterwards conspired against the very man to whom he
owed his safety. But when his treachery came to their knowledge they
seized both Biton himself and Boxus. The latter they ordered to be at
once put to death, but Biton not till after he had undergone torture. The
instruments for this purpose were already being applied to his limbs when
the soldiers, it is not known why, ran to their arms like so many madmen.
On hearing the uproar they made, the men who had orders to torture Biton
desisted from their office, thinking that the object of the rioters, whom
they had heard shouting, was to prevent them going on with their work.
Biton, stripped as he was, ran for protection to the Greeks, and the
sight of the wretched man sentenced to death caused such a revulsion of
their feelings that they ordered him to be set at liberty. Having twice
escaped punishment, he returned to his native country with the rest of
those who left the colonies which the king had assigned to them.[304]
These things were done about Bactra and the borders of Scythia.

In the meantime a hundred ambassadors came to the king from the two
nations we have before mentioned.[305] They all rode in chariots and were
men of uncommon stature and of a very dignified bearing. Their robes were
of linen and embroidered with inwrought gold and purple. They informed
him that they surrendered into his hands themselves, their cities, and
their territories, and that he was the first to whose authority and
protection they had intrusted their liberty which for so many ages
they had preserved inviolate. The gods, they said, were the authors of
their submission and not fear, seeing that they had submitted to his
yoke while their strength was quite unbroken. The king at a meeting of
his council accepted their proffer of submission and allegiance, and
imposed on them the tribute which the two nations paid in instalments
to the Arachosians.[306] He further ordered them to furnish him with
2500 horsemen, all which commands were faithfully carried out by the
barbarians. After this he gave orders for the preparation of a splendid
banquet to which he invited the ambassadors and the petty kings of the
neighbouring tribes. Here a hundred couches of gold had been placed at a
small distance from each other, and these were hung round with tapestry
curtains which glittered with gold and purple. In a word he displayed
at this entertainment all that was corrupt in the ancient luxury of the
Persians as well as in the new-fangled fashions which had been adopted by
the Macedonians, thus intermixing the vices of both nations.

At this banquet there was present Dioxippus the Athenian, a famous
boxer,[307] who on account of his surprising strength was already well
known to the king, and one even of his favourites. Some there were who
from envy and malice used to carp at him between jest and earnest,
remarking they had a full-fed good-for-nothing beast in their company,
who when others went forth to fight would rub himself with oil and take
exercise to get up his appetite. Now at the banquet a Macedonian called
Horratus, who was by this time “flown with wine,” began to taunt him in
the usual style, and challenged him, if he were a man, to fight him next
day with his sword, after which the king would judge of his temerity or
of the cowardice of Dioxippus. The terms of the challenge were accepted
by Dioxippus, who treated with contempt the bravado of the insolent
soldier. The king finding next day that the two men were more than ever
bent on fighting, and that he could not dissuade them, allowed them to do
as they pleased. The soldiers came in crowds to witness the affair, and
among others Greeks who backed up Dioxippus.[308]

The Macedonian came with the proper arms, carrying in his left hand
a brazen shield and the long spear called the _sarissa_, and in his
right a javelin. He wore also a sword by his side as if he meant to
fight with several opponents at once. Dioxippus again entered the ring
shining with oil, wearing a garland about his brows, having a scarlet
cloak wrapped about his left arm, and carrying in his right hand a stout
knotty club. This singular mode of equipment kept all the spectators for
a time in suspense, because it seemed not temerity but downright madness
for a naked man to engage with one armed to the teeth. The Macedonian
accordingly, not doubting for a moment but that he could kill his
adversary from a distance, cast his javelin at him, but this Dioxippus
avoided by a slight bending of his body, and before the other could shift
the long pike to his right hand, sprang upon him and broke the weapon in
two by a stroke of his club. The Macedonian, having thus lost two of his
weapons, prepared to draw his sword, but Dioxippus closed with him before
he was ready to wield it, and suddenly tripping up his heels, knocked
him down as with a blow from a battering-ram. He then wrested his sword
from his grasp, planted his foot on his neck as he lay prostrate, and
brandishing his club would have brained him with it, had he not been
prevented by the king.

The result of the match was mortifying not only to the Macedonians, but
even to Alexander himself, for he saw with vexation that the vaunted
bravery of the Macedonians had fallen into contempt with the barbarians
who attended the spectacle. This made the king lend his ear all too
readily to the accusations of those who owed Dioxippus a grudge. So at
a feast which he attended a few days afterwards a golden bowl was by a
private arrangement secretly taken off the table, and the attendants
went to the king to complain of the loss of the article which they
themselves had hidden. It often enough happens that one who blushes at
a false insinuation has less control of his countenance than one who is
really guilty. Dioxippus could not bear the glances which were turned
upon him as if he were the thief, and so when he had left the banquet he
wrote a letter which he addressed to the king, and then killed himself
with his sword. The king took his death much to heart, judging that the
man had killed himself from sheer indignation, and not from remorse of
conscience, especially since the intemperate joy of his enemies made it
clear that he had been falsely accused.


_Chapter VIII.—Alexander receives the submission of the Malli—Invades the
Musicani and the Praesti, whose king Porticanus is slain—He next attacks
King Sambus, many of whose cities surrendered—Musicanus having revolted
is captured and executed—Ptolemy is wounded by a poisoned arrow in the
kingdom of Sambus, but recovers—Alexander reaches Patala and sails down
the Indus_

The Indian ambassadors were dismissed to their several homes, but in a
few days they returned with presents for Alexander which consisted of 300
horsemen, 1030 chariots each drawn by four horses, 1000 Indian bucklers,
a great quantity of linen-cloth, 100 talents of steel,[309] some tame
lions and tigers of extraordinary size, the skins also of very large
lizards, and a quantity of tortoise shells.[310] The king commanding
Craterus to move forward in advance with his troops and to keep always
near the river, down which he intended himself to sail, took ship along
with his usual retinue, and dropping down stream came to the territories
of the Malli.[311] Thence he marched towards the Sabarcae,[312] a
powerful Indian tribe where the form of government was democratic and not
regal. Their army consisted of 60,000 foot and 6000 cavalry attended by
500 chariots.

They had elected three generals renowned for their valour and military
skill; but when those who lived near the river, the banks of which were
most thickly studded with their villages,[313] saw the whole river as
far as the eye could reach covered with ships, and saw besides the
many thousands of men and their gleaming arms, they took fright at the
strange spectacle and imagined that an army of the gods and a second
Father Bacchus, a name famous in that country, were coming into their
midst. The shouts of the soldiers and the noise of the oars, together
with the confused voices of the sailors encouraging each other, so
filled their alarmed ears that they all ran off to the army and cried
out to the soldiers that they would be mad to offer battle to the gods,
that the number of ships carrying these invincible warriors was past all
counting.[314] By these reports they created such a terror in the ranks
of their own army that they sent ambassadors commissioned to surrender
their whole nation to Alexander.

Having received their submission, he came on the fourth day after to
other tribes which had as little inclination for fighting as their
neighbours. Here therefore he built a town, which by his orders was
called Alexandrea,[315] and then he entered the country of the people
known as the Musicani.[316] While he was here he held an enquiry into the
complaints advanced by the Parapamisadae against Terioltes,[317] whom
he had made their satrap, and, finding many charges of extortion and
tyranny proved against him, he sentenced him to death. On the other hand
Oxyartes, the governor of the Bactriani, was not only acquitted, but, as
he had claims upon Alexander’s affections, was rewarded with an extension
of the territory under his jurisdiction. Having thereafter reduced the
Musicani, Alexander put a garrison into their capital, and marched thence
into the country of the Praesti, another Indian tribe.[318] Their king
was Porticanus, and he with a great body of his countrymen had shut
himself up within a strongly-fortified city. Alexander, however, took
it after a three days’ siege. Porticanus, who had taken refuge within
the citadel after the capture of the city, sent deputies to the king to
arrange about terms of capitulation. Before they reached him, however,
two towers had fallen down with a dreadful crash, and the Macedonians
having made their way through the ruins into the citadel, captured it and
slew Porticanus, who with a few others had offered resistance.

Having demolished the citadel and sold all the prisoners, he marched
into the territories of King Sambus, where he received the submission
of numerous towns.[319] The strongest, however, of all the cities which
belonged to this people, he took by making a passage into it underground.
To the barbarians, who had no previous knowledge of this device for
entering fortified places, it seemed as if a miracle had been wrought
when they saw armed men rise out of the ground in the middle of their
city almost without any trace of the mine by which they had entered being
visible.[320] Clitarchus says that 80,000 Indians were slain in that part
of the country, and that numerous prisoners were sold as slaves. The
Musicani again rebelled, and Pithon being sent to crush them, brought the
chief of the tribe, who was also the author of the insurrection, to the
king, who ordered him to be crucified, and then returned to the river,
where the fleet was waiting for him.

The fourth day thereafter he sailed down the river to a town that lay at
the very extremity of the kingdom of Sambus. That prince had but lately
surrendered himself to Alexander, but the people of the city refused
to obey him, and had even closed their gates against him. The king,
however, despising the paucity of their numbers, ordered 500 Agrianians
to go close up to the walls and then to retire by little, in order to
entice the enemy from the town, who would in that case certainly pursue
under the belief that they were retreating. The Agrianians, after some
skirmishing, suddenly showed their backs to the enemy as they had been
ordered, and were hotly pursued by the barbarians, who fell in with
other troops led by the king in person. The fighting was therefore
renewed, with the result that out of the 3000 barbarians who were in
the action, 600 were killed, 1000 taken prisoners, and the rest driven
back into the city. But this victory did not end so happily as at first
sight it promised to do, for the barbarians had used poisoned swords,
and the wounded soon afterwards died; while the surgeons were at a loss
to discover why a slight wound should be incurable, and followed by so
violent a death. The barbarians had been in hopes that the king, who
was known to be rash and reckless of his safety, might be in this way
cut off, and in fact it was only by sheer good luck that he escaped
untouched, fighting as he did among the very foremost.

Ptolemy was wounded in the left shoulder, slightly indeed, but yet
dangerously on account of the poison, and his case caused the king
especial anxiety. He was his own kinsman; some even believed that Philip
was his father, and it is at all events certain that he was the son of
one of that king’s mistresses. He was a member of the royal body-guard,
and the bravest of soldiers. At the same time, he was even greater and
more illustrious in civil pursuits than in war itself. He lived in a
plain style like men of common rank, was liberal in the extreme, easy
too of access, and a man who gave himself none of the high airs so often
assumed by courtiers. These qualities made it doubtful whether he was
more loved by the king or by his countrymen. At all events, now that his
life was in danger, he was for the first time made aware of the great
affection entertained for him by the Macedonians, who by this time seem
to have presaged the greatness to which he afterwards rose, for they
showed as much solicitude for him as they did for Alexander himself.
Alexander, again, though fatigued with fighting and anxiety, sat watching
over Ptolemy, and when he wished to take some rest, did not leave the
sick-room, but had his bed brought into it.

He had no sooner laid himself down than he fell into a profound sleep,
from which, when he awoke, he told his attendants that in a vision he had
seen a creature in the form of a serpent carrying in its mouth a plant,
which it offered him as an antidote to the poison. He gave besides such
a description of the colour of the plant as he was sure would enable
any one falling in with it to recognise it. The plant was found soon
afterwards, as many had gone to search for it, and was laid upon the
wound by Alexander himself. The application at once removed the pain and
speedily cicatrised the wound.[321] The barbarians finding themselves
disappointed of their first hopes, surrendered themselves and their city.

Alexander marched thence into the Patalian territory. Its king was
Moeres,[322] but he had abandoned the town and fled for safety to the
mountains. Alexander then took possession of the place, and ravaged the
surrounding country, from which he carried off a great booty of sheep and
cattle, besides a great quantity of corn. After this, taking some natives
acquainted with the river to pilot his way, he sailed down the stream to
an island which had sprung up almost in the middle of the channel.[323]


_Chapter IX.—Perils encountered on the voyage down the western arm of the
Indus to the sea—Alexander returns from the mouth of the river to Patala_

Here he was obliged to make a longer stay than he had anticipated,
because the pilots, finding they were not strictly guarded, had
absconded. He then sent out a party of his men to search for others. They
returned without finding any, but his unquenchable ambition to see the
ocean and reach the boundaries of the world, made him entrust his own
life and the safety of so many gallant men to an unknown river without
any guides possessed of the requisite local knowledge. They thus sailed
on ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass. It was entirely
left to haphazard and baseless conjecture how far off they were from the
sea, what tribes dwelt along the banks, whether the river was placid
at its mouth, and whether it was thereabouts of a depth sufficient for
their war-ships. The only comfort in this rash adventure was a confident
reliance on Alexander’s uniform good fortune. The expedition had in this
manner now proceeded a distance of 400 stadia, when the pilots brought to
his notice that they began to feel sea-air, and that they believed the
ocean was not now far off.

The king, elated by the news, exhorted the sailors to bend to their oars.
The end of their labours, he said, for which they had always been hoping
and praying, was close at hand; nothing was now wanting to complete their
glory; nothing left to withstand their valour. They could now, without
the hazard of fighting, without any bloodshed, make the whole world
their own. Even nature herself could advance no farther, and within a
short time they would see what was known to none but the immortal gods.
He nevertheless sent a small party ashore in a boat in order to take
some of the natives straggling about, from whom he hoped some correct
information might be obtained. After all the huts near the shore had been
searched, some natives at last were found hidden away in them. These,
on being asked how far off the sea was, answered that they had never so
much as heard of such a thing as the sea, but that on the third day they
might come to water of a bitter taste which corrupted the fresh water.
From this it was understood they meant the sea, whose nature they did
not understand. The mariners therefore plied their oars with increased
alacrity, and still more strenuously on the following day as they drew
nearer to the fulfilment of their hopes.

On the third day they observed that the sea, coming up with a tide as
yet gentle, began to mingle its brine with the fresh water of the river.
Then they rowed out to another island that lay in the middle of the
river, making, however, slower progress in rowing since the stream of the
river was now beaten back by the force of the tide. They put in to the
shore of the island, and such as landed ran hither and thither in quest
of provisions, never dreaming of the mishap which was to overtake them
from their ignorance of tides. It was now about the third hour of the day
when the ocean, undergoing its periodic change, rose in flood-tide, and
began to burst upon them and force back the current of the river, which
being at first retarded, and then more violently repelled, was driven
upward contrary to its natural direction with more than the impetuosity
of rivers in flood rushing down precipitous beds. The men in general were
ignorant of the nature of the sea, and so, when they saw it continually
swelling higher, and overflowing the beach which before was dry, they
looked upon this as something supernatural by which the gods signified
their wrath against their rash presumption.

When the vessels were now fairly floated, and the whole squadron
scattered in different directions, the men who had gone on shore ran back
in consternation to the ships, confounded beyond measure by a calamity
of a nature so unexpected. But amid the tumult their haste served only
to mar their speed. Some were to be seen pushing the vessels with poles;
others had taken their seats to row, but in doing so had meanwhile
been preventing the proper adjustment of the oars. Others again, in
hastening to sail out into the clear channel, without waiting for the
requisite number of sailors and pilots, worked the vessels to little
effect, crippled as these were and otherwise difficult to handle. At
the same time several other vessels drifted away with the stream before
those who were pell-mell crowding into them could all get on board, and
in this case the crowding caused as much delay in hurrying off as did
the scarcity of hands in the other vessels. From one side were shouted
orders to stay, from another to put off, so that amid this confusion of
contradictory orders nothing that was of any service could be seen or
even heard. In such an emergency the pilots themselves were useless,
since their commands could neither be heard for the uproar, nor executed
by men so distracted with terror.

The ships accordingly ran foul of each other, broke away each other’s
oars, and bumped each other’s sterns. A spectator could not have supposed
that what he saw was the fleet of one and the same army, but rather two
hostile fleets engaged in a sea-fight. Prows were dashed against poops,
and vessels that damaged other vessels in front of them were themselves
damaged in turn by vessels at their stern. The men, as was but natural,
lost their temper, and from high words fell to blows. By this time the
tide had overflowed all the level lands near the river’s edge, leaving
only sandheaps visible above the water like so many islands. To these
numbers of the men swam for safety, neglecting through fear the safety of
the vessels they quitted, some of which were riding in very deep water
where depressions existed in the ground, while others were stranded on
shoals where the waves had covered the more or less elevated parts of the
channel. But now they were suddenly surprised with a new danger, still
greater than the first, for the sea, which had begun to ebb, was rushing
back whence it came with a strong current, and was rendering back the
lands which just before had been deeply submerged. This pitched some of
the stranded vessels upon their sterns, and caused others to fall upon
their sides, and that too with such violence that the fields around them
were strewn with baggage, arms, broken oars, and wreckage.

The soldiers, meanwhile, neither dared to trust themselves to the land
nor to leave their ships, as they dreaded that some calamity, worse than
before, might at any moment befall them. They could scarcely indeed
believe what they saw and experienced, these shipwrecks upon dry land,
and the presence of the sea in the river. Nor did their misfortunes end
here, for as they did not know that the tide would soon afterwards bring
back the sea and float their ships, they anticipated that they would be
reduced by famine to the most dismal extremities. To add to their terror
monstrous creatures of frightful aspect, which the sea had left behind
it, were seen wandering about.

As night drew on the hopelessness of the situation oppressed even the
king himself with harassing anxieties. But no care could ever daunt his
indomitable spirit, and great as was his anxiety it did not prevent him
from remaining all night on the watch and giving out his orders. He even
sent some horsemen to the mouth of the river with instructions that when
they saw the tide returning they should go before it and announce its
approach. Meanwhile he caused the shattered vessels to be repaired, and
those that were overturned to be set upright, at the same time ordering
the men to be ready and on the alert when the land would be inundated
by the return of the tide. The whole of that night had been spent by
the king in watching and addressing words of encouragement to his men,
when the horsemen came back at full gallop, with the tide following at
their heels. It came at first with a gentle current which sufficed to
set the ships afloat, but it soon gathered strength enough to set the
whole fleet in motion. Then the soldiers and sailors, giving vent to
their irrepressible joy at their unexpected deliverance, made the shores
and banks resound with their exulting cheers. They asked each other
wonderingly wherefrom so vast a sea had suddenly returned, whereto it
had retired the day before, what was the nature of this strange element,
which at one time was out of harmony with the natural laws of space, but
at another was obedient to some fixed laws in respect of time?[324] The
king conjecturing from what had happened that the tide would return
after sunrise, took advantage of it, and starting at midnight sailed down
the river attended by a few ships, and having passed its mouth, advanced
into the sea a distance of 400 stadia, and thus at last accomplished the
object he had so much at heart. Having then sacrificed to the tutelary
gods of the sea and of the places adjacent, he took the way back to his
fleet.


_Chapter X.—Alexander goes homeward by land, leaving Nearchus to follow
by sea and conduct the fleet to the head of the Persian Gulf—Disastrous
march through Gedrosia—Alexander arrives in Carmania, where he holds
Bacchic revels to celebrate his conquests_

He sailed thence up the river, and next day reached a place of anchorage
not far from a salt lake,[325] the peculiar properties of which being
unknown to his men, deceived those who thoughtlessly bathed in its
waters. For scabs broke out over their bodies, and the disease being
contagious, infected even others who had not bathed. The application of
oil, however, cured the sores. Then as the country through which the army
was to pass was dry and waterless, Alexander sent on Leonnatus in advance
to dig wells, while he remained himself with the troops where he was,
waiting for the arrival of spring. In the meantime he built a good many
cities,[326] and ordered Nearchus and Onesicritus, who were experienced
navigators, to sail with the stoutest ships down to the ocean, and
proceeding as far as they could with safety to make themselves acquainted
with the nature of the sea. Having done this, they might return to join
him by sailing up either the same river or the Euphrates.[327]

The winter being now wellnigh over, he burned the useless ships, and
marched homeward with his army by land. In the course of nine encampments
he reached the land of the Arabites, and in nine more the land of the
Cedrosii—a free people, who agreed to surrender after holding a council
to consider the subject. As they surrendered voluntarily, nothing was
exacted from them except a supply of provisions. On the fifth day
thereafter he came to a river, which the natives called the Arabus, and
beyond it he found the country barren and waterless. This he traversed,
and so entered the dominions of the Oritae. Here he gave Hephaestion
the great bulk of the army, and divided the rest of it, consisting of
light-armed troops, between Ptolemy, Leonnatus, and himself. These three
divisions plundered the Indians simultaneously, and carried off a large
booty. Ptolemy devastated the maritime country, while the king himself
and Leonnatus between them ravaged all the interior. Here too he built
a city, which he peopled with Arachosians.[328] Thence he came to those
Indians who inhabit the sea-coast, possessing a great extent of country,
and holding no manner of intercourse even with their next neighbours.

This isolation from the rest of the world has brutalised their character,
which even by nature is far from humane. They have long claw-like nails
and long shaggy hair, for they cut the growth of neither. They live in
huts constructed of shells and other offscourings of the sea. Their
clothing consists of the skins of wild beasts, and they feed on fish
dried in the sun, and on the flesh of sea monsters cast on the shore
during stormy weather.[329] The Macedonians having by this time consumed
all their provisions, suffered first from scarcity and at last from
hunger, so that they were driven to search everywhere for the roots of
the palm, which is the only tree that country produces. When even this
kind of food failed them, they began to kill their beasts of burden, and
did not spare even their horses. They were thus deprived of the means of
carrying their baggage, and had to burn the rich spoils taken from their
enemies, for the sake of which they had marched to the utmost extremities
of the East.

A pestilence succeeded the famine, for the new juices of the unwholesome
esculents on which they fed, superadded to the fatigue of marching and
the strain of their mental anxiety, had spread various distempers among
them, so that they were threatened with destruction whether they remained
where they were or resumed their march. If they stayed famine would
assail them, and if they advanced a still deadlier enemy, pestilence,
would have them in its grasp. The plains were in consequence bestrewn
with almost more bodies of the dying than of the dead. Even those who
suffered least from the distemper could not keep pace with the main army,
because every one believed that the faster he travelled he advanced the
more surely to health and safety. The men, therefore, whose strength
failed craved help from all and sundry, whether known to them or unknown.
But there were no beasts of burden now by which they could be taken on,
and the soldiers had enough to do to carry their arms, whilst at the same
time the dreadful figure of the calamity impending over themselves was
ever before their eyes. Being thus repeatedly appealed to, they could
not so much as bear to cast back a look at their comrades, their pity for
others being lost in their fears for themselves.

Those, on the other hand, who were thus forsaken, implored the king, in
the name of the gods and by the rites of their common religion, to help
them in their sore need, and when they found that they vainly importuned
deaf ears, their despair turned to frantic rage, so that they fell to
imprecations, wishing for those who refused to help them a similar death
and similar friends. The king, feeling himself to be the cause of so
great a calamity, was oppressed with grief and shame, and sent orders
to Phrataphernes, the satrap of the Parthyaeans,[330] to forward him
upon camels provisions ready cooked, and he also notified his wants to
the governors of the adjacent provinces. In obedience to his orders the
supplies were at once forwarded, and the army being thus rescued, from
famine at least, reached eventually the frontiers of Cedrosia, a region
which alone of all these parts produces everything in great abundance.
Here, therefore, he halted for some time to refresh his harassed troops
by an interval of repose.

Meanwhile he received a letter from Leonnatus reporting that he had
defeated the Oritae, who had brought against him a force of 8000 foot and
300 horse. Word came also from Craterus that he had crushed an incipient
rebellion, instigated by two Persian nobles, Ozines and Zariaspes, whom
he had seized and placed under custody. On leaving this place Alexander
appointed Sibyrtius to be governor of that province in succession to
Memnon, who had lately been cut off by some malady, and he then marched
into Carmania, which was governed by the satrap Aspastes, whom he
suspected of having designed to make himself independent while he was
a great distance off in India. Aspastes came to meet Alexander, who,
dissembling his resentment, received him graciously, and let him remain
in office till he could inquire into the charges preferred against him.
Then as the different governors, in compliance with his demands, had sent
him a large supply of horses and draught cattle from their respective
provinces, he accommodated all his men who wanted them with horses and
waggons. He restored also their arms to their former splendour, for
they were now not far from Persia, which was a rich country and in the
enjoyment of profound peace.

So then Alexander, whose soul aspired to more than human greatness,
since he had rivalled, as we said before, the glory which Father Bacchus
had achieved by his conquest of India, resolved also to match his
reputation by imitating the Bacchanalian procession which that divinity
first invented, whether that was a triumph or merely some kind of frolic
with which his Bacchanals amused themselves. To this end he ordered
the streets through which he was to pass to be strewn with flowers and
chaplets, and beakers and other capacious vessels brimming with wine to
be placed at all the house doors. Then he ordered waggons to be made,
each capable of holding many soldiers, and these to be decorated like
tents, some with white canvas and others with costly tapestry.

The king headed the procession with his friends and the members of his
select body-guard, wearing on their heads chaplets made of a variety
of flowers. The strains of music were to be heard in every part of the
procession, here the breathings of the flute, and there the warblings
of the lyre. All the army followed, feasting and carousing as they rode
in the waggons, which they had decorated as gaily as they possibly
could, and had hung round with their choicest and showiest weapons. The
king himself and the companions of his revelry rode in a chariot, which
groaned under the weight of goblets of gold and large drinking cups made
of the same precious metal. The army for seven days advanced in this
bacchanalian fashion, so that it might have fallen an easy prey to the
vanquished if they had but had a spark of spirit to attack it when in
this drunken condition. Why, a thousand men only, if with some mettle in
them and sober, could have captured the whole army in the midst of its
triumph, besotted as it was with its seven days’ drunken debauch.

But fortune, which assigns to every thing its fame and value in the
world’s estimation, turned into glory this gross military scandal; and
the contemporaries of Alexander, as well as those who came after his
time, regarded it as a wonderful achievement, that his soldiers, though
drunk, passed in safety through nations hardly as yet sufficiently
subdued, the barbarians taking, what was in reality a piece of great
temerity, to be a display of well-grounded confidence.[331] All this
grand exhibition, however, had the executioner in its wake, for the
satrap Aspastes, of whom we before made mention, was ordered to be put to
death.[332] So true is it that cruelty is no obstacle to the indulgence
of luxury, nor luxury to the indulgence of cruelty.




DIODÔROS SICULUS




BIBLIOTHECA HISTORICA OF DIODÔROS SICULUS


SEVENTEENTH BOOK


_Chapter LXXXIV.—Alexander at Massaga—His treachery towards the Indian
mercenaries who had capitulated_

When the capitulation on those terms had been ratified by oaths, the
Queen [of Massaga], to show her admiration of Alexander’s magnanimity,
sent out to him most valuable presents, with an intimation that she would
fulfil all the stipulations. Then the mercenaries at once, in accordance
with the terms of the agreement, evacuated the city, and after retiring
to a distance of eighty stadia, pitched their camp unmolested without
thought of what was to happen. But Alexander, who was actuated by an
implacable enmity against the mercenaries, and had kept his troops under
arms ready for action, pursued the barbarians, and falling suddenly
upon them, made a great slaughter of their ranks. The barbarians at
first loudly protested that they were attacked in violation of sworn
obligations, and invoked the gods whom he had desecrated by taking false
oaths in their name. But Alexander with loud voice retorted that his
covenant merely bound him to let them depart from the city, and was by
no means a league of perpetual amity between them and the Macedonians.
The mercenaries, undismayed by the greatness of their danger, drew
their ranks together in form of a ring, within which they placed the
women and children to guard them on all sides against their assailants.
As they were now desperate, and by their audacity and feats of valour,
made the conflict in which they closed hot work for the enemy, while the
Macedonians held it a point of honour not to be outdone in courage by
a horde of barbarians, great was the astonishment and alarm which the
peril of the crisis created. For as the combatants were locked together
fighting hand to hand, death and wounds were dealt round in every variety
of form. Thus the Macedonians, when once their long spikes had shattered
the shields of the barbarians, pierced their vitals with the steel points
of these weapons, and on the other hand the mercenaries never hurled
their javelins without deadly effect against the near mark presented by
the dense ranks of the enemy. When many were thus wounded and not a few
killed, the women, taking the arms of the fallen, fought side by side
with the men, for the imminence of the danger and the great interests
at stake forced them to do violence to their nature, and to take an
active part in the defence. Accordingly some of them who had supplied
themselves with arms, did their best to cover their husbands with their
shields, while others who were without arms did much to impede the enemy
by flinging themselves upon them and catching hold of their shields.
The defenders, however, after fighting desperately along with their
wives, were at last overpowered by superior numbers, and met a glorious
death which they would have disdained to exchange for a life with
dishonour.[333] Alexander spared the unwarlike and unarmed multitude, as
well as the women that still survived, but took them away under charge of
the cavalry.


_Chapter LXXXV.—Alexander captures the rock Aornos_

He took many other cities, and put to death all who offered resistance
to his arms. He then advanced to the rock called Aornos, unto which such
of the inhabitants as survived had fled for refuge, because it was a
stronghold of incomparable security.[334] Heraklês, it is said, had in
the days of old assaulted this rock, but had abandoned the siege on the
occurrence of violent earthquakes and signs from heaven. Now, when this
story came to Alexander’s ears, it only whetted his eagerness to attack
the stronghold, and match himself against the god in a contest for glory.
The rock was 100 stadia in circuit, 16 stadia in height, and had a level
surface, forming a complete circle. On its southern side it was washed
by the Indus, the greatest of Indian rivers, but elsewhere it was all
environed with deep ravines and inaccessible cliffs. When Alexander, who
perceived the difficult nature of the ground, had given up all hope of
taking the place by assault, there came to him an old man accompanied by
his two sons. He was miserably poor, this man, and had lived a long time
in that neighbourhood, inhabiting a cave with three lairs cut into the
rock, which served as night-quarters for himself and his sons. He had
thus a familiar knowledge of all that locality. This old man then, coming
to the king, explained to him what his circumstances were, and undertook
to guide his army up the difficult ascent, and take him to a position
which commanded the barbarians in occupation of the rock. Alexander
promised the man an ample recompense for this service, and in following
his guidance seized in the first place the narrow pass which alone gave
access to the rock, and, as there was no exit from it elsewhere, he so
closely blocked up the enemy that no assistance could possibly reach them
from any quarter. In the next place he set all his men to work to fill
up with a mound the ravine which lay at the root of the rock. Having
thus got nearer the place, he pushed the siege with all possible vigour,
making assaults for seven days and as many nights without intermission,
the troops taking duty by turns. The advantage, however, lay at first
with the barbarians, who fought from a higher position, and killed many
who pressed the attack too recklessly. But when the mound had been
completed, and catapults which shot bolts to a great distance and other
engines of war had been brought to bear against them, and when it became
manifest besides that the king would by no means abandon the siege, the
Indians were struck with despair. Alexander, whose sagacity foresaw what
would occur, withdrew the guard which he had left at the pass, thus
giving the men on the rock, if they wished to retire, a free passage out.
So then the barbarians, dismayed alike by the valour of the Macedonians
and the king’s fixed ambition to be master of the place, evacuated the
rock by night.


_Chapter LXXXVI.—Alexander crosses the Indus, and is hospitably received
by Taxilês_

Alexander having thus outwitted the Indians by these feints, obtained
possession of the rock without risk being incurred. He then gave his
guide the stipulated reward, and moved off with his army at the very time
when Aphrikês, an Indian who had 20,000 soldiers and 15 elephants, was
hovering about in that locality.[335] This man certain of his followers
put to death, and, having brought his head to Alexander, procured for
this service their own safety. The king took them into his own ranks, and
got possession of the elephants, which were wandering at large about the
country.

He then came to the river Indus, and, finding that the thirty-oared
galleys which he ordered had been prepared, and the passage bridged, he
gave his army a rest of thirty days to recruit their strength. Having
then offered to the gods sacrifices on a magnificent scale, he led his
army over to the other side, where he met with an incident which took
a strange and unexpected turn. For Taxilês being by this time dead,
his son Môphis[336] had succeeded to the government. Now Môphis had
before this not only sent word to Alexander, then in Sogdiana, that he
would fight on his side against any Indians who might appear in arms
against him, but at this juncture had also sent ambassadors to say that
he surrendered his kingdom into his hands. So when Alexander was at
a distance of forty stadia he set forth to meet him, attended by his
friends, and his army drawn up in battle order and his elephants ranged
in line. Alexander, seeing a great host advancing towards him drawn up
as if for action, thought that the Indian had treacherously offered to
surrender that he might thus fall upon the Macedonians before they could
prepare for battle. He therefore ordered the trumpeters to sound to
arms, and, having marshalled his troops, advanced to give the Indians
battle. But Môphis, on seeing the commotion in the Macedonian ranks, and
comprehending its cause, left his army, and riding forward with a few of
his friends, corrected the mistake into which the Macedonians had fallen,
and surrendered himself and his army to the king. Alexander, to mark his
approbation of this conduct, gave back his kingdom to Môphis, and ever
afterwards treated him as a friend and ally. He also changed his name to
Taxilês.[337]


_Chapter LXXXVII.—Alexander marches against Pôros—The appearance
presented by the Indian army with its elephants_

Such were the transactions of this year—that in which Chremês was archon
at Athens, and in which the Romans appointed Publius Cornelius and Aulus
Postumius consuls.[338] Thereafter Alexander, who had recruited his army
by an interval of rest in the country of Taxilês, took the field against
Pôros, the king of the neighbouring Indians, who had an army of more than
50,000 foot, about 3000 horse, above 1000 chariots, and 130 elephants.
This king had made an alliance with another prince called Embisaros,[339]
the ruler of an adjacent tribe, and who possessed an army which was but
little inferior to his own. Alexander, on learning that this king was 400
stadia distant, resolved to attack Pôros before his ally could reach him.
Pôros, being warned of the near approach of the enemy, at once drew up
his troops in order of battle. His cavalry he distributed on the wings,
and his elephants he placed in his front line at equi-distances, and so
arranged as to strike the enemy with terror. In the intervals between
the animals he stationed the rest of his soldiers, instructing them to
succour the elephants and protect them from being assailed in flank by
the enemy’s missiles. The whole disposition of his army gave it very
much the appearance of a city—the elephants as they stood resembling its
towers, and the men-at-arms placed between them resembling the lines of
wall intervening between tower and tower. But Alexander, having observed
how the forces of the enemy had been disposed, regulated thereby the
formation of his own line.


_Chapter LXXXVIII.—The defeat of Pôros_

The Macedonian cavalry began the action, and destroyed nearly all the
chariots of the Indians. Upon this the elephants, applying to good use
their prodigious size and strength, killed some of the enemy by trampling
them under their feet, and crushing their armour and their bones, while
upon others they inflicted a terrible death, for they first lifted them
aloft with their trunks, which they had twined round their bodies, and
then dashed them down with great violence to the ground. Many others
they deprived in a moment of life by goring them through and through
with their tusks. But the Macedonians heroically bore the brunt of this
dreadful onslaught, and having killed with their long pikes the men
stationed between the elephants, made the poise of the battle equal.
They next assailed the animals themselves with a storm of javelins, thus
piercing them with numerous wounds, which so tortured them that the
Indians mounted on their backs lacked sufficient strength to control
their movements, for the animals on heading to their own ranks bore
against them with an impetuosity not to be repressed, and trampled their
own friends under their feet. Then ensued a great confusion, but Pôros,
who was mounted on the most powerful of all his elephants, on seeing what
had happened, gathered around him forty of the animals that were still
under control, and falling upon the enemy with all the weight of the
elephants, made a great slaughter with his own hand, for he far surpassed
in bodily strength any soldier of his army. In stature he measured five
cubits, while his girth was such that his breastplate was twice the
size required for a man of ordinary bulk. For this reason the javelins
he flung from his hand flew with all but the impetus of shots from a
catapult. The Macedonians who stood opposed to him being terror-struck at
his astonishing prowess, Alexander sent to their assistance the archers
and the divisional light troops, with orders that every man should make
Pôros the object of his aim. The soldiers lost no time in carrying out
these orders. Their bolts flew thick and fast, and as the Indian king at
whom they were all aimed presented a broad mark, none of them failed to
carry home. Pôros fought on with heroic courage, but being drained of
blood by the number of his wounds, he fainted away, and leaning on his
elephant for support, was borne to the ground. A report having spread
that their king was dead, the remnant of the Indian host fled from the
field, but many of them were slain in the flight.


_Chapter LXXXIX.—Losses sustained by each side in the battle of the
Hydaspês—Alexander orders a fleet to be built on the Hydaspês._

Alexander having gained this splendid victory, recalled his soldiers from
the field by sound of trumpet. In this engagement more than 12,000 of the
Indians fell, among whom were two of the sons of Pôros, and his generals,
and the most distinguished of his other officers. More than 9000 men were
taken prisoners, and eighty elephants were captured. Pôros himself, who
was still alive, was given into the hands of the Indians to be cured of
his wounds. Of the Macedonians, there fell 280 horsemen and more than
700 foot-soldiers. The king buried the dead, and in proportion to their
merits rewarded those who had signalised themselves by their bravery in
the action. He then sacrificed to the Sun, as the deity who had given
him the conquest of the eastern parts of the world. As the mountainous
country adjacent produced much well-grown fir, and not a little cedar
and pine, besides an unlimited quantity of other kinds of timber fit for
building ships, he prepared what ships he required. For he intended,
after he had reached the limits of India and subdued all its inhabitants,
to sail down stream to the ocean. He founded two cities, one beyond the
river at the place where he crossed, and the other on the field where
he had defeated Pôros.[340] The work of building the ships was quickly
finished, owing to the great number of hands employed on it; and he then
appointed Pôros, who had recovered from his wounds, in consideration of
the valour he had displayed, to be king of the country over which he had
formerly ruled. He then gave his army thirty days to recruit in this
region, which yielded an unstinted supply of all the necessaries of life.


_Chapter XC.—Some account of the serpents, apes, and trees seen by the
Macedonians in India_

In the mountainous country which adjoined the scene of action there were
found other peculiar products besides timber for shipbuilding, for it
abounded with snakes of an extraordinary size, being sixteen cubits in
length,[341] and with many kinds of apes, which also were remarkable for
their size. The apes of themselves suggested what stratagem should be
employed in hunting them, for they are prone to imitate whatever they see
men doing, but yet are not easily overpowered by mere force, since they
are possessed both of great strength of body and sharpness of wit. Some
members, therefore, of the hunting party smear their eyes with honey,
others in full view of their game put on their shoes, while others hang
mirrors around their necks. Then, having affixed nooses to their shoes,
they leave these behind them, and in place of the honey they substitute
gum, and at the same time attach hauling-ropes to the mirrors. So when
the apes try to do all that they had seen done by the men they find
themselves powerless to do so, for their eyelids are glued together,
their feet entangled in the nooses, and their bodies held fast by the
ropes. In these circumstances they fall an easy prey to the hunters.

Alexander having struck terror into the king called Embisaros, who had
come too late to the assistance of Pôros, compelled him to do what he
commanded. Having then crossed the river with his army, he advanced
through a country of surpassing fertility, for it had various kinds of
trees which rose to a height of seventy cubits, and had such a girth that
it took fully four men to clasp them round, while their shadow projected
to a distance of 300 feet. This region also was much infested with
snakes. These were small in size, and marked with diverse colours, for
while some were like bronze-coloured wands, others had a thick hair-like
mane, and with their sting inflicted a death of acute pain, for the
sufferings of any one they bit were dreadful, and were accompanied with a
flux of sweat which looked like blood. On this account the Macedonians,
being terribly plagued by their stings, suspended their couches from
the trees, and kept awake the greater part of the night; but when they
had learned from the natives that a certain root was an antidote, its
application relieved them from their sufferings.[342]


_Chapter XCI.—Alexander pursues Pôros, nephew of the great Pôros—Subdues
the Adrestai and Kathaians and enters the kingdom of Sôpeithês—Peculiar
customs of the natives of these parts_

When he moved forward with his forces certain men came to inform him
that Pôros, the king of the country, who was the nephew of that Pôros
whom he had defeated, had quitted his kingdom and fled to the nation of
the Gandaridai. Alexander, irritated at the news, despatched Hêphaistiôn
into his country with a body of troops and ordered him to hand over the
kingdom to the other Pôros who was on his side. He then marched in person
against the Adrestai,[343] and having reduced some of their cities which
offered resistance, and persuaded others to surrender, he invaded the
country of the Kathaians, a people among whom the custom prevailed that
widows should be burned along with their husbands, the barbarians having
put in force a decree to this effect because an instance had occurred
of a wife procuring her husband’s death by poison.[344] The king laid
siege to their greatest and strongest city and burned it to the ground,
in revenge for the many dangers incurred in capturing it. While he was
besieging another considerable city the Indians in a suppliant manner
entreated his mercy and he spared them accordingly.

He next warred against the cities that were subject to the sway of
Sôpeithês.[345] These were governed by laws in the highest degree
salutary, for while in other respects their political system was one
to admire, beauty was held among them in the highest estimation. For
this reason a discrimination between the children born to them is made
at the stage of infancy, when those that are perfect in their limbs
and features, and have constitutions which promise a combination
of strength and beauty, are allowed to be reared, while those that
have any bodily defect are condemned to be destroyed as not worth the
rearing.[346] They make their marriages also in accordance with this
principle, for in selecting a bride they care nothing whether she has a
dowry and a handsome fortune besides, but look only to her beauty and
other advantages of the outward person. It follows that the inhabitants
of these cities are generally held in higher estimation than the rest of
their countrymen. Their king Sôpeithês, who was admired by all for his
beauty and his stature, which exceeded four cubits, came forth from the
city where his palace was, and on surrendering himself and his kingdom
to Alexander was reinstated in his authority by the clemency of the
conqueror. Sôpeithês with the utmost cordiality feasted the whole army in
splendid style for several days.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.—SÔPHYTÊS.]


_Chapter XCII.—Courage and ferocity of the dogs in the dominions of
Sôpeithês_

Among the many valuable presents which he bestowed on Alexander were 150
dogs remarkable for their size and strength, and superior also in other
points, and said to have been bred from tigresses.[347] Being desirous
that Alexander should have proof of their mettle by seeing them at work,
he placed a full-grown lion within an enclosure, and selecting two of
the least valuable of the dogs included in the present, cast them to the
lion. When these were likely to be vanquished by the wild beast he let
loose other two dogs. Then when the four dogs together proved more than
a match for the lion, a man who was sent into the ring with a knife cut
away the right leg of one of the dogs. When the king loudly remonstrated,
and his body-guards rushed forward and arrested the hand of the Indian,
Sôpeithês announced that he would give three dogs instead of the one
which was mutilated. Then the huntsman, taking hold of the leg, cut it
away quietly bit by bit. The dog, without uttering so much as a yell or a
moan of pain, kept his fangs fixed in the bite, until all his blood being
drained he drew his last breath on the body of the lion.


_Chapter XCIII.—Submission of Phêgeus—Advance to the Hypanis—Description
given by Phêgeus of the country beyond the Hypanis—Of the Praisians and
their king Xandrames_

During these transactions Hêphaistiôn, who had made large conquests
of Indian territory with the expedition under his command, rejoined
Alexander, who, after having praised that general for his valour
and devotion to his service, then led his army into the dominions
of Phêgeus.[348] Here, as the natives welcomed the presence of the
Macedonians, and Phêgeus came out with many gifts to meet them, Alexander
consented to let him retain his kingdom. Then having for two days enjoyed
along with his army the noble hospitality of this prince, he advanced
toward the Hypanis,[349] a river with a width of seven stadia, a depth of
six fathoms, and a violent current which made its passage difficult. He
had obtained from Phêgeus a description of the country beyond the Indus:
First came a desert which it would take twelve days to traverse; beyond
this was the river called the Ganges which had a width of thirty-two
stadia, and a greater depth than any other Indian river; beyond this
again were situated the dominions of the nation of the Praisioi and the
Gandaridai,[350] whose king, Xandrames, had an army of 20,000 horse,
200,000 infantry, 2000 chariots, and 4000 elephants trained and equipped
for war. Alexander, distrusting these statements, sent for Pôros and
questioned him as to their accuracy. Pôros assured him of the correctness
of the information, but added that the king of the Gandaridai was a man
of quite worthless character, and held in no respect, as he was thought
to be the son of a barber.[351] This man—the king’s father—was of a
comely person, and of him the queen had become deeply enamoured. The
old king having been treacherously murdered by his wife, the succession
had devolved on him who now reigned. Alexander, though sensible of the
difficulties which would attend an expedition against the Gandaridai, had
nevertheless no thought of swerving from the path of his ambition, but
having in his favour the courage of the Macedonians and the responses of
the oracles, he was buoyed up with the hope that he would conquer the
barbarians, for had not the Pythian priestess pronounced him invincible,
and had not Ammôn promised him the dominion of the whole world?[352]


_Chapter XCIV.—Miserable condition of the Macedonian army—Its refusal to
advance beyond the Hypanis_

He saw, however, that his soldiers were dispirited by interminable
campaigns, and by their exposure for nearly eight years to toils and
dangers reduced to a condition of the utmost misery, and he therefore
conceived it was necessary for him to animate his troops for the
expedition against the Gandaridai[353] by plying them with suitable
arguments. For death had made severe ravages in his ranks, and all hope
was gone that his wars would ever come to an end. Then their horses’
hoofs had been worn off by ceaseless marches, and their weapons worn out
by use. The Hellenic costumes again were by this time threadbare and
could not be replaced, and hence the men were obliged to use cloth woven
in barbaric looms wherewith to cut out such dresses for themselves as
were worn by Indians. It also so happened that violent storms of rain
burst from the clouds for the space of seventy days, accompanied with
continual outbreaks of thunder and lightning. Alexander, considering
this state of things an obstacle to his designs, placed all his hopes of
gaining his ends on winning by benefactions the hearty support of his
soldiers. Accordingly he allowed them to plunder the enemy’s country
where supplies of all sorts abounded, and on those days when the army
was busily engaged in foraging he called together the soldiers’ wives
and children, and then promised to give the women an allowance of food
month by month, and the children a donative according to the calculations
of what their fathers received as the pay of their military rank. When
the soldiers who had found a rich and ample booty returned to the camp,
he gathered them all together, and in a well-weighed speech addressed
the assembly on the subject of the expedition against the Gandaridai;
but when the Macedonians would by no means assent to his proposals he
renounced his contemplated enterprise.


_Chapter XCV.—Alexander erects altars and other memorials near the
Hypanis, and returns to the Akesinês_

He then resolved to set up marks to indicate the limits to which he had
advanced; so first of all he built altars to the twelve gods of 50
cubits in height. Having next enclosed an encampment thrice the size
of the one he occupied, he dug round it a trench 50 feet broad and 40
feet deep, and with the earth cast up from this trench he erected a
rampart of extraordinary dimensions. He further ordered quarters to be
constructed as for foot-soldiers, each containing two beds 5 cubits
in length for each man, and besides this accommodation, two stalls of
twice the ordinary size for each horseman. Whatever else was to be left
behind was directed to be likewise proportionately increased in size. His
object in all this was not merely to make a camp as for heroes, but at
the same time to leave among the people of the country tokens of mighty
men to show with what enormous bodily strength they were endowed. When
these works were finished he retraced his steps with all his army to the
river Akesinês.[354] On reaching it he found that the boats had been
built, and when he had rigged these out, he ordered an additional number
to be constructed. At this time there arrived from Greece allies and
mercenaries led by the generals in command of the allies, amounting to
more than 30,000 foot and not much less than 6000 cavalry. Splendid full
suits of armour besides were brought for the infantry to the number of
25,000,[355] and 100 talents of medicinal drugs, all which he distributed
among the soldiers. When the equipment of the fleet was finished, and 200
boats without hatches and 800 tenders had been got ready, he proceeded
to give names to the cities which had been founded on the banks of the
river, calling one Nikaia in commemoration of his victory, and the other
Boukephala after his horse that perished in the battle with Pôros.


_Chapter XCVI.—Voyage to the Southern Ocean begun—Submission of the
Siboi—The Agalassians attacked and conquered_

Alexander now embarked with his friends, and started on the voyage to
the Southern Ocean. The bulk of the army simultaneously marched along
the banks of the river under the command of Krateros and Hêphaistiôn.
On coming to the place where the Akesinês and Hydaspês join each other
the king landed his troops, and led them against a people called the
Siboi. These, it is said, were descended from the soldiers who, under
Heraklês, attacked the rock Aornos, and after failing to capture it were
settled by him in this part of the country. Alexander encamped near their
capital, and thereupon the citizens who filled the highest offices came
forth to meet him, and reminded him how they were connected by the ties
of a common origin. They avowed themselves to be, in virtue of their
kinship, ready and willing to do whatever he might require, and presented
him also with magnificent gifts. Alexander was so gratified by their
professions of goodwill that he permitted their cities to remain in the
enjoyment of their freedom.[356] He then advanced his arms against their
next neighbours; and finding that the people called Agalassians[357] had
mustered an army of 40,000 foot and 3000 horse, he gave them battle, and
proving victorious put the greater number of them to the sword. The rest,
who had fled for safety to the adjacent towns, which were soon captured,
he condemned to slavery. The remainder of the inhabitants had been
collected into one place, and he seized 20,000 of them, who had taken
refuge in a large city, which he stormed. The Indians, however, having
barricaded the narrow streets, fought with great vigour from the houses,
so that Alexander in pressing the attack lost not a few Macedonians. This
enraged him, and he set fire to the city, burning with it most of its
defenders.[358] He gave quarter, however, to 3000 of the survivors, who
had fled for refuge to the citadel and sued for mercy.


_Chapter XCVII.—Disaster to the fleet at the confluence of the rivers_

He again embarked with his friends, and sailed down stream as far as the
confluence of the Indus with the two rivers already mentioned. These
mighty streams met with tumultuous roar, and formed at their junction
many formidable eddies, which destroyed whatever sailing craft were
sucked into their vortex. The current besides was so swift and strong
that it baffled all the skill of the pilots. Two ships of war foundered
in consequence, and of the other vessels not a few were stranded. A
furious surge broke over the admiral’s ship itself—a mishap which nearly
proved fatal to the king. Wherefore, as death itself stared him in the
face, he stripped off his clothes, and in his naked condition clung to
anything that offered a chance of safety. His friends were at the same
time swimming alongside the ship, every one eager to receive the king in
the event of its capsizing. The utmost confusion prevailed on board, the
men contending with the force of the current, and the river baffling all
human skill and endeavour, so that it was with the greatest difficulty
Alexander made the shore, on which he was cast along with the vessels.
For this unexpected deliverance he offered sacrifice to the gods for
his escape from extreme peril after contending, like Achilles, with a
river.[359]


_Chapter XCVIII.—Combination of the Syrakousai and Malloi—Alexander,
neglecting the warning of a soothsayer, attacks their stronghold, and
scales the walls of its citadel_

He undertook next an expedition against the Syrakousai[360] and the
people called the Malloi, two populous and warlike nations. The
inhabitants, he found, had mustered a force of 80,000 foot, 10,000
horse, and 700 chariots. Before Alexander’s coming they had been at feud
with each other, but on his approach had settled their differences, and
cemented an alliance by intermarriage, each nation taking and giving
in exchange 10,000 of their young women for wives.[361] They did not,
however, combine their forces and take the field, for as a dispute had
arisen about the leadership, they had drawn off into the adjoining
towns. Alexander, while approaching the city that first came in his way,
was pondering how he could lay siege to it and capture it at the very
first assault, when one of the soothsayers, named Dêmophôn, came to him
and said that he had been forewarned by certain omens that the king in
besieging the place would be very dangerously wounded, and he therefore
advised Alexander to let that city alone for the present, and meanwhile
turn his attention to other enterprises. But the king sharply rebuked
him for hampering the valour of men in the heat of action. He then made
arrangements for the conduct of the siege, and he led himself the way to
the city, which he was ambitious to reduce at once by a vigorous assault.
The battering train was, however, late in coming up, and he was himself
the first to burst open a postern, and by this side entrance get into the
city. He then cut down many of the defenders, put the rest to flight, and
pursued them into the citadel. As the Macedonians were meanwhile detained
fighting at the wall, he seized a ladder, and applying it to the rampart
of the fortress, began to mount it, holding the while his shield above
his head. He climbed up with such activity that he quickly reached the
top, and surprised the barbarians who were stationed there on guard.
The Indians did not venture to close with him, but assailed him from a
distance off with darts and arrows, so that the king was sorely galled
with the pelting storm of missiles. By this time the Macedonians had
applied to the walls two scaling ladders, up which they were mounting,
when both of them from being overcrowded broke down, precipitating every
one to the ground.


_Chapter XCIX.—Alexander left alone leaps down from the walls into the
citadel, bravely defends himself, but is dangerously wounded—He is
rescued by his friends, who capture the stronghold—The Greek colonists in
Bactria revolt_

The king being thus isolated from all help, performed a feat of
marvellous audacity, which well deserves to be put on record. For,
thinking it would be unworthy of his characteristic good fortune if he
retired from the walls to his men leaving his purpose unaccomplished, he
leaped down, arms and all, alone as he was, into the citadel. The Indians
hastened up to assail him, but with undaunted courage he sustained the
brunt of their onslaught. Protecting himself on his right hand by the
shelter of a tree rooted by the wall, and on the left by the wall itself,
he thus kept the Indians at bay, firmly fixed in his purpose to bear
himself right gallantly like a king by whom such great things had been
achieved, and ambitious to make the close of his life the most glorious
of his whole career, for numerous were the blows which he received on
his helmet, nor few were those which he caught on his shield. At last,
however, being hit by an arrow under the pap, he sank on his knee,
overcome by the force of the blow. The Indian who had shot the arrow
immediately sprang forward, thinking lightly of the danger, but while
he was fetching down a blow, Alexander smote him with his sword under
the ribs, and, as the wound was mortal, the barbarian fell. Then the
king, grasping a branch within reach of his hand, and raising himself
up with it, challenged any of the Indians who so wished to come forward
and fight him. Just at this crisis Peukestas, one of the hypaspists,
who had mounted by a different ladder, was the first who succeeded in
covering the king with his shield. After him many others appeared on
the scene, who terrified the barbarians and saved Alexander. The city
was then stormed, and the Macedonians, in their rage for what the king
had suffered, slew all whom they could anywhere find, and filled the
city with dead bodies. While the king’s attention was for many days
absorbed with the curing of his wound, the Greek colonists of Bactria
and Sogdiana, who had long felt it a great grievance to be settled among
barbarians, when they heard at that time that the king had died of a
wound, revolted from the Macedonians, and, having mustered to the number
of 3000, set out on their return home. They had many sufferings to endure
on the way, and they were subsequently put to death by the Macedonians
after Alexander’s death.


_Chapter C.—Alexander recovers from his wound—Combat between Koragos and
Dioxippos—Dioxippos becomes victor_

Alexander, on being cured of his wound, gave thank-offerings to the gods
for his recovery, and entertained his friends with great banquets.
During the revels a noteworthy incident occurred. Among the invited
guests was a Macedonian called Koragos,[362] who was remarkable for his
great bodily strength and the number of his brave exploits in war. This
man, in an access of drunken bravado, challenged to single combat the
Athenian Dioxippos, a prize-fighter, who had been crowned at the public
games for victories of the highest distinction. The guests present at the
carousal naturally were interested in the match, and Dioxippos having
accepted the challenge, the king fixed the day on which the combat should
come off. At the time appointed for the match the people thronged in
tens of thousands to witness the spectacle. The Macedonians, who were
of the same race with Koragos, and the king himself joined in showing
their eagerness for the success of their compatriot, while the Greeks
were unanimous in backing up Dioxippos. The champions advanced into the
lists, the Macedonian arrayed in costly armour, the Athenian naked,
rubbed over with oil, and wearing a close-fitting skull-cap made of
felt. As both men excited the wonder and admiration of the spectators by
the massive strength of their limbs and their superlative prowess, the
contest, it was anticipated, would be of the nature of a fight between
two gods; for the Macedonian, with his stalwart form and the dazzling
splendour of his arms, which filled the beholders with amazement, was
taken to be like Mars, while Dioxippos, by his prodigious strength, his
practice in wrestling and carrying the characteristic club, showed like
Heraklês. When they advanced to the attack the Macedonian from the proper
distance discharged his javelin, but his antagonist, swerving a little
aside, eluded the coming blow. Then the former again advanced with his
long Macedonian pike levelled for the charge, but the other on seeing him
approach sufficiently near, struck the pike with his club and shattered
it to pieces. The Macedonian, after being thus twice baffled, came on to
the next round intending now to use his sword, but when he was just on
the point of drawing it, Dioxippos unexpectedly sprang forward, and with
his left hand seized the hand that was drawing the sword, while with his
right hand he pushed Koragos from where he stood, tripped up his legs,
and hurled him to the ground. Then Dioxippos, planting his foot on his
foeman’s neck and lifting up his club, directed his eyes towards the
spectators.


_Chapter CI.—The Macedonians plot against Dioxippos, who in consequence
takes away his own life—Alexander’s regret for his loss_

The multitude having loudly applauded the victor for the supreme
courage whereby, contrary to all expectation, he had won the day, the
king ordered him to let his antagonist go, and then, dismissing the
assembly, withdrew to his tent deeply mortified by the discomfiture
of the Macedonian. Then Dioxippos, letting the fallen man go, quitted
the field with a famous victory and wearing fillets with which his
countrymen had adorned his brows in gratitude for the honour which he
had conferred on all Greeks in common. Fortune, however, did not allow
the victor any long time to enjoy his triumph, for the king became
more and more alienated from him, and all Alexander’s friends and all
the Macedonians about the court were so envious of his worth and fame,
that they laid a plot against him, and persuaded the chief steward of
the royal household to hide away one of the golden wine-cups under his
pillow. So at their next banquet when the wine was served, they charged
Dioxippos with theft on the pretence that the cup had been found in his
possession, thus subjecting him to shame and disgrace. From this he saw
clearly that the Macedonians with one consent had set themselves against
him, and he then rose from the banquet, and soon afterwards, when within
his own chamber, wrote a letter to Alexander regarding the machinations
which had been formed against him. This letter he entrusted to his
own servants to deliver into the king’s own hands. He then put an end
to his life, and thus, by having inconsiderately accepted a challenge,
terminated his career by an act of still greater folly. Many of those
accordingly who blamed him for a want of sense, sarcastically remarked
it was a misfortune to have great strength of body and but a modicum
of brain. The king on perusal of the letter took the man’s end much to
heart, and in after times often regretted the loss of a man of his noble
qualities. As he made no use of him in his lifetime, but felt the want
of him when he was gone, and when regret was unavailing, he came to know
the nobility of the man’s nature from its contrast to the baseness of his
calumniators.[363]


_Chapter CII.—The Sambastai, Sodrai, and Massanoi submit to Alexander,
who founds near the banks of the river a city called Alexandreia—He
conquers the kingdoms of Mousikanos, Portikanos, and Sambos—The last
effects his escape_

Alexander having given orders to his army to march along the river in
a line parallel with the course of the navigation, proceeded on his
voyage down stream towards the ocean, and on reaching the dominions of
the Sambastai,[364] landed to invade their country. They were a people
inferior to none in India either for numbers or for bravery. They dwelt
in cities in which the democratic form of government prevailed, and on
hearing that the Macedonians were coming to attack them collected 60,000
foot soldiers, 6000 horse, and 500 chariots. But when the fleet bore in
sight they were thrown into great alarm by the novelty of the appearance
it presented and the unexpectedness of its presence, and, as they were
at the same time disheartened by the reports which circulated about
the Macedonians, they adopted the advice of their elders not to fight,
and therefore sent on an embassy consisting of fifty of their foremost
citizens, under the belief that they would be treated with all proper
courtesy. The king having commended them for coming and expressed his
readiness to make peace with them, was presented by the inhabitants with
gifts of great magnificence, and was besides accorded heroic honours. He
then moved on towards the tribes called Sodrai[365] and Massanoi,[366]
who occupied the country on both sides of the river, and in these
parts he founded near the river the city of Alexandreia,[367] in which
he planted a colony of 10,000 men. He next reached the dominions of
King Mousikanos, seized that potentate, and, having put him to death,
subjugated his people.[368] He next invaded the territories under the
sway of Portikanos, and took two cities at the first assault, which he
permitted the soldiers to sack and then burned. Portikanos himself fled
into a part of the country which offered means of defence, but in a
battle he was defeated and slain. All the cities subject to his sceptre
Alexander captured and razed to the ground, and by these severe measures
spread consternation among the surrounding tribes.[369] He next plundered
the kingdom of Sambos, and having enslaved and destroyed most of his
cities, put upwards of 80,000 of the barbarians to the sword.[370] The
nation called the Brahmanoi were involved in like calamities, but, as the
rest sued for mercy, Alexander punished the most guilty and acquitted the
rest of the offences charged against them. King Sambos escaped the danger
with which he was menaced by taking flight with thirty elephants into the
country beyond the Indus.


_Chapter CIII.—Harmatelia holds out against Alexander—In a battle with
its inhabitants Ptolemy is wounded by a poisoned arrow, but is cured by
an antidote revealed to Alexander in a dream_

At the extremity of the country of the Brachmans there lay in the
midst of difficult ground the city called Harmatelia,[371] and as the
inhabitants presumed alike on their valour and the security of their
position, Alexander despatched against them a few light-armed troops, who
were directed to hang on the rear of the enemy, and to take to flight in
case they were attacked. These men proceeded to attack the ramparts, but
being only 500 strong were regarded with contempt. A body therefore of
3000 men under arms sallied out from the city against these troops, which
pretending to be panic-struck, took to a precipitate flight. But the king
with a few followers stood his ground against the barbarians who gave
pursuit, and after a severe conflict slew some and took others prisoners.
On the king’s side, however, not a few received wounds which all but
proved fatal, since the barbarians had anointed their steels with a
deadly tincture, and had taken the field to bring the war to an issue in
full reliance on its efficacy. This virulent tincture was prepared from
snakes of a certain kind which were hunted by the natives, who on killing
them exposed their carcases to the sun in order that the flesh might be
decomposed by the burning heat of his rays. As this process went on the
juices fell out in drops, and by this liquid the poison was secreted
from the carcases of the snakes. Accordingly, when any one was wounded,
his body at once became numb, and sharp pains soon succeeded, while the
whole frame was shaken with tremblings and convulsions. The skin became
cold and livid, and the stomach discharged bile. A foam, moreover, of
a black colour issued from the wound and putrefied. At this stage the
poison quickly spread to the vital parts of the body, and caused a death
of fearful agony. Those, therefore, who had been severely wounded and
those who had received nothing more than an accidental scratch suffered
equally. While the wounded were perishing by such a horrible death, the
king was not so much grieved for the others, but was in the deepest
distress of mind on account of Ptolemy, who afterwards became a king,
and for whom he had at that time a warm affection. Now at this crisis an
incident occurred of a strange and marvellous nature, which concerned
Ptolemy, and which some ascribed to the provident care of the gods for
his safety. For as he was loved by all the soldiers for his bravery and
his unbounded generosity, so in his hour of need he obtained the kindly
help he required. For the king in his sleep saw a vision in which he
appeared to see a serpent holding a plant in its mouth, and showing its
nature and its powers, and the place where it grew. Then Alexander, when
he awoke, had search made for the plant and discovered it. This he ground
into a powder, which he not only laid as a plaster on Ptolemy’s body, but
also administered to him as a potion, and by this means restored him to
health. When the valuable properties of the plant became known, the other
patients to whom the remedy was applied recovered in like manner.[372] He
then laid siege to the capital of the Harmatêlioi, a city both of great
size and strength. As the inhabitants, however, came to meet him with the
symbols of suppliants, and tendered their submission, he dismissed them
without enacting any retributive penalty.


_Chapter CIV.—Alexander sails down to the mouth of the Indus—Sails back
to Tauala (Patala?)—Starts on his march homewards, instructing Nearchos
to explore the way with his fleet to the head of the Persian Gulf—Ravages
the land of the Oritians and founds another Alexandreia_

He then sailed down the stream with his friends to the ocean, and when
he had there seen two islands he forthwith offered a sacrifice of great
splendour to the gods, casting at the same time many large drinking-cups
of gold, along with the libations they held, into the bosom of the deep.
Having next erected altars to Têthys and Okeanos, he assumed that he
had finished the expedition which he had undertaken. He then started
on the return voyage, and in sailing up the river came to Tauala,[373]
a city of great note, with a political constitution drawn on the same
lines as the Spartan; for in this community the command in war was
vested in two hereditary kings of two different houses, while a council
of elders ruled the whole state with paramount authority. Alexander now
burned all the vessels that were worn out, and gave the command of the
rest that were still serviceable to Nearchos and some others of his
friends, whom he instructed to coast along the shores of the ocean,
and after having carefully explored whatever lay on their route, to
rejoin him at the mouth of the river Euphrates. He himself with his army
traversed a great extent of country, overcoming those who opposed him,
and treating humanely those who offered their submission. He thus gained
over without any danger being incurred the people called the Arbitai and
the inhabitants of Kedrôsia. Then, after passing through an extensive
waterless tract, of which no inconsiderable part was desert, he reached
the borders of Oritis. Here he divided his army into three parts, giving
Ptolemy the command of the first division, and Leonnatos of the second,
Ptolemy being commissioned to ravage and plunder the seaboard, and
Leonnatos the interior, while the third division, under his own command,
devastated the plains towards the hills and the hill country itself.
While the fury of war was thus at one and the same time let loose over
the whole land, conflagration, pillage, and massacre ran riot in every
special locality. The soldiers accordingly soon appropriated a vast
amount of booty, while the number of the inhabitants cut off by the
sword amounted to many myriads. All the neighbours of these unfortunate
tribes, appalled by the destruction which had overtaken them, submitted
to the king. But Alexander, who was ambitious to found a city by the
seaside, discovered a harbour sheltered from the violence of the waves,
and which had a convenient site near it, and he built thereon the city of
Alexandreia.[374]


_Chapter CV.—How the Oritians bury their dead—The Ichthyophagoi
described—Sufferings and losses of the army in the Gedrôsian
desert—Relief sent by various satraps—Leonnatos is attacked by the
Oritians_

Alexander having stolen into the country of the Oritai by the passes,
quickly reduced the whole of it to submission. The Oritai, while in
other respects closely resembling the Indians, have one custom which is
different, and altogether staggers belief. It has reference to their
treatment of the dead. For when a man dies his relatives, naked and
holding spears, carry away his body to the oak-coppices which grow in
their country, and having there deposited it, and stripped it of the
apparel and ornaments with which it is arrayed, they leave it to be
devoured by wild beasts. When they have divided the garments which were
worn by the deceased, they sacrifice to the heroes now in the under
world, and give an entertainment to the members of his household.

Alexander next advanced towards Kedrôsia, following the route along the
sea-coast. He encountered on the way an inhospitable and utterly savage
tribe, for there the natives let their nails grow without ever cutting
them from the day they are born to old age, allow their growth of hair
to become matted, have complexions scorched with the heat of the sun,
and are dressed with the skins of wild beasts. They subsist on the flesh
of whales stranded on their shores. Their habitations they prepare by
running up walls, and forming the roofs of the ribs of the whale, these
supplying beams of a length of 18 cubits. For covering over the roofs
they use instead of tiles the scales of fish.[375] Alexander, in passing
through the country of these savages, was much distressed by the scarcity
of provisions; but in the next country he entered he fared still worse,
for it was desert and bare of everything useful to support life. As many
perished from sheer want, the stout hearts of the Macedonians yielded
to despondency, and Alexander was overwhelmed with no ordinary grief
and anxiety; for it seemed a terrible thing that his men, who surpassed
all mankind in bravery and in arms, should perish ingloriously in a
desert land and in utter destitution. He therefore despatched messengers
post-haste into Parthyaia,[376] and Drangianê,[377] and Areia,[378]
and the other states bordering on the desert, enjoining them to send
quickly to the passes of Karmania dromedaries and other beasts of burden
laden with food and other necessaries. These messengers having rapidly
performed the journey to the satraps of these provinces, caused ample
supplies of provisions to be conveyed to the appointed place. Alexander
had, however, before their arrival lost many of his soldiers from his
inability to relieve their wants; and afterwards, when he was on the
march, some of the Oritai, having attacked the troops commanded by
Leonnatos and slain a good many men, escaped scatheless into their own
country.[379]


_Chapter CVI.—Revels of Alexander and the army after escaping from
the desert—Officials who had abused their authority called to
account—Nearchos visits Alexander at Salmous, and recounts the incidents
of his voyage_

When the desert had been crossed with all these painful experiences, he
came to an inhabited region which abounded with all things useful. He
here allowed his army to recruit its exhausted powers, and then marched
forward for seven days with his soldiers splendidly dressed as at a
public assembly, while he celebrated a festival to Dionysos, heading
himself the procession of the revellers, and, as he led the way, quaffing
intoxicating draughts of wine. At the end of all this having come to
learn that many high-placed officials had transgressed all bounds of law
by an arbitrary and outrageous exercise of their authority, he decided
that not a few of his satraps and generals stood in need of punishment.
As the odium in which these leading men were held on account of their
scandalous disregard of the law was a matter of public notoriety, many
of them who held high posts of command in the army, and whose conscience
accused them of outrages and other violations of their duty, became
seriously alarmed. Some whose troops consisted of mercenaries revolted
from the king, and others who had amassed riches took to flight. The king
on hearing this wrote to all the commanders and satraps throughout Asia
that immediately after they had read his letter they should dismiss all
the mercenaries.

When the king was just at this time staying in a sea-coast town called
Salmous, and holding a dramatic exhibition, the officers of the
expedition which had been directed to navigate the ocean along its shores
put into harbour, and, proceeding straightway to the theatre, saluted
Alexander, and gave him an account of their adventures. The Macedonians,
delighted to see their old comrades once more among them, marked the
event with loud and prolonged cheering, and all the theatre was in a
transport of joy that could not be exceeded.[380] The voyagers described
how the ocean was subject to the strange vicissitude of the ebbing and
flowing of its waters, and that when it ebbed numerous islands were
unexpectedly revealed to view at the projections of land along the coast,
while at flood-tide all these lands just mentioned were again submerged,
a full gale blowing meanwhile towards shore, and whitening with foam all
the surface of the water. But the strangest part of their story was that
they had encountered a great many whales, and these of an incredible
size. They were in great dread of these monsters, and at first gave up
all hopes of life, thinking they might at any moment be consigned, boats
and all, to destruction; but when, on recovering from their panic, they
raised a simultaneous shout, which they increased by rattling their arms
and sounding the trumpets, the creatures took alarm at the strange noise,
and sank to the depths below.


_Chapter CVII.—Kalanos, the Indian philosopher, immolates
himself—Alexander marries the daughter of Darius_

When the king had heard their story to the end, he ordered the leaders
of the expedition to sail up to the mouth of the Euphrates. At the head
of his army he traversed himself a great stretch of country, and arrived
on the borders of Sousiana. About that time Kalanos, the Indian who had
made great progress in philosophy, and was held in honour and esteem by
Alexander, brought his life to an end in a most singular manner; for
when he was three years over three score and ten, and up till then had
never known what illness was, he resolved to depart this life as one
who had received the full measure of happiness alike from nature and
from fortune. He was now, however, afflicted with a malady which became
daily more and more burdensome, and he therefore requested the king to
prepare for him a great funeral pyre, and to order his servants to set
fire to it as soon as he should ascend it. Alexander at first tried to
divert him from his purpose, but when he found that all his remonstrances
were unavailing, he consented to do him the service asked. Orders were
accordingly given for doing the work, and when the pyre was ready
the whole army attended to witness the extraordinary spectacle. Then
Kalanos, following the rules prescribed by his philosophy, stepped with
unflinching courage on to the summit of the pyre, and perished in the
flames which consumed it. Some of the spectators condemned the man for
his madness, others for the vanity shown in his act of hardihood, while
some admired his high spirit and contempt of death. The king honoured him
with a sumptuous funeral, and then proceeded to Sousa, where he married
Stateira, the elder of the two daughters of Darius.




PLUTARCH




PLUTARCH’S LIFE OF ALEXANDER


_Chapter LVIII.—Alexander at Nysa_

... When the Macedonians were hesitating to attack the city called Nysa,
because the river which ran past it was deep, “Unlucky man that I am,”
Alexander exclaimed, “why did I not learn to swim?” and so saying he
prepared to ford the stream. After he had withdrawn from the assault,
envoys arrived from the besieged with an offer to surrender. They were at
first surprised to find him clad in his armour, and still stained with
the dust and blood of battle. A cushion was then brought to him, which
he requested the eldest of the envoys to take and be seated. This man
was called Akouphis, and he was so much struck with the splendour and
courtesy with which he was received that he asked what his countrymen
must do to make him their friend. Alexander replied: “They must make
you their governor, and send me a hundred of their best men.” At this
Akouphis laughed, and said: “Methinks, O King! I should rule better if,
instead of the best, you took the worst.”


_Chapter LIX.—Interchange of civilities between Alexander and
Taxilês—Alexander breaks his faith with Indian mercenaries, and hangs
some Indian philosophers_

Taxilês, it is said, ruled over a part of India which was as large as
Egypt, afforded good pasturage, and had a very fertile soil. He was a
shrewd man, and after he had embraced Alexander, said to him: “Why should
we two, Alexander, fight with one another if you have come to take away
from us neither our water nor our necessary food—the only things about
which sensible men ever care to quarrel and fight. As for anything else,
call it money or call it property, if I am richer than you, what I have
is at your service; but if I have less than you, I would not object to
stand debtor to your bounty.” Alexander was delighted with what he said,
and, giving him his right hand in token of his friendship, exclaimed:
“Perhaps you think from the friendly greetings we have exchanged our
intercourse will be continued without a contest. There you are mistaken,
for I will war to the knife with you in good offices, and will see to
it that you do not overcome me in generosity.” Alexander therefore,
after having received many presents from Taxilês, and given him more in
return, at last drank to his health, and accompanied the toast with the
present of a thousand talents of coined money. This act of his greatly
vexed his friends, but made him stand higher in favour with many of the
barbarians. As the Indian mercenary troops, consisting, as they did, of
the best soldiers to be found in the country, flocked to the cities which
he attacked, and defended them with the greatest vigour, he thus incurred
serious losses, and accordingly concluded a treaty of peace with them;
but afterwards, as they were going away, set upon them while they were on
the road, and killed them all. This rests as a foul blot on his martial
fame, for on all other occasions he observed the rules of civilised
warfare as became a king.[381] The philosophers gave him no less trouble
than the mercenaries, because they reviled the princes who declared for
him and encouraged the free states to revolt from his authority. On this
account he hanged many of them.[382]


_Chapter LX.—The account of the battle with Pôros, as given by Alexander
himself—Alexander’s noble treatment of Pôros_

How the war against Pôros was conducted he has described in his own
letters. He tells us that the river Hydaspês ran between the two camps,
and that Pôros with his elephants which he had posted with their heads
towards the stream, constantly guarded the passage. Alexander himself,
day after day, caused a great noise and disturbance to be made in his
camp, in order that the barbarians might be gradually led to view his
movements without alarm. At last, upon a dark and stormy night, he
took a part of the infantry and a choice body of cavalry, marched to
a considerable distance from the enemy, and crossed over to an island
of no great size. Here he was exposed with his army to the rage of a
violent thunderstorm, amid which rain fell down in torrents, and though
he saw some of his men struck dead with the lightning, he nevertheless
advanced from the island and reached the furthermost bank of the river.
The Hydaspês was now flooded by the rains, and its raging current had
chosen a new channel of great width, down which a great body of water
was carried. In fording this new bed, he could with difficulty keep his
footing, as the bottom was very slippery and uneven. It was here that
Alexander is said to have exclaimed, “O Athenians! can you believe what
dangers I undergo to earn your applause?” This particular rests on the
authority of Onesikritos, for Alexander himself merely says that he
and his men left their rafts, and under arms waded through the second
torrent with the water up to their breasts. After crossing, he himself
rode forward about twenty stadia in advance of the infantry, concluding
that if the enemy attacked him with their cavalry only, he could easily
rout them; but if they moved forward their entire force, he could bring
his infantry into the field before fighting began. He was right in both
conclusions, for he fell in with 1000 horse and 60 war-chariots of the
enemy, and these he routed, capturing every chariot, and slaying 400 of
the horsemen. Pôros thus perceived that Alexander himself had crossed the
river, and he therefore advanced against him with all his army, except
some troops which he left to guard his camp, in case the Macedonians
should cross from the opposite bank to attack it. Alexander, dreading
the elephants and the great numbers of the enemy, did not engage with
them in front, but attacked them himself on the left wing, ordering
Koinos to fall upon them on the right. Both wings were broken, and the
enemy, driven from their position, thronged always towards the centre
where the elephants were posted. The contest, which began early in the
morning, was so obstinately maintained that it was fully the eighth
hour of the day before the Indians renounced all attempts at further
resistance. This description of the battle is given by the chief actor
in it himself in his letters. Most historians are agreed that Pôros
stood four cubits and a span high, and that his gigantic form was not
less proportioned to the elephant which carried him, and which was his
biggest, than was a rider of an ordinary size to his horse. This elephant
showed wonderful sagacity and care for its royal master, for while it
was still vigorous it defended him against his assailants and repulsed
them, but when it perceived that he was ready to sink from the number
of his wounds and bruises, fearing that he might fall off its back, it
gently lowered itself to the ground, and as it knelt quietly extracted
the darts from his body with its trunk. When Pôros was taken prisoner,
Alexander asked him how he wished to be treated. “Like a king,” answered
Pôros. When Alexander further asked if he had anything else to request,
“Every thing,” rejoined Pôros, “is comprised in the words, like a king.”
Alexander then not only reinstated Pôros in his kingdom with the title
of satrap, but added a large province to it, subduing the inhabitants
whose form of government was the republican. This country, it is said,
contained 15 tribes, 5000 considerable cities, and villages without
number.[383] He subdued besides another district three times as large,
over which he appointed Philippos, one of his friends, to be satrap.


_Chapter LXI.—Death of Boukephalas, and Alexander’s regret at his loss_

After the battle with Pôros, Boukephalas died, not immediately, but some
time afterwards, from wounds which he received in the engagement. This
is the account which most historians give, but Onesikritos says that he
died of old age and overwork, for he had reached his thirtieth year.[384]
Alexander deeply regretted his loss, taking it as much to heart as if it
had been that of a faithful friend and companion. He founded a city in
his honour on the banks of the Hydaspês, and named it Boukephalia. It is
also recorded that when he lost a pet dog called Peritas, which he had
brought up, and of which he was very fond, he founded a city and called
it by the name of this dog. Sôtiôn tells us that he had heard this from
Potamôn of Lesbos.


_Chapter LXII.—The army refuses to advance to the Ganges—Alexander,
preparing to retreat, erects altars which were afterwards held in
veneration by the Praisian kings—The opinion of Androkottos_

The battle with Pôros depressed the spirits of the Macedonians, and made
them very unwilling to advance farther into India. For as it was with the
utmost difficulty they had beaten him when the army he led amounted only
to 20,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, they now most resolutely opposed
Alexander when he insisted that they should cross the Ganges.[385] This
river, they heard, had a breadth of two-and-thirty stadia, and a depth
of 100 fathoms, while its farther banks were covered all over with armed
men, horses, and elephants. For the kings of the Gandaritai and the
Praisiai[386] were reported to be waiting for him with an army of 80,000
horse, 200,000 foot, 8000 war chariots, and 6000 fighting elephants. Nor
was this any exaggeration, for not long afterwards Androkottos,[387]
who had by that time mounted the throne, presented Seleukos with 500
elephants, and overran and subdued the whole of India with an army of
600,000 men. Alexander at first in vexation and rage withdrew to his
tent, and shutting himself up lay there feeling no gratitude towards
those who had thwarted his purpose of crossing the Ganges; but regarding
a retreat as tantamount to a confession of defeat. But being swayed by
the persuasions of his friends, and the entreaties of his soldiers who
stood weeping and lamenting at the door of his tent, he at last relented,
and prepared to retreat. He first, however, contrived many unfair
devices to exalt his fame among the natives, as, for instance, causing
arms for men and stalls and bridles for horses to be made much beyond the
usual size, and these he left scattered about. He also erected altars for
the gods which the kings of the Praisiai even to the present day hold
in veneration, crossing the river to offer sacrifices upon them in the
Hellenic fashion.[388] Androkottos himself, who was then but a youth, saw
Alexander himself, and afterwards used to declare that Alexander could
easily have taken possession of the whole country since the king was
hated and despised by his subjects for the wickedness of his disposition
and the meanness of his origin.[389]


_Chapter LXIII.—Alexander starts on a voyage down stream, reducing
tribes by the way—He is dangerously wounded in the capital of the
Malloi—Extraction of the arrow from his wound—His recovery_

After marching thence Alexander, who wished to see the outer ocean,
ordered many rafts and vessels managed with oars to be built, and he
then fell down the rivers in a leisurely manner. But the voyage was
neither an idle one nor unattended with warlike operations, for at
times he disembarked, and attacking the cities which adjoined the banks
succeeded in subduing them all. But he very nearly lost his life when
he was amongst the people called the Malloi, who were said to be the
most warlike of all the Indians. For in besieging their city, after
he had driven the defenders from the walls by volleys of missiles, he
was the first man to ascend a scaling ladder and reach the summit of
the wall.[390] Just then the ladder broke, so that he was left almost
alone, and as the barbarians who were standing at the foot of the
wall inside shot at him from below, he was repeatedly hit with their
missiles. He therefore poised himself and leaped down into the midst of
his enemies, alighting by good chance on his feet. The flashing of his
arms as he brandished them made the barbarians think that lightning or
some supernatural splendour played round his person, and they therefore
drew back and dispersed. But when they saw that he was attended by two
followers only, some of them attacked him at close-quarters with swords
and spears, while one man, who stood a little farther off, shot an arrow
from his bow at full bent, and with such force that it pierced through
his corselet and lodged itself in the bones of his breast.[391] As he
staggered under the blow and sank upon his knees, the barbarian ran up
with his drawn scimitar to despatch him. Peukestas and Limnaios[392]
placed themselves before Alexander to protect him; both of them were
wounded, one of them mortally; but Peukestas, who survived, continued to
make some resistance, while the king slew the Indian with his own hand.
Alexander was wounded in many places; and at last received a blow on his
neck from a club, which forced him to lean for support against the wall
with his face turned towards the enemy. The Macedonians, who by this time
had come up, crowded round him, and snatching him up, now insensible
to all around him, carried him off to his tent. A rumour immediately
ran through the camp that he was dead, and his attendants having with
great difficulty sawed through the arrow, which had a wooden shaft, were
thus able after much trouble to take off his corselet. They had next to
extract the barbed head of the arrow which was firmly fixed in one of his
ribs. This arrow-head is said to have measured three fingers’ breadths in
width and four in length. Accordingly, when it was pulled out, he swooned
away and was brought very near the gates of death, but he at length
revived. When he was out of danger, but still very weak, having for a
long time to follow the mode of life most conducive to the restoration of
his health, he heard a disturbance outside his tent, and learning that
the Macedonians were longing to see him he put on his cloak and went
out to them. After sacrificing to the gods, he again moved forward and
subdued a great extent of country and many considerable cities that lay
on his route.


_Chapter LXIV.—Alexander’s interview with the Indian gymnosophists_

He captured ten of the gymnosophists who had been principally concerned
in persuading Sabbas[393] to revolt, and had done much harm otherwise
to the Macedonians. These men are thought to be great adepts in the art
of returning brief and pithy answers, and Alexander proposed for their
solution some hard questions, declaring that he would put to death first
the one who did not answer correctly and then the others in order.[394]

He demanded of the first “Which he took to be the more numerous, the
living or the dead?” He answered, “The living, for the dead are not.”

The second was asked, “Which breeds the largest animals, the sea or the
land?” He answered, “The land, for the sea is only a part of it.”

The third was asked, “Which is the cleverest of beasts?” He answered,
“That with which man is not yet acquainted.”

The fourth was asked, “For what reason he induced Sabbas to revolt?” He
answered, “Because I wished him to live with honour or die with honour.”

The fifth was asked, “Which he thought existed first, the day or the
night?” He answered, “The day was first by one day.” As the king appeared
surprised at this solution, he added, “Impossible questions require
impossible answers.”

Alexander then turning to the sixth asked him “How a man could best make
himself beloved?” He answered, “If a man being possessed of great power
did not make himself to be feared.”

Of the remaining three, one being asked “How a man could become a god?”
replied, “By doing that which is impossible for a man to do.”

The next being asked, “Which of the two was stronger, life or death?” he
replied, “Life, because it bears so many evils.”

The last being asked, “How long it was honourable for a man to live?”
answered, “As long as he does not think it better to die than to live.”

Upon this Alexander, turning to the judge, requested him to give his
decision. He said they had answered each one worse than the other. “Since
such is your judgment,” Alexander then said, “you shall be yourself the
first to be put to death.” “Not so,” said he, “O king, unless you are
false to your word, for you said that he who gave the worst answer should
be the first to die.”


_Chapter LXV.—Onesikritos confers with the Indian gymnosophists Kalanos
and Dandamis—Kalanos visits Alexander and shows him a symbol of his
empire_

The king then gave them presents and dismissed them to their homes. He
also sent Onesikritos to the most renowned of these sages, who lived by
themselves in tranquil seclusion, to request that they would come to
him.[395] This Onesikritos was a philosopher who belonged to the school
of Diogenês the Cynic. He tells us that one of these men called Kalanos
ordered him with the most overbearing insolence and rudeness to take
off his clothes, and listen naked to his discourse—otherwise he would
not enter into conversation with him even if he came from Zeus himself.
Dandamis, however, was of a milder temper, and when he had been told
about Sôkrates, Pythagoras and Diogenês, he said they appeared to him to
have been men of genius, but from an excessive deference to the laws had
subjected their lives too much to their requirements. But other writers
tell us that he said nothing more than this, “For what purpose has
Alexander come all the way hither?” Taxilês, however, persuaded Kalanos
to visit Alexander. His real name was Sphinês, but as he saluted those
whom he met with “Kale,” which is the Indian equivalent of “Chairein”
(that is, “All hail”), he was called by the Greeks Kalanos. This
philosopher, we are told, showed Alexander a symbol of his empire. He
threw down on the ground a dry and shrivelled hide and planted his foot
on the edge of it. But when it was trodden down in one place, it started
up everywhere else. He then walked all round it and showed that the same
thing took place wherever he trod, until at length he stepped into the
middle, and by doing so made it all lie flat. This symbol was intended to
show Alexander that he should control his empire from its centre, and not
wander away to its distant extremities.


_Chapter LXVI.—Alexander visits the island Skilloustis, and sailing
thence explores the sea—Sufferings of his army on the march homeward, and
extent of its losses—Relief sent by the satraps_

[Illustration: FIG. 13.—GREEK WARSHIP.]

Alexander’s voyage down the rivers to the sea occupied seven months. On
reaching the ocean he sailed to an island which he himself has called
Skilloustis, but which is generally known as Psiltoukis.[396] On landing
there he sacrificed to the gods, exploring afterwards the nature of the
sea and the coast as far as he could penetrate. This done, he turned
back, after praying to the gods that no man might ever overpass the
limits which his expedition had reached. He ordered his fleet to sail
along the coast, keeping India on the right hand; and he appointed
Nearchos to the chief command, with Onesikritos as the master pilot. He
himself, returning by land with the army, marched through the country of
the Oreitai, where he was reduced to the sorest straits from the scarcity
of provisions, and lost such numbers of men that he hardly brought back
from India the fourth part of his military force, though he entered
it with 120,000 foot and 15,000 horse. Many perished from malignant
distempers, wretched food, and scorching heat, but most from sheer
hunger, for their march lay through an uncultivated region, inhabited
only by some miserable savages, the owners of a small and inferior breed
of sheep, accustomed to feed on sea-fish, which gave to their flesh a
rank and disagreeable flavour.[397] With great difficulty, therefore, he
traversed this desert region in sixty days, and reached Gedrôsia, where
all the men were at once supplied with abundance of provisions, furnished
by the satraps and kings of the nearest provinces.


_Chapter LXVII.—Alexander and the army indulge in wild revelry on
emerging from the desert_

After he had given his forces some time to recruit, he led them in a
joyous revel for seven days through Karmania. He himself sat at table
with his companions mounted on a lofty oblong platform drawn by eight
horses, and in that conspicuous position feasted continually both by
day and by night. This carriage was followed by numberless others, some
with purple hangings and embroidered canopies, and others screened with
over-arching green boughs always fresh gathered, conveying the rest of
Alexander’s friends and officers crowned with garlands and drinking wine.
There was not a helmet, a shield, or a pike to be seen, but all along
the road the soldiers were dipping cups, horns, and earthen vessels into
great jars and flagons of wine, and drinking one another’s healths,
some as they went marching forward, and others as they sat by the way.
Wherever they passed might be heard the music of the pipe and the flute
and the voices of women singing and dancing and making merry. During this
disorderly and dissolute march the soldiers after their cups indulged in
ribald jests, as if the god Dionysos himself were present among them and
accompanying their joyous procession.[398] Alexander, on reaching the
capital of Gedrôsia, again halted to refresh his army, and entertained it
with feasting and revelry.




JUSTIN




HISTORIAE PHILIPPICAE OF JUSTINUS


TWELFTH BOOK


_Chapter VII.—Alexander visits Nysa and Mount Merus—Receives the
submission of Queen Cleophis and captures the Rock (Aornos)_

... After this he advanced towards India that he might make the ocean and
the remotest East the limits of his empire. In order that the decorations
of his army might be in keeping with this grandeur, he overlaid the
trappings of the horses and the arms of his soldiers with silver. He
then called the army his argyraspids, because the shields they carried
were inwrought with silver. When he had reached the city of Nysa, and
found that the inhabitants offered no resistance, he ordered their lives
to be spared, from a sentiment of reverence towards Father Bacchus, by
whom the city had been founded; at the same time congratulating himself
that he had not only undertaken a military expedition like that god, but
had even followed his very footsteps. He then led his army to view the
sacred mountain, which the genial climate had mantled over with vine and
ivy, just as if husbandmen had with industrious hands laboured to make
it the perfection of beauty. Now the army on reaching the mountain, in
a sudden access of devout emotion, began to howl in honour of the god,
and to the amazement of the king ran unmolested all about the place,
so that he perceived that by sparing the citizens he had not so much
served their interests as those of his own army. Thence he marched to the
Daedali mountains[399] and the dominions of Queen Cleophis,[400] who,
after surrendering her kingdom, purchased its restoration by permitting
the conqueror to share her bed, thus gaining by her fascinations what
she had not gained by her valour. The offspring of this intercourse was
a son, whom she called Alexander, the same who afterwards reigned as an
Indian king. Queen Cleophis, because she had prostituted her chastity,
was thereafter called by the Indians _the royal harlot_. When Alexander
after traversing India had come to a rock of a wonderful size and
ruggedness, unto which many of the people had fled for refuge,[401] he
came to know that Hercules had been prevented from capturing that very
rock by an earthquake. Being seized, therefore, with an ambitious desire
of surpassing the deeds of Hercules, he made himself master of the rock
with infinite toil and danger, and then received the submission of all
the tribes in that part of the country.


_Chapter VIII.—Alexander conquers Porus—Builds Nicaea and Boucephala, and
reduces the Adrestae, Gesteani, Praesidae, and Gangaridae—Advances to the
Cuphites (Beäs), beyond which the army refuses to follow him—He agrees to
return, and leaves memorials of his progress_

One of the Indian kings called Porus, a man remarkable alike for his
personal strength and noble courage, on hearing the report about
Alexander, began to prepare war against his coming. Accordingly, when
hostilities broke out, he ordered his army to attack the Macedonians,
from whom he demanded their king, as if he was his private enemy.
Alexander lost no time in joining battle, but his horse being wounded at
the first charge, he fell headlong to the ground, and was saved by his
attendants who hastened up to his assistance. Porus again, when fainting
from the number of his wounds, was taken prisoner. His defeat he took
so much to heart that when he had received quarter from the victor, he
neither wished to take food nor would allow his wounds to be attended to,
and indeed could scarcely be induced to wish for life. Alexander, out
of respect for his valour, restored him in safety to his sovereignty.
There he built two cities, one which he called Nicaea, and the other
Boucephala, after the name of his horse. Moving thence he conquered
the Adrestae, the Gesteani, the Praesidae, and the Gangaridae,[402]
after defeating their armies with great slaughter. When he reached the
Cuphites,[403] where the enemy awaited him with 200,000 cavalry, his
soldiers, worn out not less by the number of their victories than by
their incessant toils, all besought him with tears to bring at last
the war to a close—besought him to have some remembrance of his native
country and the duty of returning to it—to have some consideration for
the years of his soldiers, to whom scarcely so much of life now remained
as would suffice them for returning home. Some pointed to their hoary
hair, others to their wounds, others to their bodies withered with age
or seamed with scars. None, they said, except themselves had brooked a
continuous service under two kings, Philip and Alexander; and now at last
they entreated he would send them home where their bodies, wasted as they
were to skeletons, might be buried in the tombs of their fathers, seeing
it was from no want of will they failed to second his wishes, but from
the incapacity of age. If, however, he would not spare his soldiers, he
should at all events spare himself, and not wear out his good fortune
by subjecting it to too severe a strain. Alexander was moved by these
well-grounded entreaties, and, as if he had now reached the goal of
victory, ordered a camp to be made of an unusual size and splendour,
in order that the work, while calculated to terrify the enemy by its
vastness, might be left to render himself an object of admiration to
future ages. Never did the soldiers apply themselves with such alacrity
to any work as they did to this; and when it was finished they retraced
their way to the parts whence they had come as joyfully as if they were
returning from a field of victory.


_Chapter IX.—Alexander sailing down the Panjâb rivers to the ocean,
reduces the Hiacensanae, Silei, Ambri, and Sigambri—He is dangerously
wounded in attacking one of their strongholds_

From thence Alexander proceeded to the river Acesines[404] and sailed
down stream towards the ocean. On his way he received the submission
of the Hiacensanae[405] and the Silei[406] whom Hercules had founded.
Sailing onward, he came to the Ambri and the Sigambri,[407] who opposed
him with an army of 80,000 foot and 60,000 cavalry. Having defeated
them, he led his army to their capital. On his observing from the wall,
which he was himself the first to mount, that the city was left without
defenders, he leaped down without any attendant into the level space at
the foot of the wall. Then the enemy, noticing that he was alone, rushed
together with loud shouts from all quarters of the city to finish, if
possible, the wars that embroiled the world, by one man’s death, and
give the many nations he had attacked their revenge. Alexander made an
obstinate resistance, and single-handed fought against thousands. It
surpasses belief to tell how neither the multitude of his assailants, nor
the ceaseless storm of their missiles, nor their savage yells made him
quail, and how, alone as he was, he slew and put thousands to flight.
When at last he saw that he was being overpowered by numbers, he placed
his back against the stem of a tree which grew near the wall, and by this
means protected himself till, after he had for a long time stood at bay,
his danger became at length known to his friends, who forthwith leaped
down from the wall to his assistance. Of these many were slain in the act
of defending him, and the issue of the conflict remained doubtful till
the walls were thrown down and the whole army came to his rescue. In this
battle Alexander was pierced by an arrow under the pap, but even while he
was fainting from the loss of blood he sank on his knee, and continued
fighting till he slew the man by whom he had been wounded. The operation
required for curing his wound threw him into a deadlier swoon than the
wound itself had produced.


_Chapter X.—Alexander reaches the city of King Ambigerus
(Sambos?)—Ptolemy is there wounded by a poisoned arrow—An antidote to the
poison is revealed to Alexander in a dream—He sails down to the mouth of
the Indus—Founds Barce—Leaves India and returns to Babylon_

His safety was for a time despaired of, but having at last recovered
he sent Polyperchon with part of the army to Babylon. Having himself
embarked with a very select company of his friends, he made a voyage
along the shores of the ocean. On his reaching the city of King
Ambigerus[408] the inhabitants who had heard that he was invulnerable
by steel, armed their arrows with poison, which thus inflicted a double
wound. With this deadly weapon they killed great numbers of the enemy
and repulsed them from the walls. Among many others that were wounded
was Ptolemy, but he was rescued from danger just when he appeared to be
dying, as soon as he had swallowed a potion prepared from a particular
herb which had been revealed to the king in a vision as being an antidote
to the poison. The greater part of the army was saved by the same remedy.
Alexander having taken the city by storm poured out a libation to the
ocean, praying at the same time for a prosperous return to his own
country. He was then carried down with the tide in his favour to the
mouth of the river Indus. And then like a victor who had triumphantly
driven his chariot round the goal, he fixed the frontiers of his empire,
having advanced till the deserts at the world’s end barred his farther
progress by land, and till seas were no longer navigable. As a monument
of his achievements he founded in those parts the city of Barce.[409]
He erected altars also, and on departing left one of his friends to be
governor of the maritime Indians. As he intended to march homewards by
land, and had learned that his route would lie through arid wastes, he
ordered wells to be dug at convenient places. Since these were found to
yield a copious supply of water he effected his return to Babylon.


FIFTEENTH BOOK


_Chapter IV.—Seleucus Nicator subjugates the Bactrians and enters
India—The history of Sandrocottus who was then King of India—Seleucus
makes a treaty of peace with him and returns to the West_

[Illustration: FIG. 14.—SELEUCUS NICATOR.]

... Seleucus Nicator waged many wars in the east after the partition of
Alexander’s empire among his generals. He first took Babylon, and then
with his forces augmented by victory subjugated the Bactrians. He then
passed over into India, which after Alexander’s death, as if the yoke
of servitude had been shaken off from its neck, had put his prefects
to death. Sandrocottus was the leader who achieved their freedom, but
after his victory he forfeited by his tyranny all title to the name
of liberator, for he oppressed with servitude the very people whom he
had emancipated from foreign thraldom. He was born in humble life, but
was prompted to aspire to royalty by an omen significant of an august
destiny. For when by his insolent behaviour he had offended Nandrus,[410]
and was ordered by that king to be put to death, he sought safety by a
speedy flight. When he lay down overcome with fatigue and had fallen
into a deep sleep, a lion of enormous size approaching the slumberer
licked with its tongue the sweat which oozed profusely from his body,
and when he awoke, quietly took its departure. It was this prodigy which
first inspired him with the hope of winning the throne, and so having
collected a band of robbers, he instigated the Indians to overthrow
the existing government. When he was thereafter preparing to attack
Alexander’s prefects, a wild elephant of monstrous size approached him,
and kneeling submissively like a tame elephant received him on to its
back and fought vigorously in front of the army. Sandrocottus having
thus won the throne was reigning over India when Seleucus was laying
the foundations of his future greatness. Seleucus having made a treaty
with him and otherwise settled his affairs in the east, returned home to
prosecute the war with Antigonus.




APPENDICES




NOTES A-L_l_


NOTE A.—ALEXANDREIA UNDER KAUKASOS

Alexander had founded this city at the foot of Paropanisos in the spring
of 329 B.C., before he crossed into Baktria. For distinction’s sake it
was called Alexandreia “under Kaukasos,” or “of the Paropamisadai.” Its
position has been a subject much discussed. Sir A. Burnes and Lassen
fixed it at Bamiân, but to this there is the objection that Bamiân is
situated in the midst of the mountains, and is reached from Kâbul after
the main ridge of the Hindu-Kush has been crossed. A position which
would suit better for the foundation of a permanent settlement is to
be found in the rich and beautiful valley of the Koh-Dâman, which, as
its name implies, extends up to the very foot of the great mountain
rampart. Towards the northern edge of this valley lies the village of
Charikar, whence the three roads that lead into Baktria diverge. In
the neighbourhood of this commanding position is a place called Opiân
or Houpiân, where vast ruins, first discovered by Masson, indicate the
former presence of an important town. A link to connect this place
with Alexandreia is supplied by Stephanos of Byzantium, who describes
Alexandreia as “a city in Opianê, near India.” From this we may infer
that Opiân or Houpiân was the capital of a country of the same name,
and that it formed the site of the city which Alexander founded under
Kaukasos. This view has been advocated by Dr. H. Wilson and V. de
Saint-Martin, and also by General Cunningham, who supports it by a
reference to the famous itinerary preserved in Pliny (_N. H._ VI. xvii.
21), from Diognêtos and Baitôn, who recorded the distances of Alexander’s
marches. Alexandreia, it is there stated, was 50 miles distant from
Ortospanum, and 237 from Peukolatis. As Ortospanum has been on sufficient
grounds identified with Kâbul, and Peukolatis with Hashtnagar on the
river Landaï, the question arises whether Houpiân is at the required
distance from each of these places, and General Cunningham shows that
such is the case, allowance being made for the rough methods employed in
calculating such distances in ancient times. Bunbury inclines to accept
this identification, but thinks that as Opianê is in Stephanos the name
of a country, the evidence of the modern appellation (Houpiân) is of
little weight in determining the position of the city. No mention of this
Alexandreia occurs either in Ptolemy or the _Periplûs of the Erythraian
Sea_, but it is mentioned in the _Mahâvanso_ under the form Alasaddâ,
or Alasandâ, as Hardy writes it. About the 7th century again of our
aera, the Chinese pilgrim Hiouen Thsiang speaks of Houpiân (Hou-pi-na in
Chinese transcription) as a large city in which the chief of the Vardaks
resided. Its ruin may be dated from the aera of the Mohammedan conquest,
for Baber in his Memoirs speaks of Houpiân as if it were merely the name
of the Pass which opens on the valley of the Ghorbund. According to
Hardy, Alasandâ was the birthplace of Menander (the Milinda of Sanskrit),
the Graeco-Baktrian king. See Wilson’s _Ar. Antiq._ pp. 179-182; V. de
Saint-Martin, _Étude_, 21-26; Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp.
19-26; Bunbury’s _Hist. of Anc. Geog._ i. 490-492; Weber’s _Die Griechen
in Indien_; and Hardy’s _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 516.


NOTE B.—NIKAIA

This is a Greek word meaning _victorious_, and may possibly be a
translation of the indigenous name of the place. Wilson (_Ar. Antiq._ p.
183) takes this view, and fixes the site of Nikaia on the plain of Begrâm
at a spot with ruins about some eighteen miles distant from Houpiân. The
original name of the place may have been _Jayapura_, which means _the
city of victory_. According to others, Nikaia is a transliteration of
_Nichaia-gram_, a place said to be in Kafîristân—that is, in the upper
part of the valleys which slope away from the Hindu-Kush and carry their
waters to the Kâbul river on its left. A belief was at one time current
that the Kafîrs of Bajour were descended from the Macedonians whom
Alexander had left there when he passed through the country on his way
to India. They had, it was said, many points of character in common with
the Greeks. They were celebrated for their beauty and their European
complexions. They worshipped idols, drank wine in silver cups or vases,
used chairs and tables, and spoke a language unknown to their neighbours.
Elphinstone during his Kâbul mission (in 1808) caused inquiries to be
made as to the truth of these reports, which had greatly excited his
curiosity. It was found that though they were in the main correct, yet
the fact that the people had no certain traditions of their own as to
their origin, while the languages spoken by the different tribes were
all of them closely allied to Sanskrit, showed the theory of their Greek
origin to be untenable. In the list which was furnished to the envoy of
the names of their tribes and villages, Nisa is the only one in which any
similarity to Nikaia can be traced. In Lassen’s opinion, Nikaia was not
built on the site of any previously existing town, but was first founded
by Alexander, who named it the _victorious_ in anticipation of the
triumphs which awaited him in India. General Abbott identified it with
Nangnihar, a place about four or five miles west of Jalâlâbâd, which he
thought Curtius took to be the point where Alexander first entered Indian
territory. General Cunningham again, like Ritter and Droysen, thinks
that Nikaia must have been Kâbul, otherwise that important town, through
which Alexander must have marched, would be passed over by his historians
without mention. He cites in proof a passage from the _Dionysiakê_ of
Nonnus, in which Nikaia is described as a stone city situated near a
lake. The lake, he says, is a remarkable feature which is peculiar in
Northern India to Kâbul and Kâshmîr. The authority of Nonnus, however, on
such a point is of no worth whatever. Wilson’s view that Nikaia occupied
the site of Bagrâm seems preferable to any other. It is the view also
which Bunbury favours. (See his _History of Ancient Geography_, p. 439
_n._)


NOTE C.—ASPASIOI ASSAKÊNOI

The Aspasioi are the people called by Strabo, in his list of the
tribes which occupied the country between the Kôphês and the Indus,
the Hippasioi. They are easily to be recognised under either of these
names as the Aśvaka who are mentioned in the _Mahâbhârata_ along with
the Gândhâra as the barbarous inhabitants of far distant regions in the
north. The name of the _Aśvaka_, derived from _aśva_, “a horse,” means
cavaliers, and indicates that their country was renowned in primitive
times, as it is at the present day, for its superior breed of horses.
The fact that the Greeks translated their name into Hippasioi (from
ἵππος, a horse) shows that they must have been aware of its etymological
signification. V. de Saint-Martin inclines to think that the name of the
Hippasioi is partly preserved in that of the Pachaï, a considerable tribe
located in the upper regions of the Kôphês basin. It is more distinctly
preserved in _Asip_ or _Isap_, the Pukhto name of this tribe, called
by Mohammedans the _Yusufzai_. The name of the Assakênoi, like that
of the Aspasioi, represents the Sanskrit Aśvaka, which in the popular
dialect is changed into Assaka, and by the addition of the Persian
plural termination into Assakan, a form which Arrian has all but exactly
transcribed, and which appears without any change in the Assakanoi of
Strabo and the Assacani of Curtius. They are now represented by the
Aspîn of Chitral and the Yashkun of Gilgit. Some writers think, however,
that the name of the Assakans or Asvakans is still extant in that of
the Afghans, for the change of the sibilant into the rough aspirate is
quite normal, and also that of _k_ into _g_, a mute of its own order. Dr.
Bellew, however, in his _Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan_,
finds the source of the name in the Armenian Aghván, and says it seems
clear from what he has explained that the name Afghân merely means
“mountaineer,” and is neither an ethnic term of distinct race nationality
nor of earlier origin than the period of the Roman dominion in Asia
Minor. See the _Inquiry_, pp. 196-208.


NOTE D.—MAZAGA

The name of this place, which in Sanskrit would appear as Mâśaka, has
various forms in the classics—_Massaga_ as in our author here, _Massaka_
in his _Indika_, _Mazaga_ in Curtius, and _Masoga_ in Strabo, who
says it was the capital of King Assakanos. The exact position of this
important place has not yet been ascertained, but its name as that of an
ancient site still remains in the country. The Emperor Baber states in
his _Memoirs_ that at the distance of two rapid marches from the town
of Bajore (the capital of the province of the same name), lying to the
west of the river Pañjkoré, there was a town called Mashanagar on the
river of Sévad (Swât). Rennell identified this name with the Massaga of
Alexander’s historians, and no doubt correctly. M. Court, who has given
interesting information about the country of the Yuzafzaïs, which he
collected among the inhabitants of the plains, learned from them that at
twenty-four miles from Bajore there exists a ruined site known under the
double name of Maskhine and Massangar (Massanagar). In the grammar again
of Pânini, who was a native of Gândhâra, in which the Assakan territory
was comprised, the word Mâśakâvatî occurs, given as the name both of a
river and a district. It may then fairly be presumed that Massaga was the
capital of the Mâśakâvatî district, and that the impetuous stream which,
as we learn from Curtius, ran between steep banks and made access to
Massaga difficult on the east side, was the Mâśakâvatî of Pânini (_v._
Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ II. pp. 136-138; V. de Saint-Martin, _Étude_, pp. 35,
36; and Abbott, _Gradus ad Aornon_). Curtius (viii. 37, 38) describes
with more minuteness than Arrian the nature of the engineering operations
designed to make the attack against the walls practicable. He states
that Assacanus, the king of the place, died before Alexander’s arrival,
and not after the siege had begun, as Arrian relates. He adds that
Assacanus was succeeded by his mother (wife?), whose name was Cleophis,
and who, according to Justin, bore a son whose paternity was ascribed to
Alexander. In reference to this statement Dr. Bellew remarks that at the
present day several of the chiefs and ruling families in the neighbouring
states of Chitral and Badakhshan boast a lineal descent from Alexander
the Great.


NOTE E.—BAZIRA

Some writers have taken Bazira to be Bajore, which lies midway between
the river of Kunâr and the Landaï, but there is nothing beyond the
similarity of the two names to recommend this view. As the Bazirians fled
for refuge to the rock Aornos, which overhung the Indus, it is evident
they could not have inhabited a place so remote from the rock as Bajore.
Cunningham finds a more likely position for Bazira at Bâzâr, “a large
village situated on the _Kalpan_, or Kâli-pâni river, and quite close to
the town of _Rustam_, which is built on a very extensive old mound....
According to tradition this was the site of the original town of Bâzâr.
The position is an important one, as it stands just midway between the
Swât and the Indus rivers, and has therefore been from time immemorial
the _entrepôt_ of trade between the rich valley of Swât and the large
towns on the Indus and Kâbul rivers.... This identification is much
strengthened by the proximity of Mount _Dantalok_, which is most probably
the same range of hills as the _Montes Daedali_ of the Greeks.” See his
_Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 65, 66.


NOTE F.—AORNOS

The identification of this celebrated rock has been one of the most
perplexing problems of Indian archaeology. The descriptions given of
it by the classical writers are more or less discrepant, and their
indications as to its position very vague and obscure. It has thus been
identified with various positions, against each of which objections
of more or less weight may be urged, but the view of General Abbott,
who has identified it with Mount Mahâban, has the balance of argument
in its favour, and is now generally adopted. The rock, to judge from
Arrian’s description of it, must have been in reality a mountain of very
considerable height, with a summit of tableland crowned here and there
with steep precipices. Curtius, on the other hand, says that the rock,
which was on all sides steep and rugged, did not rise to its pinnacle
in slopes of ordinary height and of easy ascent, but that in shape it
resembled the conical pillar of the racecourse, called the _meta_, which
springs from a broad basis and gradually tapers till it terminates in a
sharp point. Here Arrian, who drew his facts from Ptolemy, a prominent
actor in capturing Aornos, is, as usual, a safer guide than Curtius,
who wrote for effect, and often dealt unscrupulously with the facts of
history. Arrian, again, is at variance with Diodôros in his estimate
both of the circuit and of the height of the rock, for while with him
it has a circuit of 200 stadia (about 23 miles) and a height of 11,
Diodôros reduces the circuit by one-half and increases the height to 16
stadia. Curtius is silent on these points, but he mentions a circumstance
of great importance which Arrian has failed to note, namely, that the
roots of the rock were washed by the river Indus. That he is right here
cannot be questioned, for the statement is corroborated both by Diodôros
and by Strabo (xv. 687), while Arrian, who says nothing that can lead
us to think that his view was different, supplies us with a proof that
Aornos was close to the Indus, for he says of the city of Embolima, which
we now know to have been on the Indus, that it was situated close to
Aornos. The position thus indicated is about sixty miles above Attak,
where the Indus escapes into the plains from a long and narrow mountain
gorge which the ancients mistook for its source. Colonel Abbott in 1854
explored this neighbourhood, and came to the conclusion that Mount
Mahâban, a hill which abuts precipitously on the western bank of the
Indus about eight miles west from the site of Embolima, was Aornos. His
arguments in support of this identification are given in his _Gradus ad
Aornon_. His description of Mount Mahâban agrees in the main with that
which Arrian has given of Aornos. “The rock Aornos,” he says, “was the
most remarkable feature of the country, as is the Mahâban. It was the
refuge of all the neighbouring tribes. It was covered with forests.
It had good soil sufficient for a thousand ploughs, and pure springs
of water everywhere abounded. It was 4125 feet above the plain, and
14 miles in circuit. It was precipitous on the side of Embolima, yet
not so steep but that 220 horse and the war-engines were taken to the
summit. The summit was a plain where cavalry could act. It would be
difficult to offer a more faithful description of the mount.” “Why the
historians,” he adds, “should all call it the _rock_ Aornos, it would
be difficult to say. The side on which Alexander scaled the main summit
had certainly the character of a rock, but the whole description of
Arrian indicates a table mountain.” Cunningham, in his _Ancient Geography
of India_, advances some arguments against this identification, but
they cannot be considered sufficiently cogent to warrant its rejection
unless a better could be substituted. That which he proposes, however,
is altogether untenable. What he suggests is that the hill-fortress of
Râni-gat, situated immediately above the small village of Nogram, about
sixteen miles north by west from Ohind, which he takes to be the site
of Embolima, corresponds in all essential particulars, except in its
elevation (under 1200 feet), with the description of Aornos as given by
Arrian, Strabo, and Diodôros. Now if the elevation stated, which is some
6000 feet under what Arrian assigns to Aornos, was really the height of
the rock, then the details of the operations by which it was captured are
rendered partly unintelligible. Thus, why should Ptolemy, after ascending
the rock to a certain distance, have kindled a fire to let Alexander, who
remained at the base, know where he was? Can we not easily see with the
naked eye from the foot to the top of a small hill only ten or eleven
hundred feet high? Moreover, we are informed that it took Alexander from
daybreak till noon to reach the position occupied by Ptolemy. Can it
be supposed that all that space of time was required for the ascent of
a hill not much higher than Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh? The highest
mountain in Great Britain could be climbed in half the time. Another
equally fatal objection to this theory is the distance of Râni-gat from
the Indus. The roots of the rock were indubitably washed by that river,
but Râni-gat is no less than sixteen miles distant from it. At the same
time, if Râni-gat were Aornos, then Ohind cannot be Embolima, for Arrian
says that Embolima was close to (ξύνεγγυς) Aornos. The identification of
the rock with Raja Hodi’s fort opposite Attak, first suggested by General
Court and afterwards supported by the learned missionary Loewenthal,
has in its favour the fact that the position is on the Indus, but it is
otherwise untenable. It is uncertain whether the name Aornos is purely
Greek or an attempt at the transliteration of the indigenous name.
If purely Greek, then Dionysios Perieg. (l. 1150) is right in saying
that men called the rock Aornis because even swift-winged birds had
difficulty in flying over it. If indigenous, the name may be referred to
_Aranai_, which, as Dr. Bellew states, is a common Hindi name for hill
ridges in these parts. He identifies the rock as _Shàh Dum_ or _Malka_,
on the heights of Mahâban, the stronghold of the Wahabi fanatics, at the
destruction of which he was present in 1864. See his _Inquiry_, p. 68.


NOTE G.—NYSA

Arrian’s narrative indicates neither in what part of the Kôphên and Indus
Dôâb Nysa was situated, nor at what time Alexander made his expedition
to the place. But we learn from Curtius (viii. 10), Strabo (xv. 697),
and Justin (xii. 7) that he was there before he had as yet crossed the
Choaspes and taken Massaga, and Arrian says nothing from which it can be
inferred that his opinion was different. Nysa was therefore most probably
the city which Ptolemy calls Nagara or Dionysopolis, and which has been
identified with Nanghenhar (the Nagarahâra of Sanskrit), an ancient
capital, the ruins of which have been traced at a distance of four or
five miles west from Jalâlâbâd. This place was called also Udyânapura,
_i.e._ “the city of gardens,” which the Greeks from some resemblance in
the sound translated into Dionysopolis, a compound meaning “the city of
Dionysos.” At some distance eastward from this site, but on the opposite
bank of the river, there is a mountain called Mar-Koh (_i.e._ snake-hill)
which, if Nysa be Nagara, may be regarded as the Mount Meros which lay
near it, and was ascended by Alexander. It has, however, been assumed
that, in Arrian’s opinion, the expedition to Nysa was not an early
incident of the campaign in the Dôâb, but the last of any importance
after the capture of Aornos. The only ground for this assumption is that
his account of the expedition to Nysa follows that of all the other
transactions recorded to have occurred west of the Indus. But the reason
of this is not far to seek. Arrian, on examining the accounts given
by different writers of the visit to Nysa and Meros, concluded that
they were for the most part apocryphal, and as he did not wish to mix
up romance with history, reserved the subject for separate treatment.
Abbott, who took it for granted that Arrian wished it to be understood
that Alexander visited Nysa after the capture of the rock, looked for
the site of that city nearer the Indus than the plain of Jalâlâbâd; and
found one to suit the requirements in the neighbourhood of Mount Elum,
called otherwise Râm Takht or “the throne of Râm.” This remarkable
mountain, he says, rises like some mighty pagoda to the height of nine or
ten thousand feet, and answers in many points to the descriptions given
of Meros, being densely covered with forests, full of wild beasts and
of a height at which, in that part of India, ivy, box, etc., flourish.
At its roots are the following old towns with names all derivable from
Bacchos: Lusa (Nysa), Lyocah (Lyaeus), Elye, Awân, Bimeeter (Bimêtêr),
Bôkra (Bou-Kera), and Kerauna (Keraunos). Beneath the town of Lusa flows
the river Burindu, which is occasionally unfordable during the spring.
Abbott makes this remark about the river with reference to the statement
in Plutarch that when Alexander sat down before Nysa, the Macedonians
had some difficulty of advancing to the attack on account of the depth
of the river that washed its walls. V. de Saint-Martin and Dr. Bellew
identify Nysa with Nysatta, a village near the northern bank of the Kâbul
river about six miles below Hashtnagar, but except some correspondence
between the names, there seems little to recommend this view. Strabo has
one or two passages concerning Nysa. “In Sophoclês,” he says, “a person
is introduced speaking the praises of Nysa, as a mountain sacred to
Bacchos: ‘Whence I beheld the famed Nysa, the resort of the Bacchanalian
bands, which the horned Iacchos makes his most pleasant and beloved
retreat, where no bird’s clang is heard.’ From such stories they gave
the name Nysaians to some imaginary nation, and called their city Nysa,
founded by Bacchos; a mountain above the city they called Mêros, alleging
as a reason for imposing these names that the ivy and vine grow there,
although the latter does not perfect its fruit, for the bunches of grapes
drop off before maturity in consequence of excessive rains” (xv. 687).
In a subsequent passage (697) he says: “After the river Kôphês follows
the Indus. The country lying between these two rivers is occupied by the
Astakênoi, Masianoi, Nysaioi, and the Hippasioi. Next is the territory of
Assakanos, where is the city Masoga.” Pliny also has one or two notices
of Nysa. “Most writers,” he says (_H. N._ vi. 21), “assume that the city
Nysa and also the mountain Merus, consecrated to the god Bacchus, belong
to India. This is the mountain whence arose the fable that Bacchus issued
from the thigh (μηρός) of Jupiter. They also assign to India the country
of the Aspagani so plentiful in vines, laurel, and box, and all kinds of
fruitful trees that grow in Greece.” In Book viii. 141, he says “that on
Nysa, a mountain in India, there are lizards 24 feet in length, and in
colour yellow or purple or blue.”

The legend that Dionysos was bred in the thigh of Zeus owes its origin
to a figurative mode of expression, common among the Phoenicians and
Hebrews, which was taken by the Greeks in a literal sense. See the
Epistle to the Hebrews, vii. 10. The Kafîrs who now occupy the country
through which Alexander first marched on his way from the Kaukasos to
the Indus, are said by Elphinstone to drink wine to great excess, men
and women alike. “They dance,” he adds, “with great vehemence, using
many gesticulations, and beating the ground with great force, to a
music which is generally quick, but varied and wild. Such usages would
certainly have struck the Macedonians as Bacchanalian.” So certainly
would such a spectacle as the following, described by Bishop Heber in
his _Indian Journal_: “The two brothers Rama and Luchman, in a splendid
palkee, were conducting the retreat of their army. The divine Hunimân,
as naked and almost as hairy as the animal he represented, was gamboling
before them, with a long tail tied round his waist, a mask to represent
the head of a baboon, and two great pointed clubs in his hands. His army
followed, a number of men with similar tails and masks, their bodies dyed
with indigo, and also armed with clubs. I was never so forcibly struck
with the identity of Rama and Bacchus. Here were before me Bacchus, his
brother Ampelus, the Satyrs, smeared with wine-lees, and the great Pan
commanding them.” I may, in conclusion, subjoin a notice of Bacchos in
India from Polyainos: “Dionysos marching against the Indians in order
that the Indians might receive him did not equip his troops with armour
that could be seen, but with soft raiment and fawn skins. The spears
were wrapped round with ivy, and the thyrsus had a sharp point. In
making signals he used cymbals and drums instead of the trumpet, and,
by warming the enemy with wine, he turned them (from war) to dancing.
These and all other Bacchic orgies were the stratagems of war by which
Bacchos subjugated the Indians and all the rest of Asia. Dionysos, when
in India, seeing that his army could not endure the burning heat, seized
the three-peaked mountain of India. Of its peaks one is called Korasibiê,
another Kondaskê, but the third he himself named Mêros in commemoration
of his birth. Upon it were many fountains of water sweet of taste,
abundance of game and fruit, and snows, which gave new vigour to the
frame. The troops quartered there would take the barbarians of the plains
by surprise, and put them to an easy rout by attacking them with missiles
from their commanding position on the heights above. Dionysos having
conquered the Indians, invaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries
the Indians themselves and the Amazons.”


NOTE H.—GOLD-DIGGING ANTS

Herodotos was the first writer who communicated to the Western nations
the story of these ants. He relates it thus (iii. 102): “There are other
Indians bordering on the city of Kaspatyros and the country of Paktyike
(Afghânistân) settled northward of the other Indians, who resemble the
Baktrians in the way they live. They are the most warlike of the Indians,
and are the men whom they send to procure the gold (paid in tribute to
the King of Persia), for their country adjoins the desert of sand. In
this desert then and in the sand there are ants, in size not quite so
big as dogs, but larger than foxes. Some that were captured were taken
thence, and are with the King of the Persians. These ants, forming their
dwelling underground, heap up the sand as the ants in Greece do, and in
the same manner; and are very like them in shape. The sand which they
cast up is mixed with gold. The Indians therefore go to the desert to get
this sand, each man having three camels ... (c. 105). When the Indians
arrive at the spot they fill their sacks with the sand, and return home
with all possible speed. For the ants, as the Persians say, having
readily discovered them by the smell, pursue them, and, as they are the
swiftest of all animals, not one of the Indians could escape except by
getting the start while the ants were assembling.”

Nearchos (quoted by Strabo, xv. 705) says that he saw skins of the ants
which dig up gold as large as the skins of leopards. Megasthenes also
(as quoted in the same passage) says that among the Dardai, a populous
nation of the Indians living towards the east and among the mountains,
there was a mountain plain of about 3000 stadia in circumference, below
which were mines containing gold, which ants not less in size than foxes
dig up. In winter they dig holes and pile up the earth in heaps, like
moles, at the pit-mouths. Pliny (xi. 31) repeats the story in these
terms: “The horns of the Indian ant fixed up in the temple of Hercules
at Erythrae were objects of great wonderment. These ants excavate gold
from mines found in the country of those Northern Indians who are called
the Dardae. They are of the colour of cats and of the size of Egyptian
wolves. The Indians steal the gold which they dig up in winter during the
hot season when the ants keep within their burrows to escape the stifling
sultriness of the weather. The ants, however, aroused by the smell,
sally out and frequently overtake and mangle the robbers, though they
have the swiftest of camels to aid their flight.” It is now understood
that the gold-digging ants were neither, as the ancients supposed, an
extraordinary kind of real ants, nor, as many learned men have since
supposed, larger animals mistaken for ants, but Tibetan miners who, like
their descendants of the present day, preferred working their mines in
winter when the frozen soil stands well and is not likely to trouble them
by falling in. The Sanskrit word pîpilika denotes both an _ant_ and a
particular kind of _gold_.

The Dards consist now of several wild and predatory tribes which are
settled on the north-west frontier of Kashmir and by the banks of the
Indus. The gryphons who guarded the gold were Tibetan mastiffs, a breed
of unmatched ferocity. Gold is still found in these regions.


NOTE I.—TAXILA

Pliny, in his _Natural History_ (vi. 21), gives sixty miles as the
distance from Peukolatis (Hashtnagar) to Taxila. This would fix its
site somewhere on the Haro river to the west of Hasan Abdâl, or just
two days’ march from the Indus. But according to the itineraries of the
Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hian and Hwen Thsiang, Taxila lay at three days’
journey to the east of the Indus, and as they made that journey, their
authority on the point cannot be questioned. Taxila, it may be therefore
concluded, must have been situated in the immediate neighbourhood of
Kâla-ka-Sarâi. Now at the distance of just one mile from this place, near
the rock-seated village of Shah-Dheri, Cunningham discovered the ruins of
a fortified city scattered over a wide space, extending about three miles
from north to south, and two miles from east to west, and these ruins
he took to be those of Taxila. They lie about eight miles south-east of
Hasan Abdâl, thirty-four miles west from the famous tope of Manikyâla,
and twenty-four miles north-west from Rawal Pindi. The most ancient part
of these ruins, according to the belief of the natives, is a great mound
rising to a height of sixty-eight feet above the bed of the stream,
called the Tabrâ Nala, which flows past its east side. Cunningham’s
identification has now been accepted by all archaeologists, and a Greek
text hitherto neglected strikingly confirms its correctness. This text is
to be found in the Pseudo-Kallisthenes, and I here translate the remarks
made upon it by Sylvain Lévi in a paper which he submitted last year to
the Société Asiatique, and which will be found printed at pp. 236, 237 in
the 15th volume of the 8th series of the _Journal_ of that society: “The
Pseudo-Kallisthenes dwells complacently on the sojourn of Alexander at
Taxila and his conversations with the Brahmans. The Brahmans (III. xii.
9, 10) blame the conduct of Kalanos, who, in violation of the duties of
his caste, went to live with the Macedonians. ‘It has not pleased him,’
say they, ‘to drink the water of wisdom at the river Tiberoboam.’ And
further on (III. xiii. 12) they ask, ‘How could Alexander be the master
of all the world when he has not yet gone beyond the river Tiberoboam?’
The Latin of Julius Valerius gives, in the first case, Tiberunco
fluvio; in the second, Tyberoboam. The various readings of the Greek
manuscripts, indicated by C. Müller in his edition (Didot, 1846), give
Boroam, Baroam, Tiberio-potamos, and lastly (MS. A.) Tibernabon. The
site fixed by Cunningham for the city of Taxila is distinctly traversed
by a river called Tabrâ Nala, which divides into two the ancient city,
and washes the foot of the citadel. The ease of confounding the β
with λ in the manuscripts permits the correction of Tibernabon into
Tibernalon. The essential part of the name is, moreover, Tabrâ, _nala_
being a designation common to small affluents. The resemblance of the
two words Tabrânala and Tibernalos is at once apparent; the persistence
of geographical names has nothing surprising in it, especially in India.
The city of Takshaśila ought then to be placed definitely on the banks of
the Tabrânala (a small affluent of the Haro, which bends its course to
the Indus, into which it falls twelve miles below Attock) in the position
proposed by General Cunningham.”

Taxila, as Alexander found it, was very populous, and possessed of
almost incredible wealth. Pliny states that it was situated on a level
where the hills sink down into the plain, while Strabo praises the soil
as extremely fertile from the number of its springs and water-courses.
The Chinese pilgrim, Hwen Thsiang, by whom it was visited in 630 A.D.,
and afterwards in 643, confirms what Strabo has reported. Taxila,
which in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ appears as _Taxiala_, represents either
the Sanskrit Takshaśilâ, _i.e._ “hewn stone,” or, more probably,
Takshakaśilâ, _i.e._ “Rock of Takshaka,” the great Nâga King. Others,
however, take it to represent the Pali Takkasila, _i.e._ the rock of the
Takkas, a powerful tribe which anciently occupied the regions between
the Indus and the Chenâb (v. _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_,
vol. xx. p. 343). The famous Aśôka, the grandson of Chandragupta
(Sandrokottos), resided in Taxila during the lifetime of his father,
Vindusâra, as viceroy of the Panjâb. About the beginning of the second
century B.C. Taxila appears to have formed part of the dominions of
the Graeco-Baktrian king, Eukratides. In 126 B.C. it was wrested
from the Greeks by the Sus or Abars, with whom it remained for about
three-quarters of a century, when it was conquered by the Kushân tribe
under the great Kanishka. In the year 42 A.D. it is said to have been
visited by Apollonios of Tyana and his companion, the Assyrian Damis,
who wrote a narrative of the journey, which Philostratos professes to
have followed in his life of Apollonios. In 400 A.D. it was visited by
Fa-Hian, who calls it Chu-sha-shi-lo, _i.e._ “the severed head,” the
usual name by which Taxila was known to the Buddhists of India (_v._
Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 104-121).

[Illustration: FIG. 15.—EUKRATIDES.]


NOTE J.—SITE OF ALEXANDER’S CAMP ON THE HYDASPÊS

It is a point of great importance to determine where the camp was
situated which Alexander formed on reaching the Hydaspês, and which
he made his headquarters till he effected the passage of the river.
Without knowing this it cannot with certainty be decided at what point
he made the passage or where he defeated Pôros, or where he founded the
two cities, Nikaia and Boukephala, which he built after his victory.
Such high authorities as Sir A. Burnes, General Court, and General
Abbott have placed the camp at Jhîlam, but Lord Elphinstone and General
Cunningham prefer Jalâlpûr, a place some thirty miles lower down the
stream. These writers all drew their conclusions from personal knowledge
of the localities concerned. Cunningham, who wrote later than the
others, visited the Hydaspês in 1863, and in his _Geography of Ancient
India_ (pp. 157-179) gives an account of the scope and results of his
investigations. He points out that Alexander in advancing from Taxila
to the Hydaspês had two roads—one called the _upper_, which proceeded
through a rich and fertile country, past Rawal Pindi, Manikyâla, and
Rohtâs to Jhîlam, and another called the _lower_, which proceeded, with
an inclination to southward, to Dudhiâl, and thence by Asanot and Vang
to Jalâlpûr. He then shows from Strabo and Pliny that Alexander must
have advanced by the _lower_ road. According to Strabo (XV. i. 32), “the
direction of Alexander’s march, as far as the Hydaspês, was, for the
most part, towards the south; after that, to the Hypanis, it was more
towards the _east_.” Now, if Alexander had taken the route by Jhîlam
he would have advanced in one continuous straight line, which is in
direct opposition to the explicit statement of Strabo, which makes him
deviate towards the south. Pliny again (vi. 21), quoting from Diognêtos
and Baitôn, the _mensores_ of Alexander, gives the distance from Taxila
to the Hydaspês as 120 (Roman) miles. In comparing this distance with
that from Shah-Dheri to Jhîlam and Jalâlpûr respectively, we must reject
Jhîlam, which is no less than sixteen miles short of the recorded
distance, while Jalâlpûr differs from it by less than two miles. The same
author thinks that the camp probably extended for about six miles along
the bank of the river from Shah Kabir, two miles to the north-east of
Jalâlpûr, down to Syadpûr, four miles to the west-south-west. In this
position the left flank of the camp would have been only six miles from
the wooded promontory of Kotera, where he intended to steal his passage
across the river. The breadth of the Hydaspês at Jalâlpûr is about a mile
and a quarter.


NOTE K.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS

To the accounts of this memorable battle given by Arrian and the four
other writers translated in this volume, I here add the account of it
given by Polyainos in his work _On the Stratagems of War_ (II. ix. 22):

“Alexander, in his Indian expedition, advanced to the Hydaspês with
intention to cross it, when Porus appeared with his army on the other
side determined to dispute his passage. Alexander then marched towards
the head of the river, and attempted to cross it there. Thither also
Porus marched, and drew up his army on the opposite side. He then
made the same effort lower down; there, too, Porus opposed him. Those
frequent appearances of intention to cross it, without ever making one
real attempt to effect it, the Indians ridiculed, and, concluding that
he had no real design to pass the river, they became more negligent in
attending his motions, when Alexander, by a rapid march gaining the
banks, effected his purpose on barges, boats, and hides stuffed with
straw, before the enemy had time to come up with him, who, deceived by
so many feint attempts, yielded him at last an uninterrupted passage.
In the battle against Porus, Alexander posted part of his cavalry in the
right wing, and part he left as a body of reserve at a small distance
on the plain. His left wing consisted of the phalanx and his elephants.
Porus ordered his elephants to be formed against him, himself taking his
station on an elephant at the head of his left wing. The elephants were
drawn up within fifty yards of each other, and in those interstices was
posted his infantry, so that his front exhibited the appearance of a
great wall; the elephants looked like so many towers, and the infantry
like the parapet between them. Alexander directed his infantry to attack
the enemy in front, while himself at the head of the horse advanced
against the cavalry. Against those movements Porus ably guarded. But the
beasts could not be kept in their ranks, and, wherever they deserted
them, the Macedonians in a compact body pouring in closed with the enemy,
and attacked them both in front and flank. The body of reserve, in the
meantime wheeling round and attacking their rear, completed the defeat”
(_Shepherd’s Translation_).

Grote, referring to this battle, remarks that “the day on which it was
fought was the greatest day of Alexander’s life, if we take together the
splendour and difficulty of the military achievement and the generous
treatment of his conquered opponent.” Military critics cannot point to a
single strategical error in the whole series of operations conducted by
Alexander himself, or his generals acting under his orders, from the time
he encamped on the bank of the Hydaspês till the overthrow and surrender
of Pôros. At the same time the courage and skill with which the Indian
king contended against the greatest soldier of antiquity, if not of
all time, are worthy of the highest admiration, and present a striking
contrast to the incompetent generalship and pusillanimity of Darius. “The
Greeks,” says General Chesney, “were loud in praises of the Indians;
never in all their eight years of constant warfare had they met with
such skilled and gallant soldiers, who, moreover, surpassed in stature
and bearing all the other races of Asia.... The Indian village community
flourished even at that distant period, and in the brave and manly race
which fought so stoutly under Porus twenty-two centuries ago we may
recognise all the fine qualities of the Punjabi agrarian people of the
present day, the gallant men who fought us in our turn so stubbornly, now
the most valuable component of the Indian empire, and the best soldiers
of its Queen-Empress.”


NOTE L.—THE KATHAIANS

The Kathaioi, it would appear from the text, inhabited the regions lying
to the east of the Hydraôtês. Some writers, however, as Strabo informs
us (XV. i. 30), placed their country in the tract between the Hydaspês
and Akesinês, but this view is manifestly wrong. They are described by
ancient authors as one of the most powerful nations of India. Their
very name indicates their warlike propensities and predominance, for if
it is not identical with that of the military caste, _Kshatriya_, it
is at least a modified form of that word. Arrian subsequently (vi. 15)
mentions a tribe of independent Indians whose name is a still closer
transliteration of _Kshatriya_, the _Xathroi_, whose territories lay
between the Indus and the lower course of the Akesinês. Strabo (XV. i.
30) notices some of the peculiar manners and customs of the Kathaians,
such as infanticide, and Sati. Lassen has pointed out that their name is
connected with that of the Kattia, a nomadic race scattered at intervals
through the plains of the Panjâb, but supposed to be the aborigines of
the country and of Kolarian descent. Their name occurs in that of the
province of Kâthiawâr, which now comprises the province of Gujerat.


NOTE M.—SANGALA

Sir E. H. Bunbury, referring to the uncertainty of the identifications of
the tribes and cities of the Panjâb mentioned by Alexander’s historians,
says: “While the general course of his march must have followed
approximately the same line of route that has been frequented in all ages
from the banks of the Indus to those of the Beas, his expeditions against
the various warlike tribes that refused submission to his arms led him
into frequent excursions to the right and left of his main direction. And
with regard to these localities we have a general clue to guide us. The
most important of these sites to determine would be that of Sangala, the
capital of the Cathaeans, which, according to the narrative of Arrian,
was situated between the Hydraotes and the Hyphasis. Hence it was placed
by Burnes at Lahore, and by others at Umritsir. But on the other hand
there are not wanting strong reasons for identifying Sangala with the
Sakala of Indian writers, and this was certainly situated to the west
of the Hydraotes, between that river and the Acesines” (_Hist. of Anc.
Geog._ pp. 444, 445). This was the view of General Cunningham, who,
taking _Śâkala_ or _Sâkala_ (the _Sagala_ of Ptolemy’s _Geography_) to
be the name in Sanskrit of the place which the Greeks called _Sangala_,
found a site for it at Sânglawâla-Tiba, a small rocky hill with ruins
upon it and with a large swamp at its base, and situated between the
Râvi (Hydraôtês) and the Chenâb (Akesinês) at a distance of about sixty
miles to the west of Lahore. This was no doubt the site of the Śâkala
of Sanskrit writers and of the She-kie-lo of the Chinese pilgrim Hwen
Thsiang, who visited the place in 630 A.D. But it cannot have been the
site of the Sangala of the Greeks, for, in the first place, according to
the testimony of all the historians, that city lay between the Hydraôtês
and the Hyphasis, and was attacked by Alexander after he had crossed the
former river. To meet this objection Cunningham assumes that Alexander
must have recrossed the Hydraôtês on hearing that the Kathaians had risen
in his rear. His thus turning aside from the direction of his march to
make his rear secure is quite consistent with his usual practice, but
the historians say nothing from which it can possibly be inferred that
on this occasion he made any retrograde movement. But again philology as
well as history is adverse to this identification, for, as has lately
been shown by M. Sylvain Lévi (_Journal Asiatique_, series viii. vol. xv.
pp. 237-239), _Sangala_, in accordance with the rules of transcription,
must be taken to represent not _Sâkala_, but _Sâmkala_. Now, just as in
Diodôros and Curtius we find Sangala mentioned in connection with a king
called Sôphytês, so in an Appendix to Pânini’s _Grammar_, called the
Gana-pâtha, _Sâmkala_ is mentioned in connection with _Saubhuta_, which,
in accordance with the rules of transcription and the Greek practice of
designating Indian rulers after their territories, is evidently the name
of the country over which Sôphytês ruled. This country, which was rich
and prosperous, as its very name implies, lay between the Hydraôtês and
the Hyphasis, probably in the district of Amritsar and towards the hills.
Arrian in his narrative of the campaign between these two rivers makes no
mention of Sôphytês, or, as he calls him, Sôpeithes, but he afterwards
refers to a king of this name whose dominions lay between the Hydaspês
and Akesinês. Strabo was aware of the discrepancy of the accounts as to
where the dominions of the Kathaians and King Sôphytês were situated.


NOTE N.—ALEXANDER’S ALTARS ON THE HYPHASIS

These altars are mentioned by Pliny, who says (vi. 21): “The Hyphasis
was the limit of the marches of Alexander, who, however, crossed it, and
dedicated altars on the further bank.” Pliny stands alone in placing
these altars on the left bank of the river. The historians all place them
on the right bank. Philostratos states that Apollonios of Tyana on his
journey into India in the second century of our aera, found the altars
still subsisting and their inscriptions still legible. Plutarch affirms
that in his days they were held in much veneration by the Praisians,
whose kings, he says, were in the habit of crossing the Ganges every year
to offer sacrifices in the Grecian manner upon them. It would, however,
be unsafe to place much credit in either of these statements. The altars
have been sought for in recent times, but not the slightest vestige of
them has been discovered. Masson and some other modern writers place
them on the Gharra (the united stream of the Vipaśâ and the Śatadru (or
Satlej), but this view, while otherwise exposed to serious objections,
is upset by the fact alone that in ancient times the two rivers united
at a point forty miles below their present junction. As Pliny (vi. 21)
gives the distance from the Hyphasis to the Hesidrus (Satlej) along the
Royal Road at 169 miles, it is evident that the altars must have been
situated at a point high above the junction of these two rivers. V. de
Saint-Martin is inclined to think that the altars may have been situated
near a chain of heights met with in ascending the Beiâs, and known
locally under the name of the _Sekandar-giri_, that is, “Alexander’s
mountain.” These heights are at no great distance from Râjagiri, a small
and obscure place, but supposed to represent Râjagriha mentioned in the
_Râmâyana_ as the capital of a line of princes called the Aśvapati (or
_Assapati_ in Prakrit) who governed the Kekaya, or, as Arrian calls
them in his _Indika_, the Kêkeoi. Lassen, followed by Saint-Martin,
identified Sôpeithes as belonging to the line of princes indicated.
The identification has been superseded by a better, but Saint-Martin’s
argument, as far as it concerns the position of the altars, is not
thereby affected. Sir E. H. Bunbury considers that the point where
Alexander erected the twelve altars cannot be regarded as determined
within even approximate limits. It appears probable, he thinks, that they
were situated at some distance above the confluence of the two rivers,
and not very far from the point where the Beas emerges from the mountain
ranges. We learn indeed, he adds, that throughout his advance Alexander
kept as near as he could to the mountains; partly from the idea that he
would thus find the great rivers more easily passable, as being nearer
their sources; partly from an exaggerated impression of the sterile and
desert character of the plains farther south (_Hist. of Anc. Geog._ p.
444).


NOTE O.—VOYAGE DOWN THE HYDASPÊS AND AKESINÊS TO THE INDUS

From the point of embarkation at Nikaia (Mong) to the confluence of the
united streams of the Panjâb with the Indus, the distance in a straight
line may be reckoned at about 300 miles. Alexander in descending to
this confluence had no sooner left the dominions of Pôros than he was
engaged in a constant succession of hostilities with the riparian tribes.
He had no intention of leaving India as a fugitive. He must depart as
a conqueror and master of all wherever he appeared. He had no wish,
therefore, even had it been possible, to drop quietly down stream to the
ocean. He must demand submission to his authority from all the tribes he
might encounter on his way, and, if this were refused, enforce it at the
sword’s point. These tribes were the bravest of the brave in India—the
very ancestors of the Rajputras, or Rajputs, whose splendid military
qualities have spread their fame throughout the world. Such of these
tribes as inhabited the fertile regions adjacent to the rivers seemed to
have settled in towns and villages and to have practised agriculture,
while those that tenanted the deserts which extended far eastward into
the interior led a half-wandering pastoral life, and subsisted as much on
the produce of rapine as on the produce of their flocks and herds. They
were all proudly jealous of their independence, and owned no authority
but that of their proper chiefs. Though they were separated into distinct
tribes, which were almost perpetually at feud, they were still able when
confronted with a common danger to combine into formidable confederacies.
In all times they have opposed to invasion a vigorous and sometimes a
desperate resistance (_v._ Saint-Martin, _Étude_, p. 113).


NOTE P.—THE MALLOI AND OXYDRAKAI

The names of these two warlike tribes are very frequently conjoined in
the narratives of the historians. In Sanskrit works they appear as the
Mâlava and the Kshudraka, and a verse of the _Mahâbhârata_ combines
them in a single appellation, _Kshudrakamâlava_. They are mentioned
in combination by Pânini also as two Bahîka people of the north-west.
Arrian (_Indika_, c. iv.) places the Oxydrakai on the Hydaspês _above_
its confluence with the Akesinês. It is doubtful, however, that this
was their real position. Bunbury inclines to think that they lay on the
east or left bank of the Satlej—the province of Bahawalpur—and that
they may very well have extended as far as the junction of the Satlej
with the Indus and the neighbourhood of Uchh. General Cunningham, he
adds, is alone in placing the Oxydracae to the north of the Malli. That
author has, however, the _Indika_ to support his view. Their name in the
classics appears in various forms, Strabo and Stephanos Byz. calling
them _Hydrakai_, Pliny _Sydracae_, and Diodôros _Syrakousai_. Strabo
says they were reported to be the descendants of Bacchos because the
vine grew in their country, and because their kings displayed great pomp
in setting out on their warlike expeditions after the Bacchic manner
(XV. i. 8). They are no doubt to be identified with the Śudras, whose
name in early times did not denote a caste, as it did afterwards, but a
tribe of aborigines, or, at all events, a tribe of non-Aryan origin. The
final _ka_ in the Greek form of their name is a common Sanskrit suffix
to ethnic names given or withheld at random. The single combat between
Dioxippos and a Macedonian bravo called Horratas took place after a great
banquet at which Alexander entertained the envoys of the Oxydrakai.

The territory of the Malloi was of great extent, comprehending a part
of the Doâb formed by the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês, and extending,
according to Arrian (_Indika_, c. iv.), to the confluence of the Akesinês
and the Indus. In the _Mahâbhârata_ they figure as a great people, being
there distinguished into the Eastern, Southern, and Western Mâlavas
(_Mahâbh._ vi. 107). They are mentioned also in the inscription of
Samudragupta (of the first half of the third century A.D.) among other
peoples of the Panjâb who were subject to the King of Madhya-desha
(_v._ V. de Saint-Martin, _Étude_, pp. 116-120). “These two races,”
says Thirlwall (_History of Greece_, vii. 40), “were composed of widely
different elements; for the name of one appears to have been derived
from that of the Sudra caste; and it is certain that the Brahmins were
predominant in the other. We can easily understand why they did not
intermarry and were seldom at peace with each other.” The feud, however,
may have been one of race rather than of caste, though no doubt the
distinctions of caste originated in difference of race.


NOTE Q.—THE CAPITAL OF THE MALLOI

Diodôros and Curtius assign this city to the Oxydrakai, but erroneously.
General Cunningham identifies it with Multân and takes it to be also the
capital of the Malloi “to which many men from other cities had fled for
safety.” Arrian seems, however, to indicate that the two places were
distinct. V. de Saint-Martin inclines to identify the Mallian capital
with Harrâpa (the Harapa which Cunningham takes to be the city captured
by Perdikkas). Multân is at present the capital of the province of the
same name, which comprises pretty nearly the same territories as those
occupied by the Malloi of the Greek historians. Multân is not situated on
the Râvi now, but on the Chenâb, and at a distance of more than thirty
miles _below_ the junction of that river with the Râvi. This circumstance
would be quite fatal to Cunningham’s view if the junction had not
shifted. But it has shifted, for in Alexander’s time the rivers met about
fifteen miles below Multân. “The old channel (Cunningham says) still
exists and is duly entered in the large maps of the Multân division. It
leaves the present bed at Sarai Siddhû and follows a winding course for
thirty miles to the south-south-west, when it suddenly turns to the west
for eighteen miles as far as Multân, and, after completely encircling
the fortress, continues its westerly course for five miles below Multân.
It then suddenly turns to the south-south-west for ten miles, and is
finally lost in the low-lying lands of the bed of the Chenâb. Even to
this day the Râvi clings to its ancient channel, and at all high floods
the waters of the river still find their way to Multân by the old bed,
as I myself have witnessed on two occasions. The date of the change
is unknown, but was certainly subsequent to A.D. 713.” From Arrian’s
narrative it would appear that Alexander occupied three days, one of
which was spent in rest, in advancing from the city of the Brachmans
to the city of the Malloi. The distance traversed would be thirty-four
miles, if Cunningham’s identification of the former city with Atâri
and of the latter with Multân be correct. The city where Alexander was
wounded appears from Arrian’s account to have been at some distance from
the Hydraôtês, and if so could not have been Multân.


NOTE R.—ALEXANDER IN SINDH

Arrian and the other historians of Alexander have treated very briefly
and vaguely his campaign in the valley of the Indus. Hence it is
difficult to trace the course of his operations as he descended from
the great confluence at Uchh to Patala where the Indus bifurcates to
form the Delta. The distance between these two points, if measured by
the course of the river, may be estimated at nearly four hundred miles,
yet we find, as Saint-Martin observes, that in the descent not a single
distance is indicated, nor a single peculiar feature of the country
described which might serve as a sign-post for the direction and guidance
of our inquiries. It is at the same time difficult to reconcile the
discrepancies found to exist in the accounts transmitted to us, and
altogether the search for identities must here mainly concern itself with
the names of tribes. In determining how these tribes were collocated it
is necessary to take cognisance of the changes which have taken place
in the course of the Indus since Alexander’s time. Captain M’Murdo was
the first to call attention (in 1834) to these changes, which were not
confined to the terminal course of the river, but extended more than
two hundred miles above the Delta. He proved that up to the seventh
century of our aera the main stream of the Indus, instead of following
its present channel, pursued a more direct course to the sea some sixty
or seventy miles farther east than it now flows. The old channel, which
leaves the present stream at some distance above Bhakar, passes the
ruins of Alôr, and then proceeds directly towards the south nearly
as far as Brâhmanâbâd, above which it divides into two channels, one
rejoining the present course above Haidarâbâd, while the other pursues
a south-easterly course towards the Ran of Kachh. The voyage down the
lower part of the course took place during the season of the inundation
when the plains were laid far and wide under water, and the current was
rapid and violent. As the march followed mainly the line of the river
the country would appear to the Macedonians extremely rich, fertile, and
populous, while the sterility of the regions that lay beyond the reach
of the inundations would seldom be brought under their cognisance. In
descending the river they could not fail to notice the contrast presented
by the plains on its opposite banks, those on the east exhibiting a
uniform expanse without any visible boundary, while those on the west
were hemmed in by a great mountain rampart which in running southwards
gradually approached the Indus till the roots of the hills were laved by
its waters. The inhabitants would strike them as being more swarthy in
their complexion than the men of the Panjâb, from whom they differed also
in their political predilections, as they preferred kingly government to
republican independence, and allowed the Brahman to exercise a decisive
influence over public life. The descent of the Indus by Alexander, as
Bunbury remarks, may be considered as constituting a kind of aera in the
geographical knowledge of the Greeks. It does not appear, he adds, that
it was ever repeated; and while subsequent researches added materially
to the knowledge possessed by the Greeks of the valley of the Ganges and
the more easterly provinces of India, their information concerning the
great river Indus and the regions through which it flows continued to be
derived almost exclusively from the voyage of Alexander and the accounts
transmitted by the contemporary historians.

After leaving the great confluence the first tribe Alexander reached were
the _Sogdoi_, who appear as the _Sodrai_ in Diodôros, who states that
Alexander founded among them on the banks of the river a city called
Alexandreia in which he placed 10,000 inhabitants. The Sogdoi have
been identified with the _Sohda_ Rajputs who now occupy the south-east
district of Sindh about Amarkot, but who in former times held large
possessions on the banks of the Indus to the northward of Alôr. This
place, though now only a scene of ruins, was formerly, before it was
deserted by the river, one of the largest and most flourishing cities
in all Sindh. Saint-Martin takes it to have been the Sogdian capital,
and thinks that the city which Alexander founded lay in its vicinity at
Rôri, since right opposite to this place there rose in the middle of the
river the rocky island of Bhakar, which presented every natural advantage
for the site of a great fortress. Cunningham, however, would place the
capital higher up stream, about midway between Alôr and Uchh, at a
village which appears in old maps under the name of Sirwahi, and which
may possibly represent the _Seori_ of Sindh history and the _Sodrai_ of
Diodôros. In this neighbourhood lies the most frequented ghât for the
crossing of the Indus towards the west _viâ_ Gandâva and the Bolan Pass;
and as the ghâts always determine the roads, it was probably at this
point of passage Krateros recrossed the Indus when he was despatched
with the main body of the army and the elephants to return home through
the countries in which that Pass lay. The name _Sodrai_, some think,
represents the Sanskrit _Śûdra_ which designates the servile or lowest of
the four castes. If this be so, the Sodrai may be regarded as a remnant
of the primitive stock which peopled the country before the advent of the
Aryans (_v._ Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ ii. p. 174; Saint-Martin, _Étude_, pp.
150-161; Cunningham, _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 249-256).


NOTE S.—SINDIMANA

Sambus is called Sabus by Curtius, who, without giving the name of
his capital, informs us that Alexander captured it by mining and then
marched to rejoin his fleet on the Indus. The Greek name of this capital,
_Sindimana_, has led to its identification with Sehwân, a site of very
high antiquity. The great mound which was once its citadel has been
formed chiefly of ruined buildings accumulated in the course of ages on a
scarped rock at the end of the Lakki range of hills. Its water supply is
at present entirely derived from the Indus, which not only flows under
the eastern front of the town, but also along the northern by a channel
from the great Manchur Lake, which perhaps formerly extended up even
to the city walls. The objection to this identification, that Sehwân’s
position on the Indus conflicts with the statement that Alexander had
to march from Sindomana to reach that river, is removed by the fact
that the Indus has changed its course since Alexander’s time. Wilson
derives the Greek Sindomana from what he calls a very allowable Sanskrit
compound, _Sindu-mân_, “the possessor of Sindh.” Cunningham, however,
would refer the name to _Saindava-vanam_ or _Sainduwân_, “the abode
of the Saindavas.” _v._ his _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 263-266, and
also Saint-Martin’s _Étude_, p. 166, where it is stated that the name
of Sambus is probably connected with that of the tribe called Sammah,
whose chiefs have at different epochs played a distinguished part in the
valley of the Indus. In Hindu mythology _Samba_ is the son of Krishna.
According to Plutarch, it was somewhere in the dominions of Sabbas that
Alexander had his interview with the ten Indian gymnosophists. Sehwân is
the Sewistan of the Arabs. According to Burton (writing in 1857), it is a
hot, filthy, and most unwholesome place, with a rascally population (of
6000) which includes many beggars and devotees. _v._ his _Sindh_, p. 8.
The population has since increased to upwards of 160,000.


NOTE T.—CITY OF THE BRACHMANS—HARMATELIA

This city of the Brachmans Cunningham takes to have been Brâhmana,
or Brâhmanâbâd, which was ninety miles distant by water from Marija
Dand, the point where he supposes Alexander rejoined his fleet after
the capture of Sindimana. Brâhmanâbâd was situated on the old channel
of the Indus forty-seven miles to the north-east of Haidarâbâd or
Nirankot, the Patala of ancient times. Shortly after the Mohammedan
conquest it was supplanted by Mansûra, which either occupied its site
or lay very near it, as, according to Ibn Haukal, the place was called
in the Sindh language Bâmiwân. It was destroyed by an earthquake
sometime before the beginning of the eleventh century. Its ruins were
discovered at Bambhra-ka-thûl by Mr. Bellasis, whose excavations have
shown conclusively the truth of the popular tradition which ascribed its
downfall to an earthquake. Cunningham further thinks that Brâhmanâbâd
was the _Harmatelia_ of Diodôros—the place where Ptolemy was wounded by
the poisoned arrow. Harmatelia (he says) is only a softer pronunciation
of _Brâhma-thala_ or Brahmana-sthala, just as Hermes, the phallic god
of the Greeks, is the same as Brahmâ, the original phallic god of the
Indians. He thinks that the king whom Justin (xii. 10) calls _Ambiger_
was no other than Mousikanos, whose dominions extended as far south as
the Delta, _Ambiger_ being his family name and Mousikanos his dynastic
title (_Geog._ pp. 267-269). Saint-Martin, on the other hand, recognises
Harmatelia in a place variously designated by Arab writers _Armael_,
_Armaïl_, _Armâbil_, and _Armatel_, but of which the position is unknown
(_Étude_, pp. 167, 168). In his ancient map of India Colonel Yule, who
takes the same view as Saint-Martin, identifies Harmatelia with Bela.


NOTE U.—PATALA

The situation of Patala has been a fertile theme of controversy. Arrian
seems, no doubt, to give here a clear indication of its position in
saying that it stood near where the Indus bifurcates; but as this point
has from time to time shifted, the controversy has turned mainly on the
question where this point is to be fixed. The river bifurcates at present
at Mottâri, which lies twelve miles above Haidarâbâd, and it has been
known to bifurcate a little above, and also a little below Thatha, at
Bauna also, and at Trikul. As a matter of fact, these bifurcations no
longer exist, except perhaps for a part of the year when the river is in
flood and recurs to some of its old channels. It is not then surprising
that various identifications have been proposed for Patala. It was placed
at Brâhmanâbâd by M’Murdo, Wilson, and Lassen; at Thatha by Rennell,
Vincent, Ritter, and the two brothers, James and Sir Alexander Burnes;
and at Haidarâbâd, the Nirankot of Arab writers, by Droysen, Benfey,
Burton, Saint-Martin, Cunningham, and Bunbury. The arguments in favour
of Haidarâbâd seem to be quite conclusive. They will be found stated
at length in Saint-Martin’s _Étude_ (pp. 168-191), and Cunningham’s
_Geography_ (pp. 279-287). One of the most cogent is that the dimensions
of the Delta, as given by the Greek writers, are only justified if
the apex of the Delta is taken to have been in Alexander’s time at or
near Haidarâbâd. If the apex had then been as high up as Brâhmanâbâd,
or as far down as Thatha, the size of the Delta would be as grossly
exaggerated in the one case as it would be underrated in the other. The
same conclusion is indicated in the information supplied to the late Dr.
Wilson of Bombay by the Brahmans of Sehwân, that, according to their
local legends, as recorded in their Sanskrit books, Thatha was _Déval_,
and Haidarâbâd _Néran_, and more anciently _Patolpuri_. _Patala_ was
thought at one time to have been a transcription of the Sanskrit Pâtâla,
_the nether world_, into which the sun descends at the end of his day’s
journey, and hence THE WEST; but a better etymology is the Sanskrit
_potala_, “a station for ships,” from _pôta_, “a vessel.” The name of
the Indian Delta was Patalênê. Haidarâbâd stands on a long flat-topped
hill, and Patala, if this was its site, must have occupied a commanding
position, the advantages of which, alike for strategy and commerce,
Alexander would perceive at a glance. The main stream of the Indus now
flows to the west of this position. In the second chapter of his _Indika_
Arrian repeats the statement that the Indus enters the ocean by two
mouths. Aristoboulos estimated the interval between them at 1000 stadia,
but Nearchos at 1800. The interval from the west to the east arm measures
at present 125 British miles. The sea-front of the Egyptian Delta with
which the Greeks compared that of the Indus Delta is not less than 160
miles. The Prince of Patala was called _Moeris_.


NOTE V.—ALEXANDER’S MARCH THROUGH GEDRÔSIA-PURA

“No traveller,” says Bunbury, referring to the interior of Mekran, “has
as yet traversed its length from one end to the other in the direction
followed by Alexander. So far as we can judge, he appears to have kept
along a kind of plain or valley, which is found to run nearly parallel
to the coast between the interior range of the Mushti (or Washati)
hills and the lower ragged hills that bound the immediate neighbourhood
of the sea-coast. This line of route has been followed in very recent
times by Major Ross from Kedj to Bela, and seems to form a natural
line of communication, keeping throughout about the required distance
(60 or 70 miles) from the coast [the distance required for maintaining
communication with the fleet].... This line of march so far as is yet
known does not appear to traverse any such frightful deserts _of sand_
as those described by the historians of Alexander. Nor can the site of
Pura ... be determined with accuracy. It has been generally identified
with Bunpoor (Banpûr), the most important place in Western Beloochistan,
or with Pahra, a village in the same neighbourhood; but the resemblance
of name is in this case of little value—_poor_ signifying merely a
town—while the remoteness of Bunpoor from the sea, and its position
to the north of the central chain of mountains, which Alexander must
therefore have traversed in order to reach it, present considerable
difficulties in the way of this view” (_Hist. of Anc. Geog._ pp.
519-520). Strabo, in his chapter on Ariana, narrates in graphic detail,
like Arrian, the sufferings experienced by the Macedonians in passing
through Gedrôsia. The summer, he says, was purposely chosen for leaving
India, since rains then fall in Gedrôsia, filling the rivers and wells
which fail in winter. Alexander kept at the utmost from the sea not more
than 500 stadia in order to secure the coast for his fleet. The army was
saved by eating dates and the marrow of the palm-tree, but many persons
were suffocated by eating unripe dates.

To account for the surprising length of time (60 days) occupied on this
march, which could not have exceeded 400 English miles, we must suppose
that the troops were obliged to make frequent halts at places where water
was procurable. Strabo says that it was found necessary on account of
the watering-places to make marches of two, four, and even sometimes of
six hundred stadia generally during the night. The land distances, like
the sea distances of Nearchos, seem to have been grossly exaggerated.
The march of Semiramis through this desert and that of Cyrus seem to
be mythical. Alexander’s loss in men during the march must have been
exaggerated by the historians, as he brought the bulk of his army with
him to Pura.


NOTE W.—INDIAN SAGES

According to Megasthenes the Indian sages were divided into two sects,
Brahmans and Sarmans. There was besides a third sect, described as
quarrelsome, fond of wrangling, foolish and boastful. The Brahmans, he
says, were held in higher esteem than the Sarmans because there was more
agreement in their doctrines. Among the Sarmans the Hylobioi (_living in
woods_) were held in most honour, and next to them the physicians, who
are mendicants and also ascetics, like the class above them and the class
below them, which consisted of sorcerers and fortune-tellers. Megasthenes
has related at some length the nature of the opinions and practices of
all these sects, and Duncker considers that in all essential points his
accounts agree with the native authorities, though the view taken may be
here and there too favourable, in some points too advanced, in others not
sufficiently discriminating. “It is true,” he says, “that the Brahmans
and the initiated of the Enlightened (Buddhists), the Śramanas, are
confounded in the order of the sages; this is shown by the statement that
any one could enter into this order.... In the description of the life of
the ascetics and wandering sages, the Brahmans and Bhikshus (mendicants)
are again confounded, and if the Greeks tell us that the severe sages
of the forest were too proud to go to the court at the request of the
king, the statement holds good according to the evidence of the Epos of
the Brahmanic saints, and the Sutras of the great teachers among the
Buddhists. In the examination of the doctrines of the Indian sages,
Megasthenes distinguished the Brahmans and the Buddhists, inasmuch as he
opposes the less-honoured sects to the first, and declares the Brahmans
to be the most important. From his whole account it is clear that at his
date, _i.e._ about the year 300 B.C., the Brahmans had distinctly the
upper hand. But, according to him, the Śramanas took the next place to
the Brahmans among the less-honoured sects. Among the Buddhists Śramana
is the ordinary name for their clergy” (_Hist. of Antiq._ pp. 422-424).


NOTE X.—THE INDIAN MONTH

Curtius apparently means that the Indians mark time, not by taking a
month to be the period from full moon to next full moon, but from new
moon to full moon. “The year of the Indians (says Duncker) was divided
into 12 months of 30 days; the month was divided into two halves of 15
days each, and the day into 30 hours (_muhurta_). In order to bring
this year of 360 days into harmony with the natural time, the Brahmans
established a quinquennial cycle of 1860 lunar days. Three years had
12 months of 30 lunar days; the third and fifth year of the cycle had
13 months of the same number of days. The Brahmans do not seem to have
perceived that by this arrangement the cycle contained almost four
days in excess of the astronomical time, and indeed they were not very
skilful astronomers” (_v._ his _History of Antiquity_, iv. 283, 284).
According to Weber this system of calculating time was borrowed from the
Babylonians, but Max Müller and learned Hindus hold it to be indigenous.
The Indian name for the half of a lunar month is _paksha_. The half from
new moon to full moon was called at first _pûrva_ (fore), and afterwards
_śukla_ (bright); the other half was called _apara_ (posterior), and
afterwards _krishna_ (dark). Le Clerc concludes his criticism of this
passage thus: “Matthaeus Raderus endeavours to explain Curtius as if
he designed to demonstrate that one month began and was understood to
commence a little after the change to the full moon, and the next, from
the time when she began to decrease to the next change. This, indeed,
ought to be his meaning; but it is strangely expressed, when he tells us
that the moon begins to show herself horned on the sixteenth day, when
’tis evident she does not appear so till about seven days after full
moon. But before Raderus, Thomas Lydiat had tried to solve the matter
otherways. However, Scaliger, in his _Prolegomena_ to his _Canones
Isagogicae_, p. 11, has plainly showed that Lydiat neither understood
Curtius nor Curtius the author which he copied from. The ancient Persians
counted 15 days to each of their months, and 24 of these months to the
solar year, before the introduction of Mohammedism, as John Chardin
evidently demonstrates in his _Itinerarium Persicum_, tome xi. p. 14,
quarto” (_v._ Rooke’s _Arrian_, p. 12).


NOTE Y.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS

Mr. Heitland has the following note on this passage: “Arrian (v. 16, sec.
2) tells us that Alexander was making a flanking movement (παρήλαυνεν)
with the bulk of his cavalry to attack the enemy’s left wing. He then
goes on (sec. 3): _Against the right wing he sent Koinos at the head
of his own regiment of horse and that of Dêmêtrios, and ordered him,
when the barbarians on seeing what a dense mass of cavalry was opposed
to them, should be riding along to encounter it, to hang close upon
their rear_,[411] a hard passage, it is true, but one which need not be
unintelligible to any one who bears in mind that Alexander’s movement
was a flanking one, and reads with care the description of his attack in
c. 16, sec. 4, and c. 17, sec. 1, 2. The situation is this: Alexander
was not himself in position on the right wing, but put Coenus there
with some of the cavalry, while he himself with the main body made the
flanking movement. This he did with speed, so as to take the Indian horse
in flank, before they had time to change their front and meet him. They
tried to execute this movement, but had not time; and while they were in
the confusion thus brought about, Coenus fell upon what had been their
front, but was now their disordered flank. Whether the Indian horse from
their right wing was brought over to succour that on their left or not,
does not affect the probable position of Coenus. The one difficulty in
the way of this explanation is the presence, according to Arrian, 15,
sec. 7, of the war-chariots in front of the Indian horse. But it seems
easier to suppose that Coenus was able to elude these clumsy adversaries
than that Alexander expected him to see from the Macedonian left the
right moment for his own charge, and then wheel round the rear of the
whole Indian army and execute his orders opportunely. Diodorus, xvii. 88,
says: _The Macedonian cavalry began the action, and destroyed nearly all
the chariots of the Indians_.[412] If this refers, as I think it does,
to the beginning of the main battle, the chief objection is removed”
(_Alexander in India_, pp. 122, 123). This explanation is different from
that offered by Moberly, as the reader will see by referring to my note
on Arrian, p. 104, _n._ 2.


NOTE Z.—INDIAN SERPENTS

Diodôros gives the length of the serpents at sixteen cubits, or about
twenty-four feet. Ailianos also gives this as their length. He says
(xvii. 2): “Kleitarchos states that about India a serpent sixteen cubits
long is produced, but mentions there is another kind which differs in
appearance from the rest. They are many sizes shorter, and display to the
eye a variety of colours, as if they were painted with pigments. Stripes
extend from the head to the tail, and are of various colours, some tinted
like bronze, some like silver, some like gold, while others are crimson.
The same writer notices that their bite proves very quickly fatal.”
Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 15) states on the authority of Nearchos that
there are serpents in India spotted and nimble in their movements, and
that one was caught which measured about sixteen cubits, though the
Indians alleged that the largest snakes were much larger. Nearchos adds
that Alexander summoned to his camp all the Indians most expert in the
healing art, and that these succeeded in curing snake-bites, to find a
remedy for which quite baffled the skill of all the Greek physicians.
Strabo relates (XV. i. 28), that Abisaros, as the ambassadors he sent
to Alexander reported, kept two serpents, one of 80 cubits, and the
other, according to Onesikritos, of 140 cubits in length; but Strabo no
more believed in this land-serpent than we do in the sea-serpent, for
he adds that Onesikritos might as well be called the master-fabulist
as the master-pilot of Alexander. He afterwards says that Aristoboulos
saw a snake nine cubits and a span long, and that he himself while in
Egypt had seen another of the same length which had been brought from
India. Megasthenes wrote that serpents in India grow to such a size that
they swallow deer and oxen whole. He referred no doubt to the python.
The python of the Sunderbuns about the mouths of the Ganges are known
to swallow deer whole. The Elzevir editor of Curtius cites statements
about the size of Indian serpents which leave the extravagant estimate
of Onesikritos far behind. Thus Maximus Tyrius (_Dissert._ 38) says:
“Taxiles showed Alexander various wonders, and among these was a very
large animal sacred to Bacchus, to which the Indians every day immolated
victims. This animal was a serpent (_draco_), of such a size that it
equalled five acres of land.”


NOTE A_A_.—INDIAN PEACOCKS

The peacock (_mayûra_) abounds in India especially in the forests at the
foot of the Himalayas. Ailianos has several notices of it in his work
on animals. In Book v. 21, after he has described its habits, and the
pride it takes in displaying its gorgeous plumage, he states that it was
brought into Greece from the barbarians. Being for a long time rare, it
was exhibited at the beginning of each month to the men and women of
Athens who were lovers of the beautiful. The charge for admission to
the spectacle was a considerable source of gain. The price of a pair
(cock and hen) was a thousand drachmas (or about £40 of our money).
Alexander the Macedonian, on seeing these birds in India, was so struck
with admiration of their beauty that he denounced the severest penalties
against any one who should kill them. In Book xvi. 2 he notes that the
Indian peacocks are the largest to be anywhere found. In xiii. 18 he
says: “In the palace where the greatest of all the Indian kings resides,
besides many things else which excite admiration, eclipsing the splendour
alike of Memnonian Sousa and all the boasted magnificence of Ekbatana,
there are reared in the Royal Park tame peacocks and tame pheasants....
Within that park are shady groves, grassy meads planted with trees, and
bowers woven by the craft of skilful woodmen. So genial withal is the
climate, that the trees are ever green, and never show signs of age,
nor even shed their leaves. Some are native to the soil, while others
which are brought with great care from foreign parts, contribute to
enhance the beauty of the landscape. Not the olive, however, which is
neither indigenous to India, nor thrives if brought into it. The park is
therefore frequented by wild birds as well as by the tame. They seek its
groves from choice, and there build their nests and rear their young.
Parrots too are bred there, which, flitting to and fro, keep hovering
around the king. Notwithstanding they are so numerous, no Indian will
eat them, for they regard them as sacred, while the Brahmans esteem
them above all other birds, and with good reason, since the parrot
alone with a clear utterance repeats the words of human speech.” In xi.
33 he tells a story about a peacock of extraordinary size and beauty,
which had been sent from India as a present to the King of Egypt, who
thereupon dedicated the bird to Jupiter, the guardian god of his capital
city. His work has several other passages which refer to the peacock;
but as these have no bearing upon India we do not cite them. The bird
was introduced into Greece long before Alexander’s time, for Dêmos, the
friend of Perikles, reared peacocks at Athens, which many people came
from Lacedaemon and Thessaly to see, as we learn from Athenaios, ix. 12.
It is said that peacocks were first introduced into Greece from Samos.


NOTE B_B_.—INDIAN DOGS

A breed of dogs, large, powerful, and of untamable ferocity, is still
found in the parts of India here mentioned.[413] Pliny, speaking of these
Indian dogs, ascribes their savage disposition to the cause mentioned by
Diodôros, the tiger blood that runs in their veins. The Indians, he says
(viii. 40), assert that these dogs are begotten from tigers, for which
purpose the bitches when in heat are tied up amid the woods. They think
that the whelps of the first and second brood are too ferocious, but they
rear those of the third. Ailianos (viii. 1) varies this statement by
saying that tigers are the offspring of the first and second connection,
but dogs of the third. He then proceeds thus: “Dogs that boast a tiger
paternity disdain to hunt deer or to enter into an encounter with a wild
boar, but delight to assail the lion as if to show their high pedigree.
So the Indians gave Alexander, the son of Philip, a proof of the strength
and mettle of these dogs in the manner following: They let go a deer,
but the dog never stirred; then a boar, but he still remained impassive.
Then they tried a bear, but even this failed to rouse him to action. At
last they let go a lion. Then the dog fired with rage, as if he now saw a
worthy antagonist, did not hesitate for a moment, but flew to encounter
him, gripped him fast, and tried to strangle him. Then the Indian who
provided this spectacle for the king, and who knew well the dog’s
capacity of endurance, ordered his tail to be cut off. It was accordingly
cut off, but the dog took not the least heed. The Indian ordered next
one of his legs to be cut off. This was done, but the dog held to his
grip as tenaciously as at first, just as if the dismembered limb were
not his own, but belonged to some one else. The remaining legs were then
cut off in succession, but even all this did not in the least make him
relax the vigour of his bite. Last of all, his head was severed from the
rest of his body, but even then his teeth were seen hanging on by the
part he had first gripped, while the head dangled aloft still clinging
to the lion, though the original biter no longer existed. Alexander was
very painfully impressed by what he saw, being lost in admiration of the
dog, since after giving proof of his mettle he perished in no cowardly
fashion, but preferring to die rather than to let his courage give way.
The Indian, seeing the king’s vexation, gave him four dogs like the
one that was killed. He was much gratified with the gift, and gave in
return a suitable equivalent. Joy at the possession of the four dogs soon
obliterated from the mind of Philip’s son his sorrow for the other.” The
same author writes nearly to the same effect in the nineteenth chapter of
his fourth book: “I reckon Indian dogs among wild beasts, for they are
of surpassing strength and ferocity, and are the largest of all dogs.
This dog despises other animals, but fights with the lion, withstands his
attacks, returns his roaring with baying, and gives him bite for bite.
In such an encounter the dog may be worsted, but not till he has often
severely galled and wounded the lion. The lion is, however, at times
worsted by the Indian dog and killed in the chase. If a dog once clutches
a lion, he retains his hold so pertinaciously that if one should even
cut off his leg with a knife he will not let go, however severe may be
the pain he suffers, till death supervening compels him.” Aristotle, in
his _History of Animals_ (viii. 28), refers to these Indian dogs and the
story of their tigrine descent. Even an earlier mention of them is to
be found in Xenophon (_Kyn._ c. 10). We may hence infer that their fame
had spread to Greece long before Alexander’s time. Marco Polo mentions a
province in China where the people had a large breed of dogs so fierce
and bold that two of them together would attack a lion—an animal with
which that province abounded (Yule’s ed. ii. pp. 108, 109).


NOTE C_C_.—THE GANGARIDAI

This people occupied the country about the mouths of the Ganges, and may
best be described as the inhabitants of Lower Bengal. The likeness of
their name to that of the Gandaridai, the people of Gandhâra, whose seats
were in the neighbourhood of the Indus and the Kôphên or Kâbul river,
has been the source of much confusion and error. Fortunately the notice
of them in the _Indika_ of Megasthenes has been preserved both by Pliny
and Solinus, from whom we learn that they were a branch of the great race
of the Calingae, that their capital was Parthalis (Bardwan?), and that
their king had an army of 60,000 foot, 1000 horse, and 700 elephants,
which was always ready for action (Pliny, vi. 18; Solin. 52). They are
mentioned in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ as a people who dwelt about the mouth
of the Ganges and whose capital was Gangê. The name of the _Gangaridai_
has nothing corresponding with it in Sanskrit, nor can it be, as Lassen
supposed, a designation first invented by the Greeks, for Phegelas used
it in describing to Alexander the races that occupied the regions beyond
the Hyphasis. According to Saint-Martin, their name is preserved in
that of the Gonghrîs of S. Bihâr, with whom were connected the Gangayîs
of North-Western and the Gangrâr of Eastern Bengal. These designations
he takes to be but variations of the name which was originally common
to them all. Wilford, in his article on the chronology of the Hindus
(_Asiat. Res._ v. p. 269), says that “the greatest part of Bengal was
known in Sanskrit under the name of Gancaradesa, or ‘country of Gancara,’
from which the Greeks made Gangari-das.” But this view must be rejected
on the same ground as Lassen’s. The Gangaridai are mentioned by Virgil,
_Georg._ iii. l. 27. As their king, at the time when Megasthenes recorded
the strength of the army which he maintained, was subject to Magadha, we
may infer that Sandrokottos treated the various potentates who submitted
to his arms as Alexander treated Taxilês and Pôros, permitting them to
retain as his vassals the power and dignity which they had previously
enjoyed.


NOTE D_D_.—THE PRASIOI

The Sanskrit word _Prâchyâs_ (plur. of _Prachya_, “eastern”) denoted
the inhabitants of the east country, that is, the country which lay to
the east of the river Sarasvatî, now the Sursooty, which flows in a
south-western direction from the mountains bounding the north-east part
of the province of Delhi till it loses itself in the sands of the great
desert. The Magadhas, it would seem, had, before Alexander’s advent
to India, extended their power as far as this river, and hence were
called Prâchyâs by the people who lived to the west of it. They are
called by Strabo, Arrian, and Pliny, _Prasioi_, _Prasii_; by Plutarch,
_Praisioi_; by Nikolaös Damask., _Praiisioi_; by Diodôros, _Brêsioi_; by
Curtius, _Pharrasii_; by Justin, _Praesides_. Ailianos in general writes
_Praisioi_ like Plutarch, but in one passage where he quotes Megasthenes,
he transcribes the name with perfect accuracy in the adjective form as
_Praxiakê_. General Cunningham does not agree in referring the name to
_Prâchya_, as all the other modern writers do, but takes _Prasii_ to be
only the Greek form of _Palâsiya_ or _Parâsiya_, a “man of _Palâsa_ or
_Parâsa_,” a name of _Magadha_ of which Palibothra was the capital. This
derivation, he says, is supported by the spelling of the name given by
Curtius, who calls the people _Pharrasii_, an almost exact transcript
of Parâsiya (see his _Ancient Geog. of India_, p. 454). His view, we
think, is hardly destined to supplant the other. Ptolemy describes in
his _Geography_ a small kingdom with seven cities which he locates in
the regions of the upper Ganges, and calls Prasiakê. Kanoge is one of
these cities, but Palibothra is not in the number, appearing elsewhere
as the capital of the Mandalai. One is at a loss to understand what
considerations could have led Ptolemy to push the Prasians so far from
their proper seats and transfer their capital to another people.


NOTE E_E_.—THE SIBI

The Sanskrit word _Śivi_ denotes a country, the inhabitants of which,
_Sivayas_, may be the Sibi of Curtius and Diodôros. The Sibi inhabited a
district between the Hydaspês and the Indus, and their capital stood at
a distance of about thirty miles from the former river, and, as appears
from Diodôros, above its confluence with the Akesinês. As they were clad
with the skins of wild beasts and were armed with clubs, they reminded
the Greeks of Herakles, who was similarly dressed and armed, and thence
arose the legend that the Sibi were the descendants of the followers of
that wandering hero. The truth, however, is that the Sibi represent one
of the chief aboriginal tribes of the regions of the Indus. The Sanskrit
poems and the Pauranik traditions give this great tribe its real name
_Śibi_, and represent it as one of the important branches of the race
which originally peopled all the north-western region. According to
Moorcroft, the inhabitants of the district of Bimber are called Chibs,
while Baber in his _Memoirs_ had mentioned a people so named as belonging
to the same parts. Arrian does not expressly mention Alexander’s
expedition against the Sibi in his _History_, but in his _Indika_ (c. 5)
he thus refers to them: “So also when the Greeks came among the _Sibai_,
an Indian tribe, and observed that they wore skins, they declared that
the _Sibai_ were descended from those who belonged to the expedition of
Herakles, and had been left behind; for besides being dressed in skins,
the _Sibai_ carry a cudgel and brand on their oxen the representation
of a club.” In the ordinary texts of Curtius the _Sibi_ appears as
the _Sobii_, and in Justin as the _Silei_. They are mentioned in the
_History_ of Orosius (iii. 19), along with a people called Gessonae, who
are evidently the people called by Diodôros the _Agalassi_.


NOTE F_F_.—THE AGALASSIANS

Curtius does not give the name of the people whom Alexander proceeded
to attack after he had received the submission of the Sibi, but it is
supplied by Diodôros, who calls them Agalasseis. Saint-Martin says
(_Étude_, p. 115) that they adjoined the eastern side of the Sibi and
occupied the country below the junction of the Hydaspês and Akesinês.
Though _Agalassi_ is the most commonly received reading of their name,
yet there are many variant readings of it, especially in the manuscripts
and editions of Justin, where we find _Agesinae_, _Hiacensanae_,
_Argesinae_, _Agini_, _Acensoni_, and _Gessonae_. The last form occurs
also in the _History_ of Orosius (iii. 19), where the people it
designates are mentioned along with the Sibi. The original name to which
these may be referred is probably _Arjunâyana_. This name occurs between
that of the Mâlava (Malloi) and that of the Yaudheyas on the Pillar at
Allahabad, whereon Samudragupta, who reigned towards the end of the 4th
century A.D., inscribed the names of the countries and peoples included
in his dominions. The Arjunâyana are mentioned also by the Scholiast of
Pânini, and in the geographical list which Wilford compiled from the
_Varâha Sanhita_. Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 4) calls the people situated
at the junction of the Hydaspês and Akesinês the _Arispai_ (_Ibid._ p.
116, and footnotes).


NOTE G_G_.—TIDES IN INDIAN RIVERS

Several Indian rivers present the tidal phenomenon called the _bore_, the
most celebrated being those of the Brahmaputra, the Ganges, the Nerbada,
and the Indus. The bore is sometimes many feet in height, and the noise
it makes in contending against the descending stream frightful. The bore
which rushes up the Hughli has a speed of about seventeen or eighteen
miles per hour. A vivid description of the tide or bore of the Nerbada
has been given by the author of the _Periplûs_. “India,” he says (c. 45),
“has everywhere an abundance of rivers, and her seas ebb and flow with
tides of extraordinary strength, which increase both at new and full
moon, and for three days after each, but fall off intermediately. About
Barygaza (Bharoch) they are more violent than elsewhere; so that all of a
sudden you see the depths laid bare and portions of the land turned into
sea, and the sea where ships were sailing but just before turned without
warning into dry land. The rivers, again, on the access of flood-tide
rushing into their channels with the whole body of the sea, are driven
upwards against their natural course for a great many miles with a force
that is irresistible.” In c. 46, after explaining how dangerous these
tides are to ships navigating the Nerbada, he thus proceeds: “But at new
moons, especially when they occur in conjunction with a night tide, the
flood sets in with such extraordinary violence that on its beginning to
advance, even though the sea be calm, its roar is heard by those living
near the river’s mouth, sounding like the tumult of battle heard in the
distance, and soon after the sea with its hissing waves bursts over the
bare shoals.”


NOTE H_H_.—INDIAN PHILOSOPHERS

Arrian has given the account here promised of the Indian sages, whom he
calls _Sophists_, in the eleventh chapter of his _Indika_. They formed
the highest and most honoured of the seven castes into which, he says,
Indian society was divided. His account is, however, very meagre compared
with that which Strabo, quoting from the same authority, Megasthenes, has
given in the fifteenth book of his _Geography_. We may subjoin a notice
of the more important points. The philosophers were of two kinds, the
Brachmânes and the Garmanes (Śramanas, i. e. _Buddhist ascetics_). The
Brachmans were held in greater repute, as they agreed more exactly in
their opinions. They lived in a grove outside the city, lay upon pallets
of straw and on skins, abstained from animal food and sexual intercourse.
After living thirty-seven years in this manner each individual retired
to his own possessions, led a life of greater freedom, and married as
many wives as he pleased. They discoursed much upon death, which they
held to be for philosophers a birth into a real and happy life. They
maintained that nothing which happens to a man is bad or good, opinions
being merely dreams. On many points their notions coincided with those
of the Greeks. They said, for instance, that the world was created and
liable to destruction, that it was of a spheroidal figure, and that
its Creator governed it and was diffused through all its parts. They
invented fables also, after the manner of Plato, on the immortality of
the soul, punishments in Hades, and similar topics. Of the Śramanas the
most honourable were the Hylobioi. These, as their name imports, lived in
woods, where they subsisted on leaves and wild fruits. They were clothed
with garments made of the bark of trees, and abstained from commerce
with women and from wine. The kings held communication with them by
messengers, and through them worshipped the divinity. Next in honour to
the Hylobioi were the physicians, who cured diseases by diet rather than
by medicinal remedies, which were chiefly unguents and cataplasms. See
XV. i. 58-60.

Arrian, in the opening chapters of the seventh book of his _Anabasis_,
gives an account of Alexander’s dealings with the Gymnosophists of Taxila
which agrees in substance with that given by Strabo (XV. i. 61-65) based
on the authority both of Aristoboulos and Onesikritos, the latter of whom
was sent by Alexander to converse with the gymnosophists. For the details
see Biog. Appendix, _s.v._ Kalânos.


NOTE I_I_.—SUTTEE (Diod. Note 12).

But Diodôros, in a subsequent part of his history (xix. 33), relates that
the law had been enacted because of the great prevalence of the practice
of wives poisoning their husbands. In c. 34 he states that the two widows
of Kêteus, an Indian general who fell in the great battle in Gabienê
between Eumenes and Antigonos, contended for the honour of being burned
on the funeral pile of their husband, and that the younger was selected
for the distinction, because the elder, being at the time with child,
was precluded by law from immolating herself. Strabo says (XV. i. 62)
that Aristoboulos and other writers make mention of Indian wives burning
themselves voluntarily with their husbands.

From this it would appear that this cruel practice, known as _Suttee_
(Sansk. _satî_, “a devoted wife”), which was suppressed by the humanity
of the Indian Government in the days of Lord Bentinck, was one of
high antiquity, but Mr. R. C. Dutt, in his able and learned work on
_Civilisation in Ancient India_, assigns a much later date to its origin.
He says (vol. iii. 199) that the barbarous rite was introduced centuries
after Manu, whose _Institutes_, he thinks, were compiled within a century
or two before or after the Christian aera. In a subsequent passage (p.
332) he states that Suttee was originally a Scythian custom, and was
probably introduced into India by the Scythian invaders who poured into
India in the Buddhist age (from 242 B.C. to 500 A.D.), and formed ruling
Hindu races later on. There can be no doubt that Suttee was a Scythian
practice. Their kings were entombed with sacrifices both of beasts and of
human beings of both sexes, as we see from what Herodôtos relates in the
seventy-first chapter of his fourth book. Still the statement of Diodôros
shows that several centuries before the Skythian invasions of India took
place Suttee was an established institution among a race of the purest
Aryan descent such as were the Kathaians—a people whose name shows
they were Kshatriyas. The Hindus themselves believe that the custom
was of the very highest antiquity, and that a text of the _Rig-veda_
sanctioned its observance. It has been discovered, however, that the text
in question has been falsified and mistranslated, and that in point of
fact no mention is found of the custom in Sanskrit literature till the
Pauranik period, the beginning of which Mr. Dutt assigns to the sixth
century of our aera.


NOTE K_K_.—ANCIENT INDIAN COINS

[Illustration: FIG. 16.—ANTIMACHOS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 17.—AGATHOKLÈS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 18.—HELIOKLÊS.]

The following remarks on the ancient coinage of India are extracted from
two papers contributed by Mr. W. Theobald to the _Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal_, Nos. III. and IV. of 1890, under the title _Notes on
some of the Symbols found on the Punch-marked Coins of Hindustan_:—“The
punch-marked coins,” he says, “though presenting neither kings’ names,
dates, nor inscriptions of any sort, are nevertheless very interesting
not only from their being the earliest money coined in India, and of a
purely indigenous character, but from their being stamped with a number
of symbols, some of which we can with the utmost confidence declare to
have originated in distant lands and in the remotest antiquity. The
punch used to produce these coins differed from the ordinary dies which
subsequently came into use in that they covered only one of the many
symbols usually seen on their pieces. Some of these coins were round and
others of a rectangular form. The great bulk of these coins is silver
(but some copper, and others gold). Some coins are formed of a copper
blank thickly covered with silver before receiving the impression of the
punches, and this contemporary sophistication of the currency is found to
occur subsequently in various Indian coinages, in the Graeco-Bactrian of
the Panjâb, the Hindu kings of Cabul, etc.” Mr. Theobald thinks we may
regard these pieces as a portion of those very coins (or identical in all
respects) which the Brahman Chânakya, the adviser of Chandragupta, with
the view of raising resources, converted, by recoining each _Kahapana_
into eight, and amassed eighty kotis of _Kahapanas_ (or Kârshâpanas).
Mr. Theobald holds that the square coins, both silver and copper, struck
by the Greeks for their Indian possessions belong to no Greek national
type whatever, but are obviously a novelty adopted in imitation of an
indigenous currency already firmly established in the country. He adduces
by way of proof the testimony of Curtius, where he states that Taxiles
offered Alexander eighty talents of coined silver (_signati argenti_).
What other, he asks, except these punch-marked coins could these pieces
of coined silver have been? The name, he then adds, by which these coins
are spoken of in the Buddhist _Sutras_ about 200 B.C. was “purana” =
_old_, whence General Cunningham argues that the word _old_, as applied
to the indigenous _Karsha_, was used to distinguish it from the new and
more recent issues of the Greeks. Mr. Vincent A. Smith writes to the
same effect. He considers the artistic coins to be of Greek origin, but
holds that the idea of coining money, and the simple mechanical processes
for rude coins, were not borrowed from the Greeks. It is, he thinks,
impossible to prove that any given piece is older than Alexander, though
some primitive coins may be older. The oldest Indian coins to which a
date can be assigned are, in his opinion, those issued by Sôphytes, the
contemporary of Alexander. The general adoption of Greek, or Graeko-Roman
types of coinage, he assigns to the first century as a result of the
Indo-Skythian invasions. Roman coins, it is well known, are found in
all parts of India. In Indian writings the Roman _dênârius_ appears in
the form _dînâra_, and the Greek _drachmê_ (which was about equivalent
in value to the _denarius_) in the form _dramma_. The subject of the
Indo-Greek coinage is discussed in A. v. Sallet’s _Die Nachfolger
Alexanders_.

[Illustration: FIG. 19.—APOLLODOTOS.]


NOTE L_L_.—AN AŚÔKA INSCRIPTION

    _Transliteration._— ...... yu Ichha shavabhu .... shayama
    shamachaliyaṁ madava ti. Iyaṁ vu mu ...

    Devânaṁ Piyeshâ ye dhaṁmavijaye she cha punâ ladhe Devânaṁ Pi
    ... cha

    shaveshu cha ateshu a shashu pi yojanashateshu ata Atiyoge nâma
    Yona lâjâ palaṁ châ tenâ

    Aṁtiyogenâ chatâli 4 lajâne Tulamaye nâma Aṁtekine nâma Makâ nâ
    ma Alikyashudale nâma, nichaṁ Choḍa-Paṁḍiyâ avam Taṁbapaṁniyâ
    hevameva hevamevâ

    Hidâlâjâ. Viśa-Vaji-Yona-Kaṁbijeshu Nâbhake Nabhapaṁtishu
    Boja-Pitinikyeshu

    Adha-Puladeshu shavatâ Devânaṁ Piyashâ dhaṁṁamânushathi
    anuvataṁti.

    [Illustration: FIG. 20.—AŚÔKA INSCRIPTION.]

    _Translation._—The following is considered of the highest
    importance by the God-beloved, namely Conquest by law; this
    Conquest, however, is made by the God-beloved as well here (_in
    his own kingdom_) as among all his neighbours, even as far as
    six hundred yojanas (_leagues_), where the King of the Yonas
    (_Greeks_), Antiyoka by name, dwells; and beyond this Antiyoka
    where the four kings, Turamaya by name, Aṁtikina by name,
    Maka by name, Alikasudara by name (dwell farther away) in the
    south, where the Chodas and Paindas (_Pandyas_) (dwell), as
    far as Tambapanini (_Ceylon_) (where) the Hida king (dwells).
    Among the Viśas, the Vajris (_Vrijis_), the Yonas (_Greeks_),
    the Kamboyas (_Kâbulîs_), in Nâbhaka of the Nâbhitis, among
    the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Puladas
    (_Pulindas_), the teaching of the law of the God-beloved is
    universally followed.

This remarkable edict is found inscribed at four different places:
Shahbâzgarhi in Yusufzai, Mânsahra in Hazâra of the Panjâb, Kâlsi above
Dehra Dûn, and Girnâr in Kathiawâr. In the first two places the character
employed is the Karoshtri, that is, the Baktrian Pali, and in the other
two the Indian Pali. It is the Kâlsi inscription which is copied in the
illustration. By the God-beloved (Piyeshâ or Piyadasi) is meant Aśôka
himself. The Grecian kings named in the inscription have already been
identified (p. 52), with the exception of Alikyashudale, who is taken
to be Alexander, King of Epeiros. _v._ Senart’s _Les Inscriptions de
Piyadasi_ and _Epigraphia Indica_, vol. ii.




BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX


ABISARES is called by Arrian the King of the Indian Mountaineers, and
may perhaps be not improperly described as the King of Kâśmîr. His name
is derived from that of his kingdom, _Abhisâra_, which designated the
mountainous country to the east of the Indus now known as _Hazâra_, a
name in which some traces of the old seem to survive. After the fall
of Mazaga, he sent troops across the Indus to aid the inhabitants in
resisting Alexander. He sent embassies, however, to the conqueror both
before and after the defeat of Pôros, whom he inclined to succour.
Alexander allowed him to retain his kingdom, and when he died appointed
his son to succeed him, as we learn from Curtius X. i.

AGGRAMMES.—_See_ Xandrames.

ALKETAS was the brother of Perdikkas, who, after Alexander’s death,
assumed the regency of the empire. He was the son of Orontes, a
Macedonian of the province of Orestis. He is first mentioned by Arrian
as commander of one of the brigades which Alexander, towards the close
of his Baktrian campaigns, despatched under Krateros into the country of
the Paratakenians, who still held out against him. He is next mentioned
in connection with the siege of Mazaga and Ora. When Alexander crossed
the Hydaspês to encounter Pôros, Alketas remained behind in the camp
with Krateros. After Alexander’s death Alketas supported the cause of
his brother, and by his orders put to death Kynanê, the half-sister of
Alexander—a cruel act which his own troops resented. When Perdikkas was
murdered in Egypt (321 B.C.) Alketas was at the time with Eumenes engaged
against Krateros. He afterwards, however, joined his forces to those of
Attalos; but being defeated in Pisidia, he slew himself to avoid falling
into the hands of Antigonos.

AMBIGER, supposed to be a corrupt reading for Ambi-regis.—_See_ under
Sambus.

AMYNTAS, the son of Nikolaös, was appointed satrap of Baktria in
succession to Artabazos, who resigned the office on the ground of his
advanced age. When Alexander left Baktria to invade India he left Amyntas
in the province with a force of 10,000 foot and 3500 horse.

ANDROKOTTOS.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

ANDROSTHENES, a native of Thasos, sailed with Nearchos, and was
afterwards sent by Alexander to explore the Persian Gulf. He wrote an
account of this voyage, and a work describing a coasting voyage to India.

ANTIGENES, an officer who served both under Philip and Alexander. In
340 B.C. he lost an eye at the siege of Perinthos. He was present in
the battle with Pôros, and the divisions of the phalanx which he led on
this occasion formed afterwards part of the large body of troops which
Krateros led through the country of the Arachotians and Zarangians into
Karmania. After the army reached Sousa he was for some time deprived of
his command for having advanced some fraudulent claim. After Alexander’s
death he obtained the satrapy of Sousiana. In the wars between the
generals he sided with Eumenes, whom he aided with the Argyraspids under
his command. When Eumenes was defeated in 316 B.C. Antigenes fell into
the hands of his enemy, Antigonos, who ordered him to be burned to death.

ANTIGONOS, called the One-eyed, was a Macedonian of Elimiôtis, and one
of the generals of Alexander, but did not accompany him into India, as
he had been appointed satrap of Phrygia. In the partition of the empire
he received Phrygia, Lykia, and Pamphylia, and eventually made himself
master of the whole of Asia Minor. He was slain in the battle of Ipsos
301 B.C. He was the father of Dêmêtrios Poliorkêtês, who founded a line
of Macedonian kings.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.—ANTIGONOS GONATAS.]

ANTIGONOS GONATAS was one of the kings to whom Aśôka sent Buddhist
missionaries. He was the son of Dêmêtrios Poliorkêtês, whom he
succeeded as king of Macedonia in the year 283 B.C. His reign extended
to forty-four years. His brother Antigonos Dôsôn reigned afterwards
over Macedonia for nine years, from 229 to 220 B.C., in succession to
Dêmêtrios II. the son of Gonatas.

[Illustration: FIG. 22.—ANTIGONOS DÔSÔN.]

ANTIOCHOS II., surnamed Theos, succeeded to the throne of Syria on the
death of his father Antiochos I., who was the son of the famous Seleukos
Nikator. During many years of his reign he was engaged in intermittent
hostilities with Ptolemy Philadelphos the king of Egypt, who wrested
from him Phoenicia and Hollow Syria. His power was further weakened
by the revolt of Arsakês, who established the Parthian empire (in 250
B.C.), and by the subsequent revolt of Theodotos, who made Baktria an
independent kingdom. He was one of the kings of the West to whom Buddhist
missionaries were sent by the Indian king Aśôka. His wife Laodikê caused
him to be murdered in B.C. 246.

[Illustration: FIG. 23.—ANTIOCHOS II.]

ANTIPATER.—This officer, who had great experience in war and civil
affairs under Philip, was left regent of Macedonia when Alexander set out
on his Asiatic expedition. Olympias, jealous of his power, was constantly
engaged in intrigues against him, while she annoyed her son by filling
her letters to him with complaints against his deputy. After the murder
of Perdikkas in Egypt, Antipater succeeded him in the regency of the
empire, and this he held till his death in 320 B.C.

APHRIKES, called Eryx by Curtius, was the same whom Arrian designates the
_brother of Assakênos_, the king of Mazaga. He was put to death by his
own followers.

APOLLONIOS, a native of Tyana in Kappadokia, was born in the year 4
B.C. He adopted the Pythagorean system of philosophy, and submitted
himself to its ascetic discipline. He was credited with the possession of
supernatural powers, and parallels have been drawn between his character
and supposed miracles and those of Christ. He travelled in the East,
and is said to have visited Taxila, the capital of Phraortes, an Indian
prince, where he met Iarchas, the chief of the Brahmans, and disputed
with Indian gymnosophists. About a hundred years after his death an
account of his life was written by Philostratos, which, notwithstanding
that much of it is untrustworthy, is of great value for the investigation
of Indian antiquity.

APOLLOPHANES was appointed satrap of the Oritians, but was deposed not
long afterwards by Alexander for misgovernment.

ARIOBARZANES was the satrap of Persis. After the defeat of the Persians
near Arbêla, he fled to secure the pass called the Persian Gates, which
lay on the route to Persepolis. Alexander having gained the heights above
his camp, the Persians took to flight, and Ariobarzanes made his escape
with a few horsemen.

ARISTOBOULOS was a native of Kassandreia, a town on the isthmus which
connects the peninsula of Pallênê with the mainland. He accompanied
Alexander in his Asiatic expedition, and wrote a history of his wars,
which was one of the principal sources used by Arrian in the composition
of his _Anabasis_, and by Plutarch in his _Life of Alexander_. Arrian, in
the preface to his great work, thus characterises the two authors whom
he mainly followed: “Different authors have differed in their accounts
of Alexander’s life.... But I consider the narratives of Ptolemy and
Aristoboulos to be more worthy of credit than the rest; Aristoboulos,
because he attended Alexander in his expedition; and Ptolemy, not
only for that reason, but also because he was afterwards himself a
king, and for one in his position to have falsified facts would have
been more disgraceful than for a man of humbler rank. Both of them,
moreover, compiled their histories after Alexander was dead, when they
were neither compelled, nor tempted by hope of reward, to misrepresent
facts, and on this account they are the more worthy of credit.” Lucian,
nevertheless, accuses Aristoboulos of having invented marvellous stories
of Alexander’s prowess in battle; but it is thought that in the anecdote
which he relates in this connection he has used by mistake the name of
Aristoboulos for that of Onesikritos. _See_ Lucian’s _How History should
be Written_, c. 12. It is said that Aristoboulos began the composition of
his history when he was 84 years old, and that he lived to be 90.

ARISTONOUS was, like Alexander, a native of Pella, and was one of the
seven or eight chief officers who formed his body-guard, and had at all
times access to his presence. According to Curtius he was one of the men
who helped to save Alexander’s life when he was assailed and wounded by
the Mallians in their chief stronghold. On the death of Alexander he
advocated the claims of Perdikkas to the supremacy. After the fall of
Olympias, to whose cause he had attached himself, he was put to death by
order of her antagonist, Kassander, in the year 316 B.C.

ARISTOTLE was born in 384 B.C. at Stageira, a seaport town near the
isthmus which connects the peninsula terminating in Mount Athos with the
mainland of Macedonia. When he was studying philosophy in Athens under
Plato he received a letter from King Philip announcing the birth of his
son Alexander. This letter has been preserved by Aulus Gellius in his
_Noctes Atticae_ (ix. 3):—“Philip to Aristotle greeting: know that a son
has been born to me. I thank the gods, not so much for his birth, as that
it has been his fortune to be born when you are in the prime of life; for
I hope that being instructed and educated by you, he will prove himself
worthy both of us and of the succession to so great a state.” Thirteen
years afterwards Philip summoned the great philosopher to his court, and
entrusted him with the education of his son, which was conducted in quiet
seclusion at Stageira, at a distance from Pella, the centre of political
activity and court intrigue. Here Alexander remained for four years, at
the end of which he was called to govern the kingdom during his father’s
temporary absence on an expedition against Byzantium. Along with him
were educated other noble youths, Kassander, son of Antipater; Marsyas
of Pella; Kallisthenes, who was related to Aristotle; Theophrastos, and
probably also Nearchos, Ptolemy, and Harpalos. The course of instruction
embraced poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, and, no doubt, also politics,
though one of the leading aims of Alexander in after life, that of
uniting all the nations under his sway into one kingdom without due
regard to their individual peculiarities, was opposed to the views of
his master. Alexander regarded Aristotle with sentiments of the deepest
respect and affection, and rewarded him for his instructions with a
munificence which has never been surpassed. Pliny mentions how liberally
he supported the philosopher in his researches into natural science,
especially in the department of zoology, ordering his vicegerents
everywhere to supply him with specimens of all kinds of animals.
Unhappily the cordiality between them was interrupted when Kallisthenes
began to express disapproval of the change in Alexander’s conduct and
policy. Aristotle died at the age of 63, about a year after the death of
his pupil.

ARSAKÊS was the ruler of a small mountain kingdom which adjoined that of
his brother Abisares, King of Kâśmîr.

ARTABAZOS was a Persian satrap, who for some years maintained a war of
rebellion against Artaxerxes III. In the reign of Darius he distinguished
himself by his fidelity to his sovereign. He took part in the battle of
Gaugamela, and afterwards accompanied Darius in his flight. Alexander,
who approved of his fidelity to his master, rewarded him with the satrapy
of Baktria. Ptolemy married one of his daughters and Eumenes another. He
resigned his satrapy on account of his great age, and was succeeded by
Kleitos.

ARTEMIDOROS was a Greek geographer who lived about 100 B.C. His work on
geography was abridged by Markianos. Some fragments of the work, which
was of high value, and of the abridgment, have been preserved by Strabo
and other writers.

ASKLÊPIOS (AESCULAPIUS) was the god of the medical art. His descendants
were called Asklepiadai, and had their principal seats at Kôs and Knidos.
The Asklepiads were not only a fraternity of physicians, but an order of
priests, who combined religion with the practice of their art.

AŚÔKA was the son of Vindusâra and grandson of Chandragupta, called
Sandrokottos by the Greeks. He ascended the throne of Magadha in 270
B.C. Having been converted to Buddhism, he established that faith as
the state religion of his vast empire, which comprised the greater part
of India. He was zealous in promoting the spread of his creed, and even
sent missionaries to expound its doctrines to the sovereigns of the
West, Antiochos of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonos of Macedonia,
Magas of Kyrênê and Alexander of Epiros. His religious zeal, piety, and
benevolence inspire all the many edicts he promulgated, which are still
to be read cut on rocks, caves, and pillars. The date of his death is
uncertain, but is referred to the year 222 B.C. His inscriptions are
invaluable for the aid they contribute towards the solution of some of
the most important and difficult problems with which the investigators
of Indian antiquity have to deal. They throw light on many points of
historical, chronological, and linguistic inquiry, as well as on others
having reference to the social, political, and religious condition of the
Indian people in the days when Buddhism first rose to the ascendant. An
account of these inscriptions will be found in Lassen’s _Alt. Ind._ ii.
pp. 215-223.

ASSAGETES was, Lassen thinks, an Assakênian chief. His name probably
transliterates _Aśvajit_; according to the same authority the word would
mean “conquered by the horse.”

ASSAKANOS, the King of Mazaga, the capital of the Assakênians. According
to Arrian he was slain during the siege of that stronghold by Alexander,
but Curtius leads us to believe that he had died before the conqueror’s
advent.

ASTES, the chief of Peukelaôtis, submitted to Alexander when he entered
India, but afterwards revolted and was slain by the troops under
Hêphaistiôn.

ATHÊNAIOS was the author of the _Deipnosophists_, _i.e._ the _Banquet
of the Learned_, or, perhaps, the _Contrivers of Feasts_. This work
is described by a writer in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_ as a vast
collection of anecdotes, extracts from the writings of poets, historians,
dramatists, philosophers, orators, and physicians, of facts in natural
history, criticisms and discussions on almost every conceivable subject,
especially on gastronomy. It contains numerous references to Alexander
and the events of his time. Athênaios was a native of Naukratis, in Lower
Egypt. He wrote in the earlier part of the third century of our aera.

ATHENODÔROS was the leader of the sedition of the Greek colonists settled
in Baktria who were anxious to return to their native country.

ATTALOS.—Three persons of this name are mentioned in this work:

1. _Attalos_, one of the generals of King Philip, and uncle of Kleopatra,
whom that king married in 337 B.C. At the nuptial festivities, Attalos
requested the guests to pray to the gods that a legitimate heir to the
throne might be the fruit of the marriage. This naturally gave great
offence to Alexander and his mother, Olympias, who both in consequence
withdrew from the kingdom. Attalos was in Asia at the time of Philip’s
death, and was instigated by Demosthenes to rebel against his successor.
Alexander then caused him to be assassinated. It will be seen from what
has been stated that the royal house of Macedonia practised polygamy.

2. _Attalos_, who commanded the Agrianians in the battles of Issos and
Gaugamela.

3. _Attalos_, the son of Andromenes of Stymphalia, a district in
Macedonia, or on its borders, was one of Alexander’s chief officers. He
was accused, along with his brothers, of complicity with Philôtas in his
alleged conspiracy, but was honourably acquitted. In 328 B.C. he was
left with other officers to hold Baktria in subjection, while Alexander
himself marched against the Sogdians. In the campaign of 327 B.C. against
the Assakênians and other tribes north of the Kabul River, Attalos served
in the division of the army which Alexander commanded in person. He
took part in the great battle in which the Assakênians were defeated,
and in the siege of Ora. He fought also in the battle against Pôros.
His division formed part of the troops which Krateros led by the route
of the Bolan Pass into Karmania. After Alexander’s death he supported
Perdikkas, whose sister he had married. After the murder of Perdikkas he
joined Alketas, his brother-in-law, but their united forces were defeated
by Antigonos in Pisidia. Alketas was seized and imprisoned. His ultimate
fate is unknown.

BAITÔN, one of the scientific men in Alexander’s army, employed, like
Diognêtos, in measuring the distances traversed in its marches, whence
he was called Alexander’s _bêmatistês_. He left a professional work,
which, as we learn from Athênaios (x. p. 442) was entitled _Stages of
Alexander’s Marches_.

BALAKROS.—There were three officers of this name in Alexander’s army. 1.
The son of Nikanor, who was a Somatophylax, and was appointed satrap of
Kilikia after the battle of Issos. He was slain in Pisidia in Alexander’s
lifetime. 2. The son of Amyntas was commander of the allies in succession
to Antigonos, and commander, along with Peukestas, of the army which
Alexander left in Egypt. 3. A commander of the javelin men who took part
in the great battle with the Aspasians.

BARSINÊ, called also Stateira, was the elder daughter of Darius, and
became the wife of Alexander at Sousa, 324 B.C. Within a year of
Alexander’s death she was treacherously murdered by Roxana.

BARZAËNTES, satrap of the Arachosians and Drangians, was one of the
murderers of Darius. To escape Alexander he fled to India, but was given
up by the inhabitants to Alexander, who ordered his death.

BÊSSOS, the satrap of Baktria, commanded the left wing of the Persian
army at Arbêla, and was thus directly opposed to Alexander himself in
that battle. After the battle he conspired against his unfortunate
master, who was also his kinsman, and caused him to be assassinated
lest he should fall into Alexander’s hands—a result which would have
frustrated his design of mounting the vacant throne. He fled across the
Oxus, but was betrayed and delivered up to Alexander, who caused him to
be tried before a council at Zariaspa, and after suffering mutilation to
be executed.

CHANDRAGUPTA.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

CHARÊS, or Cares, a native of Mytilênê in Lesbos, was an officer with
Alexander who discharged the functions of court usher. He wrote a book
(now lost) of anecdotes about Alexander’s wars and private life, which is
frequently quoted by Athênaios. Some fragments have also been preserved
by Plutarch, Pliny, and Aulus Gellius.

CLEOPHIS, Queen of Mazaga, surrendered that city to Alexander, by whom
she was kindly treated, and to whom she is said to have borne a son
who became an Indian king. In Racine’s tragedy, _Alexandre le Grand_,
Cleophis, who figures as one of the _dramatis personae_, is made the
sister of Taxilês.

DÊIMACHOS or DAIMACHOS was ambassador at the court of Allitrochades,
the son and successor of Sandrokottos, and wrote a work on India in two
books. He is pilloried by Strabo as the most mendacious of all writers
about India.

DÊMÊTRIOS was one of the officers who formed Alexander’s bodyguard. He
was accused by Philôtas as being one of his accomplices in the conspiracy
against the king’s life, and was in consequence deprived of his post, to
which Ptolemy was then preferred.

DÊMÊTRIOS, son of Pythonax, was one of the select band of cavalry called
the _Companions_. He took part in the Indian campaigns.

DÊMÊTRIOS POLIORKÊTÊS, the son of Antigonos, became king of Macedonia in
294 B.C.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.—DÊMÊTRIOS POLIORKÊTÊS.]

DIOSKORIDES, the famous writer on _Materia Medica_, was a native of
Kilikia, and flourished, so far as can be conjectured, about the
beginning of the second century of our aera.

EMBISAROS.—_See_ Abisares.

EPIKTÊTOS, the famous philosopher, was a native of Hieropolis in Phrygia,
and a freedman of Epaphroditus, the favourite of Nero. Arrian, who was
one of his disciples, composed a short manual of his philosophy as taken
down from his lectures, and known as the _Enchiridion_.

ERATOSTHENES was appointed by Ptolemy Euergetes (grandson of Alexander’s
Ptolemy) president of the Alexandrian Library, an office which he held
for upwards of forty years. He may be considered as the founder of
scientific geography, and in some measure also of systematic chronology.
He was born at Kyrênê in 276 B.C., and educated in Athens, where he
devoted himself to the study of learning and philosophy. He died in
Alexandria in the year 196 B.C. His works, which were numerous and
treated of a great variety of subjects, scientific and literary, have
perished, with the exception of some fragments cited by other writers.

ERIGYIOS was by birth a Mitylenaian, and was an officer in Alexander’s
army. He commanded the cavalry of the allies both in the battle of Arbêla
and when Alexander set out from Ekbatana in pursuit of Darius. He was
slain fighting with Baktrian fugitives.

EUDÊMOS.—When Alexander heard in Karmania that Philip, who had been left
in India as satrap, had been treacherously murdered by the mercenaries,
he sent orders to Taxilês and Eudêmos to administer affairs till a new
satrap should be appointed. Sometime after Alexander’s death Eudêmos
decoyed Pôros into his power and cut him off. He then left India either
because Eumenes requiring his services in contending against Antigonos
recalled him, or because he was unable to hold out against the native
revolt headed by Sandrokottos. The troops and elephants which he took
with him from India were of great service to Eumenes. After the fall of
his chief Eudêmos was put to death by Antigonos.

EUMENES was a native of Kardia, a Greek colony situated in the Thracian
Chersonese. He was private secretary to King Philip, and then to
Alexander, whom he attended throughout his Asiatic expedition. It was
one of his duties as royal secretary to keep a diary (_Ephêmerides_) in
which the transactions of each day had to be recorded, and this work
is quoted both by Arrian and Plutarch. He showed himself a man of
consummate ability in the arts both of war and of politics. His alien
origin, however, exposed him to the jealousy of the Macedonian officers.
Hêphaistiôn in particular, Alexander’s chief favourite, sought by every
means to compass his overthrow. Eumenes, however, by his prudence and
tact frustrated all attempts made to undermine his influence with the
king who had a just appreciation of his merits. Though his labours were
chiefly those of the closet, he was sometimes employed in the field,
more especially on occasions of unusual emergency. When Alexander,
on returning to Sousa, celebrated his own nuptials and those of his
companions with oriental brides, he gave, as Arrian tells us (vi. 4), to
Ptolemy, and Eumenes, the royal secretary, the daughters of Artabazos;
to the former Artikama, and to the latter Artonis. After the king’s
death Eumenes obtained Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and Pontos, and after
some delay was established in the government of these provinces. After
the death of Perdikkas, to whom he owed this service, he was requested
by Olympias and Polysperchon to undertake the supreme command throughout
Asia on behalf of the king. He had in consequence to contend against
the faction opposed to the royal family which was headed by Antigonos,
and supported by Ptolemy, Peithôn, Seleukos, and Nearchos. After coping
successfully for a considerable time against this powerful confederacy,
he was delivered up by his own troops to Antigonos, who, notwithstanding
the remonstrances of Nearchos, ordered him to be put to death, 316 B.C.

GORGIAS, a commander of a division of the phalanx. He marched with
Hêphaistiôn and Perdikkas by the Khaiber Pass to the Indus, and fought in
the battle against Pôros.

HARPALOS was of princely birth, and nephew of King Philip. He was
educated along with Alexander, whom he accompanied into Asia in the
capacity of superintendent of his treasury. Having betrayed his trust
he fled to Greece, but was recalled by Alexander, who overlooked his
offence and reinstated him in his office. Alexander, on setting out from
Ekbatana to pursue Darius, left Harpalos in that stronghold in charge
of the vast treasures which had been transported thither from Sousa and
other plundered capitals. Harpalos removed thence to Babylon, where he
ruled as satrap while the king was in India. Here his licentiousness and
extravagance exceeded all bounds. On hearing that Alexander had returned
to Sousa, and was punishing with the utmost severity all officers who had
misgoverned in his absence, he set out for the coast, taking with him
the vast sum of 5000 talents and a large escort of troops. He crossed
over to Attica, but the Athenians would not permit him to land until
he had disbanded his followers. When he was admitted into the city he
employed his wealth in bribing the orators to gain over the people to his
cause in opposition to Alexander. He was, however, obliged to take to
flight, and having landed with his treasures in the island of Crete, was
there assassinated.

HÊKATAIOS, one of the earliest and most distinguished Greek historians
and geographers, was a native of Milêtos, and lived about 520 B.C. He is
the first Greek writer who distinctly mentions India. Some fragments of
his works have been preserved.

HÊPHAISTIÔN was a native of Pella, and in his childhood appears to have
been brought up with Alexander, who was of the same age as he, and not
only continued to be his friend through life, but lavished upon him when
removed by death the most extravagant honours. In the Egyptian expedition
he commanded the fleet, and he distinguished himself in the battle of
Arbêla, where he was wounded in the arm. When Philôtas was put to death
the command of the horse guards was divided between him and Kleitos. He
conducted important operations in Sogdiana and Baktria, and throughout
all the subsequent campaigns until the army returned to Sousa. He was not
possessed of any striking share of ability, and would certainly not have
risen to eminence through his own unaided exertions. At Sousa Alexander
gave him to wife Drypatis, one of the daughters of Darius, and the sister
of Stateira, whom he himself married. Hêphaistiôn was soon afterwards cut
off by fever at Ekbatana.

HERAKON, one of Alexander’s officers, was appointed with two others to
command the army in Media on the death of Parmenion. During Alexander’s
absence in the far east he committed many excesses, for which he was put
to death on Alexander’s return from India.

KALÂNOS was a gymnosophist of Taxila, who left India with Alexander, and
burned himself alive on a funeral pile at Sousa. His real name, Plutarch
says, was _Sphinês_; but the Greeks called him Kalânos, because, in
saluting those he met, he used the word _kale!_ equivalent to _hail!_
The Sanskrit adjective _kalyâna_ means salutary, lucky, well, etc. If
we except Sandrokottos, Taxilês, and Pôros, there is no other Indian
with whose history, opinions, and personal characteristics the classical
writers have made us so well acquainted as with those of Kalânos. For
this reason, as well as because it falls properly within the scope of
my undertaking to do so, I shall here present translations of all the
passages I can find which relate to him, and to another gymnosophist who
was a man of a very different stamp called _Mandanes_, and sometimes,
but improperly, _Dandamis_. Arrian (VII. i. 5—iii.) thus writes:—i. 5.
I commend the Indian sages of whom it is related that certain of them
who had been caught by Alexander walking about according to their wont
in the open meadow, did nothing else in sight of himself and his army
but stamp upon the ground on which they were stepping. When he asked
them through interpreters what they meant by so doing, they replied
thus: O King Alexander, each man possesses as much of the earth as what
we have stepped on; but you, being a man like the rest of us, except
that you wickedly disturb the peace of the world, have come so far from
home to plague yourself and every one else, and yet ere long when you
die you will possess just so much of the earth as will suffice to make
a grave to cover your bones. ii. Alexander praised what they had said,
but nevertheless continued to act in opposition to their advice.... When
he arrived at Taxila and saw the Indian gymnosophists, he conceived a
great desire that one of their number should live with him, because he
admired their patience in enduring hardships. But the oldest of the
philosophers, Dandamis by name, with whom the others lived as disciples,
not only refused to go himself, but forbade the others to go. He is
said to have replied that he was also a son of Zeus, if Alexander was
such,[414] and that he wanted nothing that was Alexander’s; for he was
content with what he had, while he saw that the men with Alexander
wandered over sea and land for no advantage, and were never coming to
an end of their wanderings. He desired, therefore, nothing it was in
Alexander’s power to give: nor did he fear being excluded from anything
he possessed; for while he lived, India would suffice for him, yielding
him her fruits in due season, and when he died he would be delivered from
the body an unsuitable companion. Alexander accordingly did not attempt
to compel him to go with him, considering him free to please himself.
But Megasthenes has stated that Kalânos, one of the philosophers of this
place, was persuaded to go since he had no power of self-control, as
the philosophers themselves allowed, who upbraided him because he had
deserted the happiness among them, and went to serve another master than
the deity. iii. I have thus written, because in a _History of Alexander_
it was necessary to speak of Kalânos; for when he was in the country of
Persis he fell into delicate health, though he had never before had an
illness. Accordingly, as he had no wish to lead the life of an invalid,
he informed Alexander that, broken as he was in health, he thought it
best to put an end to himself before he had experience of any malady
that would oblige him to change his former mode of life. Alexander long
and earnestly opposed his request; but when he saw that he was quite
inflexible, and that if one mode of death was denied him he would find
another, he ordered a funeral pyre to be piled up in accordance with the
man’s own directions, and ordered Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, one of the
bodyguards, to superintend all the arrangements. Some say that a solemn
procession of horses and men advanced before him, some of the men being
armed, while others carried all kinds of incense for the pyre. Others
again say that they carried gold and silver bowls and royal apparel;
also, that a horse was provided for him because he was unable to walk
from illness. He was, however, unable to mount the horse, and he was
therefore carried on a litter crowned with a garland, after the manner
of the Indians, and singing in the Indian tongue. The Indians say that
what he sang were hymns to the gods and the praises of his countrymen,
and that the horse which he was to have mounted—a Nêsaian steed of the
royal stud—he presented to Lysimachos who attended him for instruction
in philosophy. On others who attended him he bestowed the bowls and rugs
which Alexander, to honour him, had ordered to be cast into the pyre.
Then mounting the pile, he lay down upon it in a becoming manner in
full view of the whole army. Alexander deemed the spectacle one which
he could not with propriety witness, because the man to suffer was his
friend; but to those who were present Kalânos caused astonishment in that
he did not move any part of his body in the fire. As soon as the men
charged with the duty set fire to the pile, the trumpets, Nearchos says,
sounded by Alexander’s order, and the whole army raised the war-shout as
if advancing to battle. The elephants also swelled the noise with their
shrill and warlike cry to do honour to Kalânos.

In a subsequent chapter (xviii.) Arrian records the following story
of Kalânos: When he was going to the funeral pyre to die, he embraced
all his other companions, but did not wish to draw near to Alexander
to give him a parting embrace, saying he would meet him at Babylon and
would there embrace him. This remark attracted no notice at the time;
but afterwards, when Alexander died in Babylon, it came back to the
memory of those who heard it, who then naturally took it to have been a
prophecy of his death. Plutarch, in his _Life of Alexander_, has another
notice of Kalânos besides that which the reader will find translated in
chapter 65. In chapter 69 he thus writes: “It was here (in Persepolis)
that Kalânos, on being for a short time afflicted with colic, desired
to have his funeral pile erected. He was conveyed to it on horseback,
and after he had prayed and sprinkled himself with a libation, and
cut off part of his hair to cast into the fire, he ascended the pile,
after taking leave of the Macedonians, and recommending them to devote
that day to pleasure and hard drinking with the king, whom, said he,
I shall shortly see in Babylon. Upon this he lay down on the pyre and
covered himself up with his robes. When the flames approached he did
not move, but remained in the same posture as when he lay down until
the sacrifice was auspiciously consummated, according to the custom of
the sages of his country. Many years afterwards another Indian in the
presence of Caesar (Augustus) at Athens did the same thing. His tomb is
shown till this day, and is called the _Indian’s tomb_.—Alexander, on
returning from the pyre, invited many of his friends and his generals to
supper, where he proposed a drinking-bout, with a crown for the prize.
Promachos, who drank most, reached four measures (14 quarts), and won
the crown, which was worth a talent, but survived only for three days.
The rest of the guests, Charês says, drank to such excess that forty-one
of them died, the weather having turned excessively cold immediately
after the debauch.” The Indian who burned himself at Athens was called
_Zarmanochegas_, as we learn from Strabo (XV. i. 73), who states, on the
authority of Nikolaös of Damascus, that he came to Syria in the train
of the ambassadors who were sent to Augustus Caesar by a great Indian
king called Pôros. “These ambassadors,” he says, “were accompanied by
the person who burnt himself to death at Athens. This is the practice
with persons in distress, who seek escape from existing calamities,
and with others in prosperous circumstances, as was the case with this
man. For as everything hitherto had succeeded with him, he thought it
necessary to depart, lest some unexpected calamity should happen to him
by continuing to live; with a smile, therefore, naked, anointed, and with
the girdle round his waist, he leaped upon the pyre. On his tomb was this
inscription: Zarmanochegas, an Indian, a native of Bargosa (_Barygaza_,
_Baroch_), having immortalised himself according to the custom of his
country, here lies.” Lassen takes the name Zarmanochegas to represent the
Sanskrit Śramanachârya, _teacher of the Śramanas_, from which it would
appear he was a Buddhist priest. Strabo writes at greater length than
our historians about the gymnosophists. In Book XV. i. 61 we have the
following notices: “Aristoboulos says that he saw at Taxila two sophists,
both Brachmans, of whom the elder had his head shaved, while the younger
wore his hair; disciples attended both. They spent their time generally
in the market-place. They are honoured as public counsellors, and are
free to take away without charge any article exposed for sale which they
may choose. He who accosts them pours over them oil of jessamine in such
quantities that it runs down from their eyes. They make cakes of honey
and sesamum, of which large quantities are always for sale, and their
food thus costs them nothing. At Alexander’s table they ate standing,
and, to give a sample of their endurance, withdrew to a spot not far
off, where the elder, lying down with his back to the ground, endured
the sun and the rains which had set in as spring had just begun. The
other stood on one leg, holding up with both his hands a bar of wood
3 cubits long; one leg being tired he rested his weight on the other,
and did this throughout the day. The younger seemed to have far more
self-command; for though he followed the king a short distance, he soon
returned to his home. The king sent after him, but the king, he said,
should come to him if he wanted anything from him. The other accompanied
the king to the end of his life. During his stay he changed his dress
and altered his mode of life, saying, when reproached for so doing, that
he had completed the forty years of discipline which he had vowed to
observe. Alexander gave presents to his children. (63) Onesikritos says
that he himself was sent to converse with these sages.... He found at the
distance of twenty stadia from the city fifteen men standing in different
attitudes, sitting or lying down naked, and continuing in these positions
till the evening, when they went back to the city. What was hardest to
bear was the heat of the sun, which was so powerful that no one else
could bear without pain to walk barefooted on the ground at mid-day.
(64) He conversed with Kalânos, one of these sages, who accompanied the
king to Persia, and burned himself after the custom of his country on a
pile of wood. Onesikritos found him lying upon stones, and drawing near
to address him, informed him that he had been sent by the king, who had
heard the fame of his wisdom. As the king would require an account of
the interview, he was prepared to listen to his discourse if he did not
object to converse with him. When Kalânos saw the cloak, head-dress, and
shoes of his visitor, he laughed and said: “Formerly there was abundance
of corn and barley in the world, as there is now of dust; fountains then
flowed with water, milk, honey, wine, and oil, but repletion and luxury
made men turn proud and insolent. Zeus, indignant at this, destroyed
all, and assigned to man a life of toil. When temperance and other
virtues in consequence again appeared, then good things again abounded.
But at present the condition of mankind tends to satiety and wantonness,
and there is cause to fear lest the existing state of things should
disappear.” When he had finished he proposed to Onesikritos, if he wished
to hear his discourse, to strip off his clothes, to lie down naked beside
him on the same stones, and in that manner to hear what he had to say.
While he was uncertain what to do, Mandanes, the oldest and wisest of the
sages, reproached Kalânos for his insolence—the very vice which he had
been condemning. Mandanes then called Onesikritos to him, and said, I
commend the king, because, although he governs so vast an empire, he is
yet desirous of acquiring wisdom, for he is the only philosopher in arms
that I ever saw.... (65) “The tendency of his discourse,” he said, “was
this, that the best philosophy was that which liberated the mind from
pleasure and grief; that grief differed from labour, in that the former
was pernicious, the latter friendly, to men; for that men exercised
their bodies with labour to strengthen the mental powers, whereby they
would be able to end dissensions, and give every one good advice, both
to the public and to private persons; that he should at present advise
Taxilês to receive Alexander as a friend; for by entertaining a person
better than himself he might be improved, while by entertaining a worse
he might influence that person to be good.” After this Mandanes inquired
whether such doctrines were taught among the Greeks. Onesikritos answered
that Pythagoras taught a like doctrine, and instructed his disciples
to abstain from whatever had life; that Sôkrates and Diogenês, whose
discourses he had heard, held the same views. Mandanes replied, that in
other respects he thought them to be wise; but that they were mistaken in
preferring custom to nature, else they would not be ashamed to go naked
as he did, and to live on frugal fare, for, said he, that is the best
house that requires least repairs. He states further that they employ
themselves much on natural subjects, as forecasting the future, rain,
drought, and diseases. On going into the city they disperse themselves
in the market-places.... Every wealthy house, even to the women’s
apartments, is open to them. When they enter they converse with the
inmates and share their meal. Disease of the body they regard as very
disgraceful, and he who fears that it will attack him, prepares a pyre
and lets the flames consume him. He anoints himself beforehand, and when
he has placed himself upon the pile orders it to be lighted, and remains
motionless while he is burning. (66) Nearchos gives the following
account of the sages: The Brachmans engage in public affairs, and attend
the kings as counsellors; the rest are occupied in the study of nature.
Kalânos belonged to the latter class. Women study philosophy with them,
and all lead an ascetic life.

Athênaios in his _Gymnosophists_ (x. p. 437) quotes, like Plutarch, from
Charês, the account of the drinking bout which followed the burning of
Kalânos. He says that Alexander proposed the match on account of the
bibulous propensities (_philoinia_) of the Indians. Other references to
Kalânos are to be found in Ailianos, _V. H._ ii. 41 and v. 6; Lucian, _De
M. Pereg._ 25; Cicero, _Disp. Tusc._ ii. 22, and _De Divin._ i. 23, 30.
In the romance _History of Alexander_, by the Pseudo-Kallisthenes, six
long chapters of Book iii. (11-17) are full of Kalânos, Mandanes, and the
Brachmans.

St. Ambrose wrote a work, _De Bragmanibus_, in which the two
gymnosophists are frequently mentioned.

KALLISTHENES was a native of Olynthos. He was brought up and educated
by Aristotle, to whom he was related, and at whose recommendation he
was permitted to accompany Alexander on his Asiatic expedition. He was
deficient in tact and prudence, and exasperated the king by the freedom
with which he censured him for adopting oriental customs, and especially
for requiring Macedonians to perform the ceremony of adoration. When the
plot of the pages to assassinate Alexander was discovered, Kallisthenes
was charged with being an accessary. According to Charês he was
imprisoned for seven months, and died in India; while Ptolemy states that
he was tortured and crucified. Besides other works, he wrote an account
of Alexander’s expedition, to which Strabo and Plutarch make a few
references, but it was a work of little if any value.

KANISHKA, a great Turanian conqueror, whose empire extended from Kabul to
Agra and Gujrut. He was an ardent Buddhist. The date of his coronation,
78 A.D., marks the beginning of the Śâkâbda aera.

KLEANDER, one of Alexander’s officers. He was employed to kill Parmenion,
to whom he was next in command at Ekbatana. He was himself put to death
when he joined Alexander in Karmania, on account of his profligacy and
oppression while in Media.

KLEITOS was a Macedonian, and brother to Alexander’s nurse. He saved
Alexander’s life at the Granîkos. When the companion cavalry was divided
into two bodies, the command of one was given to Kleitos and of the other
to Hêphaistiôn. In 328 B.C. he was appointed to succeed Artabazos in
the satrapy of Baktria, but on the eve of his departure to take up this
office he was killed by Alexander in a drunken brawl.

KOINOS was the son of Polemokrates, and the son-in-law of Parmenion.
He was one of Alexander’s ablest generals, and greatly distinguished
himself on various occasions, and especially in the battle with Pôros.
When Alexander had reached the Hyphasis and wished to proceed farther and
reach the Ganges, Koinos had the courage to remonstrate, and the king was
obliged to act on his advice. He died soon after of an illness, and was
honoured with a splendid burial.

KÔPHAIOS.—A chief whose dominions lay to the west of the Indus and along
the river Kôphên.

KORAGOS.—A Macedonian bravo called also Horratas.

KOSMAS INDIKOPLEUSTES.—An Egyptian monk who flourished towards the middle
of the sixth century of our aera. In early life he was a merchant, and
visited for traffic various countries, Aethiopia, Syria, Arabia, Persia,
India, and many other places of the East. After he had taken to monastic
life he wrote a work called _Christian Topography_, which is valuable
for the geographical and historical information it contains. It has some
notices concerning India, especially concerning its Christian communities.

KRATEROS, a Macedonian of Orestis, was one of Alexander’s most
distinguished generals, and next to Hêphaistiôn his greatest favourite.
He was in command of infantry on the left wing at Issos, and of cavalry
on the same wing at Gaugamela. He rose afterwards to be commander of one
of the divisions of the phalanx. On the day of the battle with Pôros
he was left with a part of the army in the camp, and did not cross the
river till victory had declared for Alexander. He commanded the troops
which were sent back from India by way of the Bolan Pass to Karmania.
At Sousa he married Amastris, the niece of Darius, after which he led,
along with Polysperchon, the discharged veterans back to Europe. In the
division of the empire after Alexander’s death Greece and Macedonia and
other European provinces fell to the share of Antipater and Krateros, who
divorced Amastris and married Phila, Antipater’s daughter. In 321 B.C.
Krateros fell in battle against Eumenes, who honoured his old comrade in
the Indian wars with a magnificent funeral.

KYRSILOS, a native of Pharsalos, who accompanied Alexander to Asia and
wrote an account of his exploits. He is mentioned by Strabo (XI. xiv.
12).

LEONNATOS, a native of Pella, was one of Alexander’s most capable and
distinguished officers. At the time of Philip’s death he occupied one
of the highest positions at court, being one of the select bodyguard
called _sômatophylakes_, but under Alexander he was at first only an
officer of the companion cavalry. After the battle of Issos he was sent
to inform the wife of Darius of her husband’s safety, and when Arrhybas,
one of the bodyguards, died in Egypt, he was promoted to the vacant post.
After this his name continually occurs among the names of those who were
constantly about the king’s person and stood highest in his confidence.
On several occasions he showed the greatest courage, and at the siege of
the Mallian stronghold he saved, along with Peukestas, the king’s life.
When the army marched back from India he was left to overawe the Oreitai,
and to wait in their country till Nearchos should reach it with the
fleet. He inflicted a crushing defeat on that people, who had assembled
a large army after Alexander had left their borders. For this and other
services he was rewarded at Sousa with a golden crown. In the division of
the empire he received only the satrapy of the Lesser Phrygia, a share
which by no means satisfied his ambition. Kleopatra, Alexander’s sister,
then offered him her hand on condition that he should assist her against
Antipater, the regent of Macedonia. He consented, but when he passed
over into that country he was slain in battle against the Greeks, who
had revolted from Antipater, whose dominions he wished to appropriate in
their integrity.

LYSIMACHOS was one of Alexander’s great generals and one of his select
bodyguards. He was born at Pella—the son of a Thessalian serf who by
his flatteries had won the good graces of King Philip. Great personal
strength and undaunted courage seem to have been the qualities by which
Lysimachos gained his splendid position, for he was seldom entrusted
by Alexander with any separate command of importance. He was present
in the battle with Pôros, and was wounded at the siege of Sangala. In
the division of the empire he obtained Thrace for his share, but his
dominions after the battle of Issos, in which along with Seleukos,
Ptolemy, and Kassander, he defeated Antigonos and his son Dêmêtrios,
embraced for a time all Alexander’s European possessions, in addition to
Asia Minor. His third wife was Arsinoë, the daughter of Ptolemy, King of
Egypt. In 281 B.C. he was defeated and slain by his old comrade in arms,
Seleukos. He was then eighty years of age.

MEGASTHENÊS, the ambassador sent by Seleukos Nikator to the court of
Sandrokottos, and author of a work on India of the highest value. Though
this work is lost, numerous fragments have been preserved by Strabo,
Arrian, Pliny, and many other writers.

MELA, POMPONIUS, the first Roman author known to have composed a formal
work on geography. It is supposed that he flourished under the Emperor
Claudius.

MELEAGER was by birth a Macedonian, and served with distinction in
Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns, where he commanded one of the divisions of
the phalanx. He was present in the great battles of the Granîkos, Issos,
Gaugamela, and the Hydaspês. He was never entrusted, however, with any
special or important command. He was a man of an insolent and factious
disposition, and showed himself to be such in the discussions which arose
between the generals after Alexander’s death concerning the arrangements
which should be made for the government of the empire. He led for a time
the opposition against Perdikkas, but was afterwards for a short time
associated with him in the regency. Two such colleagues could not long
act in harmony. Perdikkas, who was an adept in the arts of dissimulation,
lulled Meleager into fancied security, devised a cunning scheme for his
overthrow, and having succeeded in this ordered him to be put to death.

MEMNÔN, the Rhodian, was the brother of Mentor, who stood high in the
favour of Darius, and brother-in-law of Artabazos, the satrap of Lower
Phrygia. On the death of his brother, Memnôn, who possessed great
military skill and experience, succeeded to his authority, which extended
over the coast of Asia Minor. He was the most formidable opponent
Alexander encountered in Western Asia. Fortunately for him, Memnôn died
in 333 B.C., when preparing to sail for Greece, where the Spartans were
ready to join him and rise against the Macedonians.

MÔPHIS.—_See_ TAXILÊS.

MOUSIKANOS was the ruler of a rich and fertile kingdom which lay along
the banks of the Indus, in Upper Sindh. He submitted to Alexander without
resistance, and was allowed to retain his sovereignty. The Brahmans,
however, prevailed on him to revolt during Alexander’s absence. He was
captured by Peithôn and crucified by Alexander’s orders.

MULLINUS is called by Curtius the king’s secretary. Eumenes is probably
meant. The name is not met with except in one passage in Curtius.

NEARCHOS.—Among all the great men associated with Alexander no one
has left a reputation more noble and unsullied than that of Nearchos.
The long and difficult voyage in unknown seas which he successfully
accomplished ranks as one of the greatest achievements in the annals of
navigation. He was free from the mad ambition to rule which gave rise to
the deadly feuds between Alexander’s other great generals, and stained
the records of their lives with so many dark crimes. He was a native of
Crete, but settled at Amphipolis, a Macedonian city near the Thracian
border. He held a high position at the court of King Philip, where he
attached himself to the party of the young prince, and was banished
along with Ptolemy, Harpalos, and others, who had involved themselves in
his intrigues. Alexander, on mounting the throne, recalled his former
partisans, and did not neglect their interests. Nearchos accompanied him
into Asia, where he was appointed governor of Lykia and other provinces
south of the Tauros. This post he continued to hold for five years. He
rejoined Alexander before he left Baktria to invade India, and in India
he was appointed commander of the fleet which was built on the Hydaspês.
He conducted it down that river and the Akesinês and the Indus to Patala
(now Haidarâbâd), a naval station at the apex of the Indus Delta. He
arrived at that place about the time when the south-west monsoon usually
sets in. Alexander, on returning to Patala from the excursions he made
to the ocean, removed the fleet to Killouta, an island in the western
branch of the Indus, which possessed a commodious haven. He then set
out on his return to Persia, leaving the fleet with Nearchos, who had
relieved Alexander’s mind of a load of anxiety by voluntarily proffering
his services to conduct the expedition by sea to the head of the Persian
Gulf. When we consider, as Bunbury remarks, the total ignorance of
the Greeks at this time concerning the Indian seas, and the imperfect
character of their navigation, it is impossible not to admire the noble
confidence with which Nearchos ventured to promise that he would bring
the ships in safety to the shores of Persia, “if the sea were navigable
and the thing feasible for mortal man.” Nearchos wished to defer his
departure till the monsoon had quite subsided, but as he was in danger of
being attacked by the natives, who were no longer overawed by Alexander’s
presence, he set sail on the 21st of September, 325 B.C. He was forced,
however, by the violence of the weather, when he had reached the mouth of
the Indus, to take refuge in a sheltered bay at a station which he called
Alexander’s Haven, and which is now known as Karâchi, the great emporium
of the trade of the Indus. After a detention here for twenty-four days,
he resumed his voyage on the 23rd of October. Coasting the shore of the
Arabies for 80 miles, he reached the mouth of the river Arabis (now the
Purali), which divides the Arabies from the Oreitai. The coast of the
latter people, which was 100 miles in extent, was navigated in eighteen
days. At one of the landing-places the ships were supplied by Leonnatos
with stores of corn, which lasted ten days. The navigation of the Mekrân
coast which succeeded occupied twenty days, and the distance traversed
was 480 miles English, though Nearchos in his journal has set it down at
10,000 stadia or 1250 miles. The expedition in this part of the voyage
suffered great distress for want of provisions. The coast was barren,
and its savage inhabitants, the Ichthyophagi,[415] had little else to
subsist on than fish, which some of them ate raw.[416] The Karmanian
coast, which succeeded, was not so distressingly barren, but was even, in
certain favoured localities, extremely fertile and beautiful. Its length
was 296 miles, and the time taken in its navigation was nineteen days,
some of which, however, were spent at the mouth of the river Anamis (now
the Mînâb), whence Nearchos made a journey into the interior to apprise
Alexander of the safety of his fleet. The coasts of Persis and Sousis
were navigated in thirty-one days. Nearchos had intended to sail up the
Tigris, but having passed its mouth unawares, continued sailing westward
till he reached Diridôtis (Terêdon), an emporium in Babylonia on the
Pallocopas branch of the Euphrates. He thence retraced his course to the
Tigris, and ascended its stream till he reached a lake through which at
that time it flowed and which received the river Pasitigris, the Ulaï
of Scripture, and now the Karun. The fleet proceeded up this river till
it met the army near a bridge on the highway from Persis to Sousa. It
anchored at the bridge on the 24th of February, 324 B.C., so that the
whole voyage was performed in 146 days. Nearchos received appropriate
rewards for the splendid service he had so successfully performed.
Alexander was sending him away on another great maritime expedition
when the illness which carried off the great conqueror broke up the
enterprise. In the discussions which followed regarding the succession to
the throne, Nearchos unsuccessfully advocated the claims of Heraklês, the
son of Alexander by Barsinê, who was the daughter of Artabazos and the
widow of Memnôn the Rhodian. He acquiesced, however, in the arrangements
made by the other generals, and was content with receiving his former
government, even though he was to hold it subject to the authority of
Antigonos. He accompanied his superior when he marched against Eumenes,
and interceded for the life of the latter when he fell into the hands of
his enemies. Nothing is known of his history after the year 314 B.C.,
when he was selected by Antigonos to assist his son Dêmêtrios with his
counsels when left for the first time in command of an army.

NIKANOR, the son of Parmenion, was commander of the hypaspists or
footguards in the Asiatic expedition. He was present in the three great
battles against the troops of Darius, and died of disease before the
charge of conspiracy was preferred against his brother Philôtas.

OLYMPIAS, the mother of Alexander, was a passionate, ambitious, and
intriguing woman. She was put to death by order of Kassander, the son of
the regent Antipater, in 316 B.C., thus surviving her son seven years.

OMPHIS.—_See_ Taxilês.

ONESIKRITOS was a Greek historical writer who accompanied Alexander on
his Asiatic expedition. He professed the philosophy of Diogenes the
Cynic, and on this account was sent by Alexander to converse with the
gymnosophists of Taxila. He was the pilot of Alexander’s ship and of the
fleet in sailing down the Indus, and afterwards during the voyage to
the head of the Persian Gulf. The history written by Onesikritos, which
embraced the whole life of Alexander, fell into discredit owing to the
manner in which he intermingled fact with fiction. His work was, however,
too much undervalued. He was the first author who mentions the island
of Taprobanê (Ceylon). In his later years he attached himself to the
fortunes of Lysimachos of Thrace.

OROSIUS was a Spanish ecclesiastic of the fifth century, who wrote a
history of the world from the creation down to the year A.D. 417.

OXYARTES, a Baktrian, the father of Alexander’s queen Roxana, was one of
the chiefs who accompanied Bessos on his retreat across the Oxus into
Sogdiana. Alexander, after marrying his daughter, appointed him satrap of
the land of the Paropamisidai, and his successors allowed him to retain
that government. It is not known how long he lived, but it is supposed
that he was dead when Seleukos undertook his Indian expedition, as his
dominions were among those which were surrendered to Sandrokottos.

OXYKANOS, called Portikanos by Strabo and Diodôros, ruled a territory
which adjoined that of Mousikanos, but its exact position or boundaries
cannot be ascertained.

PANINI, the celebrated Indian grammarian, was a native of Salâtura, in
Gandhâra. His date is generally referred to the fourth century B.C., but
this is still a matter of controversy.

PARMÊNION was the most experienced and most trusted general who
accompanied Alexander into Asia. He commanded the left wing of the
Macedonian army in the three great battles against Darius. He was left in
command in Media, and so did not accompany the expedition into India. His
assassination has left an indelible stain on Alexander’s character.

PATROKLÊS was a general who held under Seleukos and Antiochos an
important government over some eastern provinces of the Syrian empire.
He collected much valuable information regarding the little-known parts
which adjoined his province. His work, embodying this information, is
frequently quoted by Strabo.

PAUSANIAS was the author of an _Itinerary of Greece_, full of valuable
topographical and antiquarian information. He wrote in the age of the
Antonines.

PEITHÔN.—Three officers of this name accompanied Alexander into
Asia—first, Peithôn, the son of Sôsiklês, who was wounded and taken
prisoner by the Skythians under Spitamenes, and is not subsequently
mentioned; second, Peithôn, the son of Krateuas, who, like Ptolemy, was a
native of Eördaia, and a member of the select bodyguard; third, Peithôn,
the son of Agênôr, who, like the preceding, rendered distinguished
services in the Indian campaigns. The historians have recorded nothing
of their previous achievements, and when they come to mention those
performed in India, do not always make it clear to which of the two they
mean to ascribe them.

PEITHÔN, the son of Krateuas, after Alexander’s death proposed that
Perdikkas and Leonnatos should be appointed joint regents of the empire,
and for this service was rewarded with the satrapy of Media. After
the assassination of Perdikkas he was himself, through the influence
of Ptolemy, raised to the regency in conjunction with Arrhidaios, but
was soon compelled to resign and retire to his Median government.
He assisted Antigonos to overthrow Eumenes; but Antigonos, having
subsequently suspected him of entertaining treasonable designs, brought
him to trial before a council, and ordered him to be put to death in 316
B.C.

PEITHÔN, the son of Agênôr, took an active part in the wars against
the Malloi and Mousikanos while holding the command of one of the
divisions of the footguards. He was appointed satrap of Sindh from the
great confluence downward to the sea-coast, and was left behind in his
province when Alexander took his departure from India. After the death
of Alexander he was confirmed in his government, but, it would appear,
was ousted from it by Pôros. After the fall of Eumenes he received from
Antigonos, whose side he had favoured, the satrapy of Babylon. While
serving with Dêmêtrios, the son of Antigonos, he was slain in the battle
of Gaza, in which the young prince rashly and against his advice engaged
Ptolemy. This battle was fought in 312 B.C.

PERDIKKAS—one of Alexander’s greatest generals—was a native of the
Macedonian province of Orestis, and descended, according to Curtius, from
a royal house. Under Philip he held one of the highest offices at court,
being a sômatophylax, and under Alexander he held the same position
along with the command of a division of the phalanx, but afterwards of
a division of the companion cavalry. He distinguished himself at the
siege of Thebes, where he was severely wounded, and in the three great
battles against the armies of Darius. In the Persian, Sogdian, and Indian
campaigns he was frequently entrusted with separate commands of great
importance, and at Sousa was rewarded for his services with a crown of
gold and with the hand of the daughter of the Median satrap. He was
present with Alexander during his fatal illness; and it is said that
the king when expiring took off the royal signet-ring from his finger
and gave it to him, as if to indicate him as his successor. In the
deliberations which followed to settle the succession, Perdikkas took
a prominent part, and, with the consent of most of the other generals,
was appointed to act as regent of the empire on behalf of Roxana’s yet
unborn child, which, it was hoped, might prove to be a son. His selfish
ambition, however, and acts of cruelty soon created violent discontent,
and a combination was formed against him by Antigonos, whom he attempted
to bring to trial for misgovernment, but who effected his escape to
Macedonia, and persuaded Antipater, Krateros, and Ptolemy to take up
arms on his behalf. He was slain by his own troops in Egypt, whither he
had proceeded in the hope of being able to crush Ptolemy before taking
measures against the other confederates. Perdikkas was crafty, cruel, and
arrogant, without magnanimity, and, indeed, without any virtue except
personal courage and capacity as a general.

PEUKESTAS, a native of Mieza in Macedonia, was one of Alexander’s
great officers, and had the honour of carrying before him in battle
the sacred shield taken down from the temple of Athêna at Ilion. He is
first mentioned as one of the officers appointed to command a trireme
on the Hydaspês. He had a chief share in saving Alexander’s life in
the citadel of the Mallian capital, and for this service was rewarded
by being appointed a _sômatophylax_ and afterwards satrap of Persia.
After being presented at Sousa with a golden crown, he proceeded to take
possession of his government, when he adopted the Persian dress and
Persian customs, thus pleasing his subjects as well as Alexander himself.
He was in attendance on the king during his last illness, but does not
appear to have taken any leading part in the discussions held after his
death regarding the succession. He was, however, permitted to retain
his government. He took an active part in the war conducted by Eumenes
against Antigonos. He was vain and fond of display, and his treachery
towards Eumenes, whom he helped to betray into the hands of his enemies,
has left a dark stain on his character.

PHEGELAS, or, as he is called by Diodôros, Phêgeus, was chief of a
territory which lay between the Hydraôtes and the Hyphasis. With regard
to the name, M. Sylvain Lévi gives preference to the form _Phegelas_,
and states his reason thus: “The _e_ answers to the _a_ of Sanskrit, the
_g_ to the _g_ or to the _j_. _Phegeus_ does not border on a known form;
Phegelas, on the contrary, answers directly to the Sanskrit _Bhagala_—the
name of a royal race of Kshatriyas which the Gana-pâtha classes under
the rubric Bâhu, etc., with the name even of Taxilês, Âmbhi.” (_Journal
Asiatique_ for 1890, p. 239.)

PHILIPPOS, the son of Machatas, was one of Alexander’s officers. In 327
B.C. he was appointed satrap of India. After Alexander left India he was
assassinated in a conspiracy formed against him by the mercenaries under
his command.

PHRATAPHERNES was, under Darius, governor of Parthia and Hyrkania. He
accompanied that sovereign in his flight from Arbêla, but after his death
submitted to Alexander, who reinstated him in his satrapy. He joined
Alexander in India after Pôros had been defeated, but seems to have
soon afterwards returned to his satrapy, whence he sent supplies to the
Macedonian army when pursuing its distressing march through Gedrôsia. The
successors of Alexander allowed him to retain his satrapy.

POLYAINOS, a Macedonian, who flourished about the middle of the second
century of our aera, and was the author of a work on the stratagems of
war, which is still extant.

POLYKLEITOS was a native of Larissa, who wrote a history of Alexander.
Most of the extracts preserved from this work refer to the geography of
the countries which Alexander conquered.

POLYSPERCHON, or POLYPERCHON, was one of the oldest officers of a high
rank in Alexander’s service. After the battle of Issos he was promoted
to the command of a division of the phalanx in succession to Ptolemy,
the son of Seleukos, who fell in that battle. In Baktria he offended
Alexander by casting ridicule on the ceremony of prostration, and was
thus for a time in disgrace. He was present at the passage of the
Hydaspês, and also in the descent of the Indus, and was then sent with
Krateros to conduct the veterans from India to Karmania by way of the
Bolan Pass. He was not in Babylon at the time of Alexander’s death, and
hence was passed over in the allotment of the provinces made after that
event. When war, however, broke out between Antipater and Perdikkas, the
former committed to his hands the chief command in Macedonia and Greece
during his absence in Asia. The veteran general showed himself worthy
of the trust reposed in him, and received the reward of his services
at Antipater’s death, who appointed him, in preference to his own son,
Kassander, to be his successor in the regency. After many vicissitudes of
fortune, and disgracing his name by his treachery towards Phôkiôn, and
his causing Heraklês, the son of Alexander, whose cause he had espoused,
to be murdered, he disappears from history after the year 303 B.C.

PÔROS was the most powerful king in the Panjâb at the time of Alexander’s
invasion. He was then at enmity with Omphis, the king of Taxila, but
in alliance with Abisarês, the king of Kâśmîr. After his defeat and
submission to the conqueror, he was confirmed in his kingdom, the limits
of which were afterwards considerably extended. All that is known of his
history will be found in the translations, if read along with the notice
below, of Sandrokottos, except that after Alexander’s death he made
himself master of Sindh, from which he ousted Peithôn. The name of Pôros,
which is formed from _Paura_ or _Paurava_, with the Greek termination
_os_ added, shows that he belonged to a family of the Lunar race. Bohlen,
however, takes the name to be a corruption of the Sanskrit _Paurusha_,
which means “heroic.”

PORTIKANOS.—_See_ Oxykanos.

PTOLEMY, called the son of Lagos, is supposed to have been in reality the
son of Philip, as his mother Arsinoê was the concubine of that king,
and was pregnant when married to Lagos. Of all Alexander’s generals
Ptolemy was the one who approached him nearest in a capacity both for
war and government, while he did not fall short of him in magnanimity of
disposition. He was banished from Macedonia by Philip, who discovered
that he was promoting with others a marriage between Alexander and
the daughter of Pixodaros, the king of Karia. He rendered important
services in the war against Darius; and when Dêmêtrios, a member of the
select bodyguard, was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the
conspiracy of Philôtas, Ptolemy was promoted to fill his place. It was
he who obtained information of the plot of Hermolaos, and by revealing
it was probably the means of saving the king’s life. In the battle with
the Aspasians, Ptolemy slew their leader with his own hand, and in the
campaigns in India he was on several occasions entrusted with separate
commands of great importance. The story of Alexander’s dream, which led
to the discovery of a plant by which Ptolemy was cured of a dangerous
wound inflicted by a poisoned arrow, must be apocryphal, since Arrian,
who had Ptolemy’s own memoirs of the expedition constantly before him,
is silent on the subject. At Sousa he received in marriage a daughter
of Artabazos. After Alexander’s death he obtained Egypt as his share
of the empire, and raised that country to a high pitch of prosperity.
He reigned for no less than forty years. The dynasty which he founded,
after subsisting for nearly two hundred years, ended with the death of
Kleopatra.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.—PTOLEMY III.]

PTOLEMY III. ascended the throne of Egypt in 247 B.C. in succession
to his father Ptolemy Philadelphos. In the early part of his reign he
overran Syria, and having thence turned his arms eastward, advanced
as far as Babylon and Sousa, and received the submission of all the
upper provinces of Asia as far as the borders of Baktria and India. On
returning to his kingdom he carried back with him the statues of the
Egyptian deities which Kambyses had removed to the East, and restored
them to their proper temples, an act which won for him the gratitude of
the Egyptians and the title by which he is generally known, Euergetês,
_i.e._ Benefactor. Like his father he distinguished himself by his
munificent patronage of literature and science. He was one of the kings
to whom Buddhist missionaries were sent by the Indian king Aśôka. He died
in the year 222 B.C.

PTOLEMY PHYSKON, king of Egypt, succeeded his brother Ptolemy VI.,
surnamed Philomêter.

RÔXANA, the daughter of the Baktrian chief Oxyartes, was considered
by the Macedonians the most beautiful woman in Asia, next to the wife
of Darius. Alexander, who found her charms irresistible, made her his
wife, and she bore him a posthumous son, called Alexander Aigos, who was
admitted to a share of the sovereignty under the regency of Perdikkas.
Before his birth she had enticed Alexander’s other widow, Barsinê or
Stateira, to Babylon, and caused her to be murdered. She subsequently
fell, with her son, into the power of Kassander, who placed them both in
Amphipolis, where in 311 B.C. they were both murdered by their keeper,
Glaukias.

SAMBUS was the satrap of a mountainous country adjoining the kingdom of
Mousikanos, with whom he was at feud. His capital, called Sindimana, has
been identified with Sehwân, a city on the Indus, for which see Note
S. Sambus fled on Alexander’s approach, not to evade submission, but
because he learned that his enemy, Mousikanos, had been received into the
conqueror’s favour.

SANDROKOTTOS (CHANDRAGUPTA).—Sandrokottos, with the exception perhaps
of his grandson, Aśôka, was the greatest ruler ancient India produced.
Though of humble origin, he overthrew the Macedonian power in the Panjâb,
conquered the kingdom of Magadha, and founded a wide empire such as
no Indian king had before possessed. He is also memorable on another
account. Those learned men who about a century ago took up the study of
Sanskrit, established his identity with the Chandragupta who is mentioned
in the Buddhist Chronicle of Ceylon as the founder of the Mauryan dynasty
of Magadha, and by fixing the date of his accession to the throne of
that kingdom, supplied the chronology of ancient India with its first
properly-ascertained aera, and thus brought it into line with the
chronology of general history.

Besides the notices of this great sovereign in the writings we have
translated, the following occur elsewhere in the classics:—Appian
(_Syriakê_, c. 55), speaking of Seleukos, says: “And having crossed
the Indus, he warred with Androkottos, the king of the Indians, who
dwelt about that river, until he entered into an alliance and a marriage
affinity with him.” Strabo (II. i. 9) says: “Both of these men were
sent to Palimbothra, Megasthenes to Sandrokottos, and Dêimachos to
Allitrochades, his son,” and in XV. i. 36 repeats the statement as
concerns Megasthenes. In XV. i. 53 we read: “Megasthenes, who was in the
camp of Sandrokottos, which consisted of 400,000 men, did not witness
on any day thefts reported which exceeded the sum of 200 drachmai, and
this among a people who have no written laws, who are ignorant even
of writing, and regulate everything by memory.” Lastly, in XV. i. 57
we read: “Similar to this is the account of the Enotokoitai, of the
wild men, and of other monsters. The wild men could not be brought to
Sandrokottos, for they died by abstaining from food.” Arrian in his
_Indika_ (c. 5) says: “But even Megasthenes, as far as appears, did not
travel over much of India, though no doubt he saw more of it than those
who came with Alexander, the son of Philip, for, as he says, he had
interviews with Sandrokottos, the greatest king of the Indians, and with
Pôros, who was still greater than he.”[417] Lastly, Athênaios mentions
him in his _Deipnosophists_ (c. 18 d): “Phylarchos says that among the
presents which Sandrokoptos, the king of the Indians, sent to Seleukos
were certain powerful aphrodisiacs.” It will be observed that Athênaios
transcribes the name of the Indian king more correctly than any of the
other authors.

These detached notices, combined with those which appear in the
translations, we may now gather together into a connected and consistent
narrative. Sandrokottos was of obscure birth, and, from the remark of
Plutarch that in his early years he had seen Alexander, we may infer that
he was a native of the Panjâb. It was at one time thought that he had
in some way offended the conqueror, and that to escape the effects of
his displeasure, he had fled for protection to the court of Magadha. But
this belief must now be given up, as it was based on a corrupt passage
in Justin, which, by the restoration of the correct reading, shows that
it was not Alexander whom he had offended, but Nandrus or Xandrames,
the Magadha king. We do not know what induced Sandrokottos to leave
his home and take service under the latter monarch, but we incline to
attribute it to a sentiment of patriotism forbidding him to seek office
or advancement under a power which had crushed the liberties of his
country. What the nature of his offence against Nandrus was does not
appear, but he so dreaded his resentment that he quitted his dominions
and returned home to the Panjâb. He found it, although Alexander had
now been six years dead, still under Greek vassalage, and ruled as
formerly in civil matters by Omphis of Taxila and the great Pôros, while
the military administration had passed into the hands of Eudêmos. Soon
after his arrival, however, the order of things was violently disturbed.
Eudêmos having decoyed Pôros into his power, treacherously murdered
him,[418] but had no sooner done so than he was recalled to the west
to succour Eumenes in his war against Antigonos. As he took with him
3000 foot, 500 horse, and 125 elephants, he denuded the province of the
main strength of the force by which it was held in subjection, and his
departure was fatal to Greek power. The Indians, who longed for freedom,
and were no doubt greatly incensed by the murder of Pôros, rose in
revolt. Sandrokottos, who headed this movement, having collected a band
of insurgents, overthrew the existing government, expelled the remainder
of the Greek garrison, and finally installed himself in the sovereignty
of the Panjâb and of all the lower valley of the Indus. The insurgents,
whom he led to victory, are called by Justin _robbers_; but we must
not thence infer that he was a bandit leader, who, by taking advantage
of an opportune crisis, rose to power by the help of desperadoes whose
crimes had banished them from society. His adherents were, in point
of fact, chiefly the _Arattâ_ of the Panjâb, who were always called
_robbers_, and are denounced as such in the _Mahâbhârata_. The Kathaians,
who so stoutly resisted Alexander at Sangala, were included under this
designation, which means _Kingless_, and implies that they lived under
republican institutions. The stories told by the same author of the lion
which licked the sweat from Sandrokottos when asleep, and of the elephant
which volunteered to carry him into battle, and thus gave presages of his
future greatness, reflect the true spirit of oriental romance, and were
no doubt derived from native traditions which somehow found their way to
the west. They remind one of Joseph’s dreams, in which he saw the sheaves
and then the heavenly bodies falling down in obeisance before him.

Sandrokottos while in Magadha had seen that the king was held in such
odium and contempt by his subjects that, as Plutarch tells us, he
used often afterwards to speak of the ease with which Alexander might
have possessed himself of the whole country. He accordingly had no
sooner settled the affairs of the Panjâb than he prepared to invade
the dominions of his former master. The success which he anticipated
followed his arms. He overthrew with ease the unpopular despot, and
having received the submission of Magadha, extended his conquests far
beyond its eastern limits. He was thus able to combine into one great
empire the regions both of the Indus and the Ganges. He established the
seat of government at Palibothra, the capital of Magadha, a great city
advantageously situated at the confluence of the Erannoboas or Sôn with
the Ganges, and on the site now occupied by Pâtnâ, beneath which, at a
depth of from 12 to 15 feet, its ruins lie entombed.

While Sandrokottos was thus, with a genius like that of Akbar, welding
the states of India into unity, the successors of Alexander were too
much engrossed with their internecine wars to concern themselves with
his doings; but when they had for a time composed their differences,
Seleukos Nikator, the king of Syria, advanced eastward to recover the
Indian conquests of Alexander. The date of this expedition cannot be
fixed with precision, but it was probably made in the year 305 B.C.,
or about ten years after Sandrokottos had ascended the throne of
Palibothra. The records of it are unfortunately lost. It seems that he
was allowed to cross the Indus without opposition, but it is not known
how far he advanced into the country. We do not even know whether the
hostile armies came into actual conflict, but we may conjecture that
the sight of the vast and formidable host brought into the field by his
antagonist, who was an experienced commander of the stamp of Pôros,
led him to think discretion would be the better part of valour, and to
prefer entering into negotiations rather than to risk the chance of
defeat. At all events he concluded a treaty by which he not only resigned
his claims to the Greek conquests beyond the Indus, but ceded to the
Indian king considerable districts extending westward from that river
to the southern slopes of the Hindu-Kush. The compact was cemented by a
matrimonial alliance, the Syrian king giving his daughter in marriage to
Sandrokottos. Friendly relations seem to have subsisted ever afterwards
between the two sovereigns.

Seleukos sent as his ambassador to the Indian court his friend and
companion Megasthenes. This was a fortunate choice, for while there
Megasthenes, who was an acute observer and of an inquisitive turn of
mind, composed a work on India, in which he gave a faithful account
of what fell under his own observation, as well as of what facts he
could gather from trustworthy reports. That work, now lost, was the
source whence Strabo and other classical authors derived most of their
information regarding India. In such of the fragments thus preserved as
relate to Sandrokottos, we find an admirable picture of his system of
government, of his personal habits, and of the regulations of his court.
He did not live to old age, but died in 291 B.C., before he had reached
his fifty-fifth year.

When we turn to the Buddhist accounts of Chandragupta we find them tally
so closely in all main points with the Greek accounts of Sandrokottos
that no doubt can be left that the two names which are so nearly similar
denote but one and the same person. As he was the founder of the dynasty
to which the pious Aśôka, the Constantine of the Buddhist faith,
belonged, the Buddhist writers assign to him an honourable pedigree which
connected him even with the royal house whence Buddha himself sprang.
His father, they tell us, reigned over a small kingdom situated in a
valley among the Himalayas, and called Maurya, from the great number of
its peacocks (_Mayûra_). He was killed in resisting an invasion of his
enemies, but his queen escaped to Pataliputra, where she gave birth to a
son whom she exposed in the neighbourhood of a cattle shed. The child,
like Oedipûs, was found by a shepherd, who called him _Chandragupta_
(_Moon protected_), and charged himself with his maintenance. There
resided at that time in Pataliputra a Brahman who had come from the
great city of Taxila in the Panjâb, and whose name was Chânakya. To him
King Dhanananda had given an insult which could be expiated by nothing
short of his destruction. While the Brahman was casting about for means
whereby he could clear his score with the offender, Chandragupta, now a
boy, fell under his cognisance. Having discovered that he was of royal
descent, and foreseen from his conduct among his companions that in after
life he would be capable of great achievements, he bought him from the
shepherd and gave him a training adapted to make him a fit instrument for
the execution of his designs. When Chandragupta had grown up, his master
put under his command a body of troops kept secretly in his pay, and
attempted a rebellion, which proved abortive. Chandragupta fled to the
desert, but having ere long collected a fresh force he invaded Magadha
from the border, that is, from the side of the Panjâb. He captured city
after city till the capital itself fell into his hands. The king was
slain, and Chandragupta ascended the vacant throne.

Another form of the native tradition assigns his paternity to Dhanananda
(the last of the eight Nanda kings, who ruled in succession over
Magadha), though not by his queen, but by a woman of low caste—a sudra
called Mura. The Brahmans made this base-born scion of the royal house
the instrument of their rebellious designs, and with the help of a
northern prince, to whom they offered an accession of territory, raised
him to the throne while he was yet a youth, and put Nanda and his eight
sons to death. They did not make good their promise to their ally, but
rid themselves of him by assassination. His son Malayaketu marched with
a large army, in which were Yavanas (Greeks), to revenge his death, but
returned without success to his country. It has been supposed that this
expedition may have been the same as that of Seleukos.

The Nanda dynasty which was supplanted by the Mauryan in 315 B.C. had
succeeded to that of Sisunâga in 370 B.C. Its last member, whom the
Greeks call _Xandrames_ and Curtius _Agrammes_, is variously named in
native writings _Dhanananda_, _Nanda Mahâpadma_, and _Hiranyagupta_.
Xandramas (of which Agrammes seems to be a distorted form) transliterates
the Sanskrit _Chandramas_, which means _Moon-god_. A Hindu play—the Mudrâ
Râkshasa—produced early in the Mahommedan period refers to the revolution
by which Chânakya raised Chandragupta to power, but is of no historical
value. Chandragupta was succeeded by his son Vindusâra, who is called by
Strabo _Allitrochades_, and by Athênaios (xiv. 67),[419] _Amitrochates_,
a form which transliterates the Sanskrit _Amitraghâta_, a title by which
he was frequently designated, and which means _enemy-slayer_. He was
succeeded by his son Aśôka in 270 B.C.

SELEUKOS NIKATOR, one of Alexander’s great generals who made himself
king of Syria, was the son of Antiochos, an officer of high rank in the
service of King Philip. Seleukos was distinguished for his great personal
strength and courage, and when he accompanied Alexander into Asia
held a command in the companion cavalry. He crossed the Hydaspês with
Alexander himself, and took an important part in the great battle which
followed. At Sousa he was rewarded for his eminent services with the
hand of Apama, an Asiatic princess, the daughter of Spitamenes. In the
dissensions which broke out after Alexander’s death among his generals,
Seleukos sided with Perdikkas and the cavalry against Meleager and the
infantry, and was in consequence made Chiliarch of the companions, one
of the highest offices, and one which Perdikkas himself had previously
held. He accompanied Perdikkas into Egypt, but he there put himself at
the head of the mutineers by whom his patron was assassinated. At the
second partition of the provinces made at Triparadeisos 321 B.C. he
obtained the Babylonian satrapy, and established himself in Babylon. He
assisted Antigonos in the war against Eumenes, but afterwards contended
against him in alliance with Ptolemy. During an interval when hostilities
were suspended between himself and his rivals, Seleukos undertook an
expedition into India to regain the conquests of Alexander over which
Sandrokottos had established his authority. We do not know how far he
advanced into India, but he probably again crossed the Hydaspês, which he
had crossed twenty years before along with the great conqueror himself.
The result of the expedition was a treaty by which Seleukos ceded to
Sandrokottos his Indian provinces and the regions west of the Indus as
far as the range of Paropanisos, in exchange for 500 elephants, and a
marriage alliance by which the daughter of Seleukos became the bride of
the Indian king. Immediately either before or after this expedition,
Seleukos in 306 B.C., following the examples of Antigonos and Ptolemy,
formally assumed the regal title and diadem. In the battle of Ipsos 301
B.C., where Seleukos, in league with Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Kassander,
fought against Antigonos, the cavalry and elephants which the Syrian king
brought into the field were mainly instrumental in securing the victory.
The empire of Seleukos then became the most extensive of those which had
been formed out of Alexander’s conquests, extending from Phoenicia to
Baktria and Sogdiana. After being engaged in other wars, Seleukos crossed
the Hellespont with an army with a view to seize the crown of Macedonia,
but was assassinated at Lysimachia by Ptolemy Keraunos in the beginning
of the year 280 B.C. in the thirty-second year of his reign.

SISIKOTTOS was an Indian who had deserted his countrymen and taken
service under Bessos. After the conquest of Baktria he took service under
Alexander, who, no doubt, obtained from him much valuable information
regarding India and its affairs. After the capture of the rock Aornos,
Sisikottos was left in command of the garrison which Alexander
established there. He afterwards sent messengers to inform Alexander that
the Assakênians had revolted from him.

SITALKES was a leader of Thracian light-armed troops in Alexander’s
service. He was left under Parmenion in Media, and on Alexander’s return
from India was put to death for misgovernment.

SOLINUS was the author of a compendium of geography extracted mostly from
the _Natural History_ of Pliny. He lived about the middle of the third
century A.D.

SÔPHEITES or SÔPEITHÊS was, according to Curtius and Diodôros, king of
a territory situated to the west of the Hyphasis. According to Arrian
his dominions (or those of a king of the same name) lay along the banks
of the Hydaspês, and, as we learn from Strabo, embraced the salt range
of mountains called _Oromenus_ by Pliny. With regard to the name,
Lassen took it to represent the Sanskrit _Aśvapati_, “lord of horses.”
M. Sylvain Lévi, however, thinks this a fanciful identification of the
two names, erring against Greek and against Sanskrit. He then says: “A
drachma of Indian silver coined towards the end of the fourth century
B.C. in imitation of Greek money bears the inscription ΣΩΦΥΤΟΥ. The
form Sophytes is, then, the only one to be considered. The laws of
transcription established by numerous examples give the equivalents: ω
= _ô_ or _aw_, φ = _bh_. Sophytes then leads back to Sobûtha or Saubh.
The Gana-pâtha knows precisely a country of the name of Saubhûta. Pânini
(IV. ii. 67 _sqq._) shows by examples how local names are formed.... The
name of Sâmkala, etc., is formed in this way. M. Bhandarkar has already
recognised in the city of Sâmkala the famous fortress of Sangala, ... but
the Indian _savant_ has not overcome the old prejudice which, regardless
of the laws of transcription, identifies Sangala with Śâkala, capital of
the Madras (Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ i. 801).... The identification firmly
fixed of Sophytes and Saubhûta dissipates henceforward all doubts. Among
the names classed in the Gana-pâtha under the rubric Sâmkala, etc., is
found _Subhûta_, which gives, in virtue of the rule stated, _Saubhûta_ as
the name of a locality. Everything concurs in proving the correctness of
our identification.”

SPHINÊS.—_See_ Kalânos.

SPITAKES is supposed to be the same as the Pittakos mentioned by
Polyainos. He was slain fighting on the side of Pôros in the battle of
the Hydaspês. His territories lay near that river.

SPITAMENES, the most formidable and persistent of all the chiefs who
opposed Alexander in the regions of the Oxus and Jaxartes.

STASANÔR, a distinguished officer in Alexander’s army, was a native of
Soloi in Cyprus. For services rendered during the Baktrian campaign he
was appointed satrap of Areia and afterwards of Drangiana. In the first
partition of the provinces after Alexander’s death he was confirmed in
his satrapy; but in the partition made at Triparadeisos he received the
more important government of Baktria and Sogdiana. He ruled his subjects
with justice and moderation. He is not heard of in history after 316 B.C.

STATEIRA or BARSINÊ, the daughter of Darius and wife of Alexander,
was murdered after his death by Roxana with the consent of the regent
Perdikkas.

STEPHANOS of Byzantium was the author of a geographical lexicon, in which
the names of some Indian towns occur. His date is uncertain, but may be
referred to the sixth or seventh century of our aera.

STRABO, the great geographer, was a native of Amasea in Pontos. He lived
in the reign of Augustus, and during the first five years at least of
Tiberius.

SIBYRTIOS was appointed by Alexander on returning from India satrap of
Karmania, and afterwards of Arachosia and Gedrosia in succession to
Thoas. He was confirmed in his government in accordance with the first
and the second partition of the provinces. He incurred the displeasure of
Eumenes, and thereby secured the patronage of Antigonos. Megasthenes was
his friend, and at one time resided with him.

TAURÔN was an officer in Alexander’s army, who distinguished himself in
the battle with Pôros.

TAXILÊS, whose personal name was Omphis, ruled a fertile territory
between the Indus and Hydaspês, which had for its capital the great and
flourishing city of Taxila. He was at feud with his neighbour, King
Pôros, and this probably determined him to send an embassy to Alexander
while he was yet in Baktria, in the hopes of forming an alliance with
him which would enable him to crush his powerful rival. He waited on
Alexander before he had crossed the Indus, and when he reached Taxila
entertained him and his army with the most liberal hospitality. After
the defeat and submission of Pôros, Alexander effected a reconciliation
between the two princes. Taxilês gave all the assistance in his power
to help forward the construction and equipment of the fleet by which
Alexander intended to convey a portion of his troops down the Hydaspês
and the Indus to the ocean. For this service he was rewarded with an
accession of territory. After the death of Alexander he was allowed
to retain his power, which had been increased after the murder of the
satrap Philip. Subsequently to the year 321 B.C. Eudêmos seems to have
exercised supreme authority in his province. We know nothing regarding
Taxilês after that date. M. Sylvain Lévi shows that the personal name of
Taxilês is incorrectly given by Diodôros as _Mophis_ instead of _Omphis_,
which is the form in Curtius. He gives the reason thus: “The study of
the words transcribed from the Indian languages into Greek proves that
the ο corresponds to an _â_ or to an _o_ in Sanskrit, while the φ is the
regular transcription of _bh_. Mophis gives therefore a Sanskrit _Mobhi_
or _Mâbhi_; neither the one nor the other is met with in the texts; they
are both strangers to the language as well as to the history of India.
But _Âmbhi_ presents itself in the Gana-pâtha, a genuine appendix to the
_Grammar_ of Pânini.” He then shows that _Âmbhi_ has been obtained from
_Ambhas_ in accordance with an established rule, and thus proceeds: “A
double conclusion unfolds itself—1st, The dynasty which was reigning at
Takśaśilâ at the time of the Greek invasion was a family of Kshatriya
descended from Ambhas, and designated by the patronymic Âmbhi; 2nd, The
dynasty Âmbhi has disappeared with the Greek rule soon after the death of
Alexander. The revolt of India has swept away without doubt these allies
of the stranger. Before the end of the fourth century B.C., Chandragupta,
founder of the Mauryan dynasty and king of the Prasyas, joined to his
dominions the kingdoms of the basin of the Indus. Takśaśilâ became the
residence of a Mauryan governor. The part played by the Âmbhi does not
appear to have been considerable enough to preserve their memory long;
the mention of them in the _Gana-pâtha_ is the only known testimony to
their existence. The _Gana-pâtha_, and, at the same time, the _Grammar_
of Pânini, which is inseparable from it, are then _very probably
contemporary with the Macedonian invasion_.” He adds as a footnote, “The
mention of the Yavanas (Greeks) and of the Yavanâni (Greek writing)
excludes the hypothesis of priority” (See _Journal Asiatique_ for 1890,
pp. 234-236).

TERIOLTES, called also TYRIASPES, was appointed satrap of the
Paropamisadai, but was deposed, or, according to Curtius, put to death
for misgovernment. His satrapy Alexander then gave to his father-in-law
Oxyartes.

TLEPOLEMOS was appointed satrap of Karmania by Alexander on his return
from India.

TYRIASPES.—_See_ Terioltes.

VINDUSÂRA, the son of Sandrokottos.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

XANDRAMES, king of Magadha.—_See_ Sandrokottos.




FOOTNOTES


[1] With the exception of Alexander, all the great conquerors who have
crossed the Indus to invade India have sprung from provinces towards
Tartary and Northern Persia.

[2] According to Plutarch, seventy Asiatic cities at the least owed their
origin to Alexander. Of those, forty can still be traced. Grote thinks
the number is probably exaggerated, and disparages their importance.

[3] In saying this, I do not forget that the Graeco-Baktrian kings
at one time extended their sway in India even far beyond the parts
conquered by Alexander; but this cannot be regarded as having resulted
from his invasion. It might have equally happened had his invasion
been as mythical as the Indian expeditions of Dionysos and Heraklês.
Nor do I by any means overlook the effects produced by Greek ideas on
the Indian mind—effects which can be traced in a variety of spheres,
such as religion, poetry, philosophy, science, architecture, and the
plastic arts. On this subject Professor A. Weber read a very learned
paper, entitled “Die Griechen in Indien,” before the Prussian Academy of
Sciences in July 1890. It is a paper which well deserves to be translated
into our language. Scholars now rather incline to believe that, whatever
may be the exact degree of the indebtedness of India to Greece, the
ancient civilization of India was much less original and self-contained
than it was at one time supposed to be.

[4] Patroklês, who held an important command in the East under Seleukos
Nikatôr and his son Antiochos I., stated, in a work (now lost) which
included a description of India, that while the army of Alexander took
but a very hasty view of everything (in India), Alexander himself took
a more exact one, causing the whole country to be described by men well
acquainted with it. This description, Patroklês says, was put into his
hands by Xenoklês the Treasurer. On this subject Humboldt thus writes:
“The Macedonian campaign, which opened so large and beautiful a portion
of the earth to the influence of one sole highly-gifted race, may
therefore certainly be regarded in the strictest sense of the word as a
_scientific_ expedition, and, moreover, as the first in which a conqueror
had surrounded himself with men learned in all departments of science, as
naturalists, geometricians, historians, philosophers, and artists.”

[5] The editors of _Alexander in India_, however, say that this
rhetorician must have flourished early under Claudius, who reigned from
A.D. 41 to 54. They add that the Latin of Curtius agrees well with this
view, which would place him between Velleius and Petronius.

[6] The author of the _Periplous_ of the Erythraian Sea also conducts
Alexander to the Ganges. So too does Lucan—_Pharsalia_, x. 33.

[7] Sainte-Croix and Professor Freeman both express strong doubts of the
authenticity of Alexander’s letters quoted by several writers.

[8] In Persian, _Kshatrapa_.

[9] The Macedonian line in this part of the field being broken, some
of the Indians and of the Persian cavalry burst through the gap and
fought their way to the enemy’s baggage, where a desperate conflict
ensued.—_Arrian_, iii. 14.

[10] General Chesney, commenting lately on these numbers, remarks that
“numbers without discipline are, after a certain point, worse than
useless, the men only get in each others’ way. This was especially
the case in the battles of old times fought at close quarters.” “The
biographers of Sir Charles Napier,” he continues, “have made a great
point of the circumstance that at the battle of Meani the British force
of less than 3000 men was opposed by 40,000 of the enemy who fought
desperately for several hours. Now, the whole British loss in killed
and wounded was under 300, so that, assuming every wound to have been
inflicted by a separate sword or bullet, it follows that out of the
40,000 desperate fighters, 39,700 contributed nothing to the fighting.”
In another passage he points out that an ancient battle was in some
respects a much more formidable thing than a modern one. In the battle
of old days the absence of noise, except the words of command, the
tramp of men, and the clashing of armour, above all the closeness of
one’s adversary, must have been of a kind to try the nerves much more
than the rattle of musketry, the crashing of shells, and the thunder of
the artillery in a modern battle. What we shall never get back to is
hand-to-hand fighting at close quarters. It was this that made a battle
so decisive in olden days, and caused the tremendous slaughter that used
to be the fate of the beaten side. An ancient battle was really a very
short affair. After the marshalling of the troops and the preliminary
skirmishing of the cavalry and the archery practice of the light troops,
in which a good deal of time would be taken up, the business must have
been decided in a very few minutes when once the infantry actually
engaged. The fact is that when two bodies of men meet with sword or
spear, a prolonged contest is from the nature of the case impossible. In
modern warfare when a battle is lost, a large part of the defeated army
is already at a distance and gets off unharmed. But there was no escape
for the man in armour, and when he turned his back his shield was no
defence.

[11] “Against Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Alexander had no
mission of vengeance; he might rather call on them to help him against
the common foe.... If the gods of Attica had been wronged and insulted
(by the Persians) so had the gods of Memphis and Babylon”.—Prof. Freeman,
_Historical Essays_, ii. pp. 202, 203.

[12] “From this unhappy time all the worst failings of Alexander become
more strongly developed.... Impetuosity and self-exaltation now grew upon
him till he could bear neither restraint nor opposition.”—Prof. Freeman,
_Historical Essays_, ii. p. 206.

[13] The Mêdos is now the _Polvar_ and the Araxês the Bund-Amir.

[14] Kinneir places the Ouxian passes to the north-west of _Bebehan_.

[15] The narrow defile near _Kaleh Safed_ (the white fort), some fifty
miles to the north-west of Shiraz.

[16] Curzon thinks that Pasargadai lay to the north-east of Persepolis at
a distance of some thirty miles. For a discussion regarding their ruins
and the tomb of Cyrus see his great work on Persia just published, vol.
ii. pp. 70-92.

[17] The release of these enormous treasure-hoards produced such effects
as resulted in recent times from the discoveries of gold in California
and Australia. The prices of all commodities were greatly enhanced, and
prosperity advanced by leaps and bounds.

[18] Perhaps Damaghan, but its position is very uncertain. According to
Apollodoros it was 1260 stadia beyond the Kaspian Gates, but according to
Pliny only 133 miles. See Curzon’s _Persia_, i. p. 287.

[19] _Sari_, according to Droysen.

[20] “Edicto vetuit ne quis se praeter Apellem Pingeret, aut alius
Lysippo duceret aera Fortis Alexandri vultum simulantia.”—_Horace._

[21] Pausanias, however, says that it was Philadelphos who brought the
body to Alexandreia.

[22] See Note L_l_ in Appendix.

[23] This name, transliterates the Sanskrit _Subhagasena_, which was not
a personal name but an official title. See Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ II. p. 273.

[24] The Companion Cavalry, called sometimes simply the Companions, were
the Royal Horse Guards, a body which at the beginning of the campaign
consisted of 1500 men, all scions of the noblest families of Macedonia
and Thessaly. In the course of the war their numbers were augmented
perhaps to 5000, as Mützell conjectures.

[25] The Parai-tak-ênai possessed part of the mountainous country between
the upper courses of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. They were perhaps one in
race with the Takkas of India, who had a great and flourishing capital,
Taxila (_i.e._ Takkasila, the Rock of the Takkas), situated between the
Indus and Upper Hydaspes. The first part of their name _Parai_ represents
perhaps the Sanskrit _parvata_, a hill, or _pahâr_ (a hill) of the common
dialect. A tribe of the same name occupied a mountainous part of Media
(Herod. i. 101), and another is located by Isidoros of Charax between
Drangiana and Arachosia. Another form of the name is Paraitakai (Arrian,
iii. 19; Strabo, xvi. 736; Stephanos Byz.)

[26] The spring of 327 B.C.

[27] Kaukasos here denotes the lofty mountain range, now called the
Central Hindu Kush, which forms the northern frontier of Kâbul. Its
native designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly
transliterates it, Paropanisos. Till Alexander’s time these mountains
were altogether unknown to the Greeks. The officers of his army who
wrote accounts of his Asiatic expedition sometimes considered them to
be a continuation of the Tauros, and sometimes of the Kaukasos. Arrian,
who regarded them as an extension of the former range, says that the
Macedonian soldiers called them Kaukasos to flatter Alexander, as if,
when he had crossed them to enter Baktria, he had carried his victorious
arms beyond Kaukasos. The Greeks of those days, it must be observed,
had no definite knowledge of the mountains to which that name was
properly applicable, but vaguely conceived them to be the loftiest and
the remotest to be found in the eastern parts of the world. The pass by
which Alexander recrossed the Paropanisos was most probably the Kushan or
Ghorbund Pass.

[28] See Note A, Alexandreia under Kaukasos.

[29] The tribes collectively designated Parapamisadai were, according to
Ptolemy (who calls them Paropanisadai), the five following:—The Bôlitai,
Aristophyloi, Parsioi, Parsyêtai, and Ambautai. They lived along the
spurs of the Hindu Kush, chiefly along its southern and eastern sides.
They thus occupied the whole of Kabulistân, and part of Afghânistân.
The Bôlitai were probably the people of Kâbul, a city which, no doubt,
represents that which Ptolemy calls Karoura (Kaboura?) or Ortospana.

[30] The colonies which Alexander planted in the countries he overran
were of a military character, designed to secure the permanence,
cohesion, and ultimate unification of his conquests. The war-worn
soldiers whom he made colonists were condemned to perpetual exile, as may
be gathered from the fate which overtook the colonists who of their own
accord left Baktra and attempted to return to Greece. They were treated
as deserters, and were all put to death.

[31] This is the Kâbul river, called otherwise by the classical writers
the _Kôphês_, except by Ptolemy, who calls it the _Kôa_. Its name in
Sanskrit is the _Kubhâ_.

[32] See Note B.

[33] Taxilês. His distinctive name, as we learn from Curtius (viii.
14), was Omphis. Diodôros (xvii. 86) less accurately calls him Môphis,
and says that Alexander changed his name to Taxiles. This is, however,
a mistake, for Taxiles was a territorial title which each sovereign of
Taxila assumed on his accession to power. Indian princes are generally
designated in the classics by their territorial or dynastic titles.
The father of Omphis died about the time Alexander was making his
preparations to invade India.

[34] Kleitos had been killed before the army left Baktra, but his brigade
continued to bear his name even after his death.

[35] Peukelaôtis designated both a district and its capital city. The
name is a transliteration of Pukkalaoti, which is the Pali form of the
Sanskrit Pushkalavati, the name by which the ancient capital of Gândhâra
was known. General Cunningham has fixed its position at the two large
towns of Parang and Chârsada, which form part of Hashtnagar, or _eight
cities_, that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the Landaï
or lower Swât river. The position thus indicated is nearly seventeen
miles to the north-west of Peshâwar. The city was in early times a great
emporium of commerce. Ptolemy, who with the author of the Periplûs of
the Erythraian sea, calls it Proklaïs, has correctly located it on the
eastern bank of the river of Souastênê, _i.e._ the river of Swât. Wilson,
however, and Abbott take Pekhely (or Pakholi) in the neighbourhood of
Peshâwar to be the modern representative of the old Gândhârian capital
(_v._ Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 49-51).

[36] The route assigned to this division lay along the course of the
Kâbul river and through the Khaiber Pass to Peukelaôtis, which was
situated where, or near where, Hasht-nagar on the river Landaï now stands.

[37] This name is perhaps a transliteration of the Sanskrit _Sanjaya_,
which means _victor_. A Shinwâri tribe called _Sangu_ is found inhabiting
a part of the Nangrihar district west of the Khaiber Pass.

[38] The hypaspists, so called because they carried the round shield
called _aspis_, while the hoplites carried the oblong shield called
_hoplon_, formed a body of about 3000 men at the outset of the war, but
were perhaps augmented to double that number during its progress. They
were not so heavily armed as the hoplites, and were therefore more rapid
in their movements. The foot companions were another distinguished corps
of guards. The Agrianians, who made excellent light-armed troops, were a
Paionian people whose country adjoined the sources of the river Strymôn.

[39] Aspasioi and Assakênoi. See Note C.

[40] Strabo (xv. 697) states the reasons which led Alexander to select
the northern route to the Indus in preference to the southern. “Alexander
was informed,” he says, “that the mountainous and northern parts were the
most habitable and fertile, but that the southern part was either without
water or liable to be overflowed by rivers at one time, or entirely
burnt up at another, more fit to be the haunts of wild beasts than the
dwellings of men. He resolved therefore to master first that part of
India which had been well spoken of, considering at the same time that
the rivers which it was necessary to pass, and which flowed transversely
through the country which he proposed to attack, would be crossed with
more facility towards their sources.” The districts through which he
passed are now called Kafiristan, Chittral, Swât, and the Yusufzai
country. It is more difficult to trace in this than in any other of his
campaigns the course of his movements, and to identify with certainty
the various strongholds which he attacked. The country through which
he passed is but little known even at the present day, and, as Bunbury
remarks, a glance at the labyrinth of mountains and valleys, which occupy
the whole space in question in the best modern maps, will sufficiently
show how utterly bewildering they must have been to the officers of
Alexander, who neither used maps nor the compass, and were incapable of
the simplest geographical observations. The time occupied by Alexander in
marching from the foot of Kaukasos to the Indus was about a year. Like
Napoleon, he kept the field even in winter, though in these parts the
cold at that season is intense.

[41] Khôês. This is the first river Alexander would reach after he had
left his encampment near the junction of the Panjshîr with the Kôphên,
which appears to have been the place where he divided his army. It cannot
have been, as Lassen thought, the Kamah or Kunâr, but is rather the
stream formed by the junction of the Alishang and the Alinghar, which
joins the Kôphên on the left in the neighbourhood of Mandrour above
Jalâlâbâd. The Alinghar river, as we learn from Masson, is called also
the _Kow_. The Kôa of Ptolemy must not be confounded with the Khôês of
the text, for that author in describing the Kôa says that it receives
a tributary from the Paropanisadai, and that after being joined by
the Souastos (the river of Swât) it falls into the Indus. The Kôa is
therefore probably the Kôphên after its reception of the Kamah or Kunâr
river.

[42] Euaspla R. This name, which, so far as I know, occurs only in
Arrian, has not been satisfactorily explained. It designated, no doubt,
the river which Aristotle, Strabo, and Curtius call the Choaspes, and
which the best authorities identify with the Kamah or Kunâr, a river
which rivals the Kôphên itself in the volume of its waters and the length
of its course. It rises at the foot of the plateau of Pamîr, not far from
the sources of the Oxus, and joins the Kôphên at some distance below
Jalâlâbâd. Strabo says that the Choaspes traverses Bandobênê (Badakshan)
and Gandarîtis after having passed near the towns of Plêgêrion and
Gorydalê.

[43] The capital of this chief was probably Gorys on the Choaspes.

[44] Arigaion. This place, which was situated to the east of the
Choaspes, is perhaps now represented by Naoghi, a village in the province
of Bajore. Ritter identified it with Bajore or Bagawar, the capital of
this province. The mountains to which the inhabitants fled for refuge
may perhaps, as V. de Saint-Martin suggests, be those which Justin (xii.
7) calls Daedali, whereto he says Alexander led his troops after the
Bacchanalian revelry with which they had been indulged at Nysa. There is
no mention elsewhere of Arigaion, unless it be the “Argacum urbem” of
the _Itiner. Alex._ 105. It is taken by Schneider to be the Acadira of
Curtius.

[45] The Gouraios is the river Pañjkora, which unites with the river of
Swât to form the Landaï, a large affluent of the Kâbul river. It appears
under the name of the _Gauri_ in the sixth book of the _Mahâbhârata_,
where it is mentioned along with the Suvâstu (the Swât river) and the
Kampanâ. It owes its name to the _Ghori_, a great and wide-spread tribe,
branches of which are still to be found on the Pañjkora, and also on both
sides of the Kâbul River where it is joined by the Landaï. It formed the
boundary between the Gouraians and the Assakênians.

[46] Mazaga. See Note D.

[47] Alexander seems to have treated these mercenaries with less than his
usual generosity towards brave enemies. Plutarch reprobates his slaughter
of them as a foul blot on his military fame. The attack upon the city
after it had capitulated on terms admits of no justification.

[48] See Note E.

[49] Abisares. Arrian in a subsequent passage calls this chief King of
the Mountaineer Indians. His name shows that he ruled over Abhisâra,
that region of mountain-girt valleys, now called Hazâra, which lies
between the Indus and the upper Hydaspes. In _Hazâra_ the ancient name
of the country seems to be preserved. It has been supposed, but less
reasonably, that the district was so called from the great number of its
petty chiefs, _hazâra_ being the numeral for _a thousand_ (in Persian).
Abisares was a very powerful prince, and it is supposed with reason that
Kâshmîr was subject to his sway.

[50] Aornos. See Note F.

[51] “Heraklês,” says Herodotos (ii. 43, 44), “is one of the ancient gods
of the Egyptians, and, as they say themselves, it was 17,000 years before
the reign of Amasis, when the number of their gods was increased from
eight to twelve, of whom Heraklês was accounted one. And being desirous
of obtaining certain information from whatever source I could, I sailed
to Tyre in Phoenicia, where, as I had been informed, there was a temple
dedicated to Heraklês.” The name of the Egyptian Heraklês was Dsona or
Chôn, or, according to Pausanias, Makeris, and that of the Tyrian was
Melkart. These were more ancient than the Theban Heraklês, the son of
Zeus and Alkmênê. The Indian Heraklês, called Dorsanes, who, according
to Arrian, was the father of Pandaia, has been identified with Śiva,
but also with Balarâma, the eighth avatâr of Vishnu. Diodôros (ii. 39)
ascribes to him the building of the walls and of the palace of Palibothra
(now Pâtnâ). Arrian in the second book of this work (c. 16) distinguishes
the Tyrian Heraklês from the Egyptian and Argive or Theban. The latter,
he says, lived about the time of Oidipous, son of Laios.

[52] The Olympic stadium, which was the chief Greek measure for itinerary
distances, was equal to 600 Greek feet, 625 Roman feet, and 606 feet 9
inches English. The stadium of this length was the only one in use before
the third century of our aera.

[53] The site of Orobatis must be sought for in the district west of
Peukelaôtis, through which Hêphaistiôn advanced on his way to the Indus.
The position and name of Arabutt, a village in this locality where ruins
exist, plainly show its identity with the Orobatis of the text. It is
situated on the left bank of the Landaï, and is near Naoshera. It is
probably the Oroppa of the Ravenna geographer.

[54] Nikanor was succeeded in this office by Philippos, who was placed in
command of the garrison of Peukelaôtis.

[55] Peukelaôtis, as has been stated, stood on the Landaï at a distance
of seventeen miles north-west from Peshâwar. Alexander after the fall of
Bazira moved westwards toward that river, judging it expedient before
attacking the Rock to reduce all the yet unconquered region west of the
Indus. He took Peukelaôtis, and then directed his march eastward till he
approached the embouchure of the Kôphên, whence turning northwards he
advanced up the right bank of the Indus till he reached Embolima, about
eight miles distant from Aornos, and as high up the river as an army
could go.

[56] Kôphaios, to judge from his name and from what is here stated,
must have been the ruler of the valley of the lower Kôphên or Kâbul
river. Hence it is unlikely, as some have supposed, that the dominions
of Taxilês lay partly in the country west of the Indus. I find nothing
anywhere in the classical writers lending countenance to such a
supposition. The name of Assagetes is probably a transliteration into
Greek of the Sanskrit _Aśvajit_, “gaining horses by conquest.”

[57] Ritter taking Embolima to be a word of Greek origin, equivalent
in meaning to ἐκβολή, “the mouth of a river,” thought that this place
lay opposite to Attak, in the angle of land where the Kôphên discharges
into the Indus, and was thus led to identify Aornos with the hill in
that locality on which the fort of Raja Hodi stands. Embolima appears,
however, to be rather a combination of two native names, Amb and Balimah.
Amb is the name of a fort, now in ruins, from which runs the ordinary
path up to the summit of Mahâban. It crowns a position of remarkable
strength, which faces Derbend, a small town on the opposite side of the
Indus. Not far westward from this fort, and on the same spur of the
Mahâban, there is another fort also in ruins, which preserves to this
day in the tradition of the inhabitants the name of Balimah. It is in
accordance with Indian custom thus to combine into one the names of two
neighbouring places.

[58] See Note F, Aornos.

[59] “All this account,” says Abbott, who takes Aornos to be Mount
Mahâban, “will answer well for the Mahâban, which is a mountain-table
about five miles in length at summit, scarped on the east by tremendous
precipices from which descends one large spur down upon the Indus between
Sitana and Amb. The mountain spur being comparatively easy of ascent
would not probably be contested by the natives, who would concentrate
their power to oppose the Macedonians as they climbed the precipitous
fall of the main summit. The great extent of the mountain, covered as it
is with pine forest, would enable Ptolemy, under the guidance of natives,
to gain any distant point of the summit without observation.”

[60] His name seems a transliteration of _Śaśigupta_, “protected by the
moon.”

[61] That is the eastern part of their country. He had already reduced
the western and the capital Massaga.

[62] On descending the Mahâban by its northern or western spurs,
Alexander would have found himself in the valleys of Chumla and Buner.
The fugitives from the rock would no doubt flee for shelter to these
valleys or the mountains by which they were enclosed. Dyrta probably lay
to the north of Mahâban, near the point where the Indus issues from the
mountains. Court’s opinion that Dyrta was a place so far remote from
the rock as Dir, which lies beyond the Pañjkora river, seems altogether
improbable. Yet it is adopted by Lassen, though the regions in which Dir
is situated had already been subdued.

[63] “This road,” says Abbott, “was probably the path leading amongst
precipices above and along the torrent of the Burindu, a river which,
after watering the valleys of Buner and Chumla, flows into the Indus
above Amb. The path even now is very difficult. This would have brought
Alexander back to Amb.” On this route probably lay the pass which the
chief called Eryx by Curtius and Aphrikes by Diodôros attempted, but
unsuccessfully, to defend against Alexander. The river Burindu above
mentioned may be identified with the _Parenos_ of the Greek writers.

[64] In doing so they had of course to cross over to the left bank of the
Indus.

[65] Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 14) has described the mode of elephant
hunting practised by the Indians. It is still in vogue.

[66] Abbott points out that at Amb large quantities of drift timber are
yearly arrested at an eddy near Derbend. It is probable, he thinks, that
the pine forest in those days descended lower down the river than it
does at present. At one time forests of fine sisoo, mulberry, and willow
timber grew along both banks of the Indus at that part of its course.

[67] The bridge in all probability spanned the Indus near Attak, which
stands on a steep and lofty part of the left bank about two miles below
the junction of the Kâbul and Indus. The width of the latter river at
the fortress of Attak is, according to Lieutenant Wood who measured it,
286 yards. A little lower down where the channel is usually spanned by
a bridge of boats it varies, as stated by Vigne, from 80 to 120 yards.
According to Cunningham, the bridge was made higher up the river, at
Ohind. From Alexander’s campaign north of the Kâbul river, General
Chesney (in a lecture at Simla) hints that a _moral_ may be drawn:—“We
have been accustomed,” he says, “to consider the country north of the
Kâbul river as virtually impregnable. The march of Alexander’s army is a
practical proof to the contrary, and although he was not burdened with
artillery, and had apparently only mule transport, yet the Greek soldiers
all marched in heavy armour, which must have added greatly to the
difficulties of warfare among those mountains. There is an obvious moral
to be drawn by us from these incidents.”

[68] See Note G, Nysa.

[69] Mount Tmôlos, as we learn from Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny, was famous
for its vines. It was therefore considered to be a favourite haunt of the
wine-god.

[70] As the Greek φ represents the _bh_ of Sanskrit, his name would be
_Akubhi_.

[71] Ivy abounds, however, in Hazâra as well as in some other parts of
India.

[72] His other names were Bacchos, Iacchos, Lyaios, Lênaios, Evios,
Bromios, and among the Romans Liber also.

[73] Arrian writes to the same effect in his _Indika_, c. 5: “When
the Greeks noticed a cave in the dominions of the Paropamisadai, they
asserted that it was the cave of Promêtheus the Titan, in which he had
been suspended for stealing the fire.” At the distance of thirty-four
miles from Birikot, a place near the river Swât, is Daityapûr, now called
Daiti-Kalli, said to have been built by one of the Daityas, _i.e._
_enemies of the gods_, such as were the Titans of the Greeks. In the hill
adjacent is a vast cavern which, as Abbott has suggested, the companions
of Alexander may have taken to be the cave frequented by the eagle which
preyed upon the vitals of Prometheus the Titan. At Bamiân, which lies
on one of the routes from Kâbul to Baktria, there are some very notable
caves, one of which, some think, must have been that which the Greeks
took to be the cave of Promêtheus. But Alexander does not appear to have
selected the Bamiân route either in crossing or recrossing the Kaukasos.
The mountains of the real Kaukasos were the loftiest known to the Greeks
before Alexander’s time, and hence to have crossed them was regarded as a
transcendent achievement.

[74] Arrian, like other ancient writers, supposed that the Indus had
its sources in those mountains from which it emerges into the plains
some sixty miles above Attak. It is now known that it rises in Tibet
on a lofty Himalayan peak, Mount Kailâsa, famous in Hindu fable as the
residence of Śiva and the Paradise of Kuvera, and that before it issues
into the plains it has nearly run the half of its course of about 1800
miles. The number of its mouths has varied from time to time. Ptolemy,
the geographer, gives it seven.

[75] Pâtâla in Sanskrit mythology denotes _the underworld_—the abode of
snakes and demons—to which the sun at the close of day seems to descend.
It was, therefore, Ritter says, the name applied by the Brahmans to all
the provinces in India that lay towards sunset. Cunningham, however,
suggests that Pâtali, a Sanskrit word meaning _the trumpet-flower_
(_bignonia suaveolens_) may have given its name to the Delta “in
allusion,” he says, “to the ‘trumpet’ shape of the province included
between the eastern and western branches of the mouth of the Indus, as
the two branches as they approach the sea curve outwards like the mouth
of a trumpet.” But could the idea of such a resemblance have occurred to
the minds of the Indians unless maps were in use among them? For a better
etymology see Note U. It has been conclusively proved that Haidarâbâd is
the modern representative of the ancient Pâtâla.

[76] The Indus after receiving the united streams of the great Panjâb
rivers is increased in breadth from 600 to 2000 feet. Its breadth is
therefore grossly exaggerated here unless the extent to which its
inundations spread beyond its banks enters into the account.

[77] See Note H.

[78] The Afghans and Rajputs are still noted for their great stature.

[79] The Greek geographers derived the name of the Aethiopians from αἴθω,
_I burn_, and ὦψ, _the visage_, and applied it to all the sun-burnt,
dark-complexioned races south of Egypt. As the Aethiopic language is,
however, purely Semitic, the name, if indigenous, must also be Semitic,
since, as Salt states, the Abyssinians to this day call themselves
Itiopjawan. Herodotus (vii. 70) speaks of Asiatic Aethiopians. These
served in the army which Darius led into Greece, and were marshalled with
the Indians, and did not at all differ from the others in appearance, but
only in their language and in their hair, which was straight, while that
of the Aethiopians of Libya (Africa) was woolly.

[80] The Persians were originally the inhabitants of that poor and
insignificant province called Persis, which was included between the
Persian Gulf in the south and Mêdia in the north, and which stretched
eastward from Susiana (Elam) to the deserts of Karmania. The great empire
won by their arms, extended from the Mediterranean to the Jaxartes and
Indus. Xenophon says that the Persians in early times led a life of
penury and hard toil, as they inhabited a rugged country which they
cultivated with their own hands (_Kyrop._ vii. 5, 67).

[81] Cyrus is said to have perished in this expedition against the
Skythians, who lived beyond the Jaxartes, and were led by Queen Tomyris.
The account of this expedition, given by Herodotos in the closing
chapters of his first book, is examined at length by Duncker in the sixth
volume of his _History of Antiquity_, pp. 112-124. Xenophon represents
Cyrus as dying in peace at an advanced age.

[82] Called the _Indika_, written in the Ionic dialect, and based chiefly
on the works (now lost) of Megasthenes and Nearchos.

[83] The Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, in contrast to the interior sea
or Mediterranean.

[84] By the Indian Ocean (called immediately afterwards the Great Sea) is
meant here the Bay of Bengal and the ocean beyond, then unknown, which
extended to the shores of China. By the Kaukasos, which extended to this
eastern ocean, is meant the vast Himâlayan range.

[85] Regarding the Maiôtic Lake, now generally called the Sea of Azof,
the ancients entertained very hazy and inaccurate notions. They supposed
it to be situated in the remotest regions of the earth (Aisch. _Prom._
427), and to be almost equal in size to the Euxine (Herod, iv. 86).
Arrian, who might have known better, seems here to have adopted the
crude notion current in Alexander’s time that the Jaxartes (which they
confounded with the Tanais or Don) entered by one arm the Hyrkanian or
Kaspian Sea, and by another the Maiôtic Lake. The Kaspian itself was
taken to be a gulf of the Great Eastern Ocean. Herodotos, however, is
guiltless of this geographical heresy.

[86] This does not mean that Megasthenes was sent on frequent embassies
to Sandrakottos, but that during his embassy he had frequent interviews
with him. The former interpretation, however, finds its advocates.

[87] See Herodotos, ii. 5. Diodôros applies to Lower Egypt the epithet
ποταμόχωστος, _i.e._ _deposited by the river_.

[88] See _Odyssey_, iv. 477, 581.

[89] Modern science confirms this theory. Thus Sir W. Hunter in his
_Brief History of the Indian People_, says: “In order to understand the
Indian plains we must have a clear idea of the part played by these great
rivers; for the rivers first create the land, then fertilize it, and
finally distribute its produce. The plains were in many parts upheaved by
volcanic action, or deposited in an aqueous aera long before man appeared
on the earth.”

[90] Arrian has named these in his _Indika_, c. 4.

[91] See Herod, vii. 33-36; iv. 83, 97, 133-141.

[92] Diodôros says the passage was made by a bridge of boats.

[93] There is a Rhenos in Italy—the Reno, a tributary of the Po, from
which the great Rhine is distinguished as the Keltic. The famous bridge
made by Caesar over the latter river is described in his _De Bello
Gallico_, iv. 17.

[94] See Note I, Taxila.

[95] We learn from Curtius that Alexander, before taking hostile action
against Pôros, demanded from him through an envoy called Cleochares
that he should pay tribute and come to meet him on the frontiers of his
dominions. To this Pôros replied that in compliance with the second
request he would meet Alexander at the place appointed, but would attend
in arms. Alexander was perhaps justified by the laws of war in exacting
submission from the tribes west of the Indus, since these had been
subject to Darius, whom he had overthrown, and to whose rights he had
succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjâb, those at least that lay to the
east of the Hydaspês, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian
domination, and hence his invasion, according to modern ideas, was
altogether indefensible. He could, however, justify himself on the ground
of the principles held by the Greeks of his day, who considered that
their superiority in wisdom and virtue to the rest of mankind gave them a
natural right to attack, plunder, and enslave all barbarians except such
only as were protected by a special treaty. Such a view, repugnant as it
seems to every principle of justice, was held nevertheless by Aristotle,
who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illustrious pupil. Hence
Alexander, in attacking Pôros, was not conscious, like Caesar, when he
invaded Britain, of perpetrating an unwarrantable aggression for which
some kind of an excuse had to be trumped up.

[96] The Hydaspês, now the Jhîlam, is called by the natives of Kâśmîr,
where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of
its Sanskrit name, the Vitastâ, which means “wide-spread.” In Ptolemy’s
geography it appears as the Bidaspês—a form nearer the original than
_Hydaspês_. It is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, along
with other great Indian rivers: “Receive favourably this my hymn, O
Gangâ, Yamunâ, Sarasvatî, Śutudrî, Parashni; hear O Marudvridhâ, with
the Asiknî and _Vitastâ_, and thou Arjîkîyâ with the Sushômâ.” In
advancing from the Indus at Attak to the Hydaspês, Alexander followed the
Râjapatha, that is, the _king’s highway_, called by Megasthenes the ὁδὸς
βασιληίη. It is the route which has been taken by all foreign conquerors
who have penetrated into India by the valley of the Kôphês. Elphinstone,
who followed this route in returning from Kâbul, describes it thus: “The
whole of our journey across the track between the Indus and Hydaspês was
about 160 miles; for which space the country is among the strongest I
have ever seen. The difficulty of our passage across it was increased by
heavy rain. While in the hilly country our road sometimes lay through
the beds of torrents” (_Mission to Kâbul_, p. 78). In another passage
(p. 80) he says: “I was greatly struck with the difference between the
banks of this river; the left bank had all the characteristics of the
plains of India. The right bank, on the contrary, was formed by the end
of the range of the Salt Hills, and had an air of extreme ruggedness and
wildness that must inspire a fearful presentiment of the country he was
entering into the mind of a traveller from the East.” General Chesney, in
the lecture already cited, thus remarks on the advance of Alexander to
the Hydaspês: “What is remarkable about this part of the advance is that
it was not made direct on Jhelum, as would appear natural. True, that
line is over what would be a very difficult country, as any traveller by
the existing road knows. Still it would be the easiest line; nevertheless
it appears certain that Alexander took a more southerly line, and
threading his way through the intricate ravines of the upper part of the
Salt range, and leaving Tilla and Rhotas on his left, penetrated that
range by the gorge through which runs the Bhundar river, and struck the
river Jhelum at Jalâlpûr, about thirty miles below Jhelum.”

[97] See Note I, Site of Alexander’s camp on the Hydaspês.

[98] The Greeks, for the first time, saw elephants used in war at the
battle of Arbela.

[99] Arrian, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, states that the
battle with Pôros was fought in the Archonship of Hêgemôn at Athens, in
the month of Mounychiôn, _i.e._ between the 18th of April and 18th of
May, 326 B.C. Here, however, according to the reading of all the MSS.,
he makes the battle take place _after_ the solstice of June 21st, μετὰ
τροπάς. Editors remove the difficulty by substituting κατά for μετά, and
I have translated accordingly. As the rainy season, however, does not set
in till near the end of June, and it had set in, as Strabo informs us,
during the march to the Hydaspês, the later date has probability in its
favour.

[100] Enyalios, an epithet of the war-god.

[101] Curtius mentions that near the bluff there was a deep hollow or
ravine which sufficed to screen both the infantry and the cavalry, and
on this Cunningham remarks: “There is a ravine to the north of Jalâlpûr
which exactly suits the descriptions of the historians. This ravine is
the bed of the Kandar Nala, which has a course of six miles from its
source down to Jalâlpûr, where it is lost in a waste of sand. Up this
ravine there has always been a passable, but difficult road towards
Jhelum. From the head of the Kandar this road proceeds for three miles
in a northerly direction down another ravine called the Kasi, which then
turns suddenly to the east for six and a half miles, and then again one
and a half mile to the south, where it joins the river Jhelum immediately
below Dilâwar, the whole distance from Jalâlpûr being exactly seventeen
miles.” These seventeen miles are about the equivalent of the 150 stadia
given by Arrian as the distance from the great camp to the bluff.

[102] “Arrian,” says Cunningham, “records that Alexander placed running
sentries along the bank of the river at such distances that they could
see each other and communicate his orders. Now, I believe that this
operation could not be carried out in the face of an observant enemy
along any part of the river bank, excepting only that one part which lies
between Jalâlpûr and Dilâwar. In all other parts the west bank is open
and exposed, but in this part alone the wooded and rocky hills slope down
to the river and offer sufficient cover for the concealment of single
sentries.”—_Geog. of Anc. India_, pp. 170, 171.

[103] With Alexander’s passage of the Hydaspês may be compared Hannibal’s
passage of the Rhone made upwards of a century later. The Carthaginian
general, whose education included a knowledge of Greek, was no doubt
familiar with the history of Alexander’s wars, and from knowing how the
Hydaspês was crossed may have laid his plans for crossing the Rhone. _v._
Livy, xxi. 26-28; Polyb. iii. 45, 46.

[104] Here, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was fought, in 1849, the
battle of Chilianwála. On this occasion the inferiority of the British
commander as a strategist to Alexander was signally manifested.

[105] The left wing of the Indian army was flanked by the river.

[106] This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as
generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station
himself opposite _the enemy’s_ right, and not on the _Macedonian_ extreme
right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (_Alexander in
the Punjaub_, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite
the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry
from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus
was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the
Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as,
in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from
their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly
and Rüstow, however, in their _History of the Greek Military System_,
advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos
to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from
the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had
he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too
far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s
rear.” This seems the preferable view.

[107] “To meet the double assault (of Alexander and Coenus) they resorted
to one of those changes of front in which Indian cavalry are often so
surprisingly rapid—facing partly to the front and partly to the rear. Yet
Alexander was beforehand with them; and his renewed charge threw them
into utter confusion before they could fully assume their new formation.
Flying along the front of their own infantry, they took refuge in the
spaces left between every two elephants, and (as it would seem in the
absence, from Arrian’s account, of the full details) passed as soon as
possible through the intervals of the foot regiments, so as to be for
the moment quite outside the battle. As soon as they were out of the
way the Indian elephants were sent on, supported by the infantry, but
were at once met face to face by the Macedonian phalanx.”—_v._ Moberly’s
_Alexander in the Punjaub_, Introd. p. 12.

[108] Diodôros gives the number of Indians killed at upwards of 12,000,
and of the captured at more than 9000, besides 80 elephants.

[109] The Spitakês here mentioned as one of the slain is probably the
same as Pittacus, who is recorded by Polyainos to have had an encounter
with Alexander during the march of the latter from Taxila to the
Hydaspês, as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in thinking.

[110] The hiatus is supposed to have contained the number of officers
killed.

[111] This death-roll evidently greatly under-estimates the loss on
Alexander’s side. Diodôros says that there fell of the Macedonians 280
cavalry and more than 700 infantry.

[112] Pôros was the first sovereign that Alexander had captured on the
field of battle. Curtius and Diodôros relate somewhat differently from
Arrian the story of his capture, representing him to have been protected
to the last by his faithful elephant.

[113] See Note R, Battle with Pôros.

[114] Diodôros says the battle occurred while Chremes was archon at
Athens.

[115] Nikaia most probably occupied the site of the modern town of Mong,
near the left bank. Nothing is known of its history. With respect to
its sister city Boukephala, the ancient writers are not in agreement.
Plutarch places it on the left or eastern bank of the Hydaspês, for
he says that Boukephalas was killed in the battle, and that the city
was built where he fell and was buried. According, however, to Strabo,
Arrian, and Diodôros, it stood on the west bank; but while Strabo places
it at the point where the troops embarked, Arrian places it farther down
the stream on the site of the great camp at Jalâlpûr. It became a great
emporium of commerce, as we find from the _Periplûs of the Erythraian
Sea_, c. 47. In the Peutinger Tables it is called _Alexandria Bucefalos_.

[116] “Schmieder says that Alexander could not have broken in the horse
before he was sixteen years old. But since at this time he was in his
twenty-ninth year he would have had him thirteen years. Consequently the
horse must have been at least seventeen years old when he acquired him.
Can any one believe this? Yet Plutarch also states that the horse was
thirty years old at his death.”—Chinnock’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, p.
296, note 4.

[117] This incident is referred by Plutarch to Hyrkania, and by Curtius
to the land of the Mardians. The Ouxioi lived on the borders of Persis,
between that province and Sousiana.

[118] Alexander, according to Diodôros, halted to recruit his army for
thirty days in the dominions of Pôros. He then advanced northwards with
a part of his army to the fertile and populous regions that lay in the
south of Kâśmîr (the Bhimber and Bajaur districts) between the upper
courses of the Hydaspês and the Akesinês and Chenâb. The name of the
inhabitants, _Glausai_ or _Glaukanîkoi_, has been identified by V. de
Saint-Martin with that of the Kalaka, a tribe mentioned in the _Varâha
Sanhita_, a work of the sixth century of our aera. In the _Mahâbhârata_
the name is written _Kalaja_, and in the Rajput Chronicles _Kalacha_, a
form which justifies the Greek _Glausai_. The second part of the longer
name, _anîka_, means a troop or army in Sanskrit.—_v._ Saint-Martin’s
_Etude_, pp. 102, 103.

[119] Conf. Strabo, XV. i. 3. “Other writers affirm that the Macedonians
conquered nine nations situated between the Hydaspês and the Hypanis
(Beas), and obtained possession of 500 cities, not one of which was less
than Kos Meropis, and that Alexander, after having conquered all this
country, delivered it up to Pôros.”

[120] This was a second embassy. An earlier is mentioned in Chapter VIII.
of this book.

[121] Strabo (XV. i. p. 699) says this Pôros was a nephew of the Pôros
whom Alexander had defeated, and that his country was called Gandaris.
The Gandarai were a widely extended people, occupying a district
stretching from the upper part of the Panjâb to the west of the Indus as
far as Qandahar. They are the Gandhâra of Sanskrit.

[122] The Akesinês, now the Chenâb, is called in the Vedic Hymns
the _Asikni_, _i.e._ “dark-coloured.” It was called also, and more
commonly, Chandrabhâgâ, which, being transliterated into Greek, becomes
Sandrophagos. This word suggested to the soldiers of Alexander another of
bad omen, _Ale-xandrophagos_, which means _devourer of Alexander_, and
hence they adopted its other name, perhaps on account of the disaster
which befell the Macedonian fleet at the turbulent junction of this river
with the Hydaspês. In Ptolemy’s _Geography_ it is called Sandabala by an
obvious error for Sandabaga. The Akesinês, though joined by the other
great Panjâb rivers, retained its name until it fell into the Indus.

[123] The Hydraôtês is called by Strabo (XV. i. 21) the Hyarôtis, and
in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ the Adris or Rhouadis. It is now the _Râvî_,
which is an abridged form of its Sanskrit name, the Airâvatî. It passes
the city of Lahore, and joins the Chenâb about 30 miles _above_ Multân.
In former times, however, the junction occurred 15 miles _below_ that
city. In Ptolemy’s _Geography_ the Rhouadis is erroneously made to join
the Hydaspês, or, as Ptolemy calls it, the Bidaspês. Arrian in his
_Indika_ (c. 4) describes the Hydraôtês as rising in the country of the
Kambistholoi, and after receiving the Hyphasis among the Astrybai, and
the Saranges from the Kêkeans (the Sekaya of Sanskrit), and the Neudros
from the Attakênoi, falling into the Akesinês. The Hyphasis does not,
however, join the Hydraôtês.

[124] _v._ Note L, Kathaians.

[125] The expression _independent_ shows that the Greeks were cognisant
of the Indian village system. Each of its rural units they took to be an
independent republic.

[126] _v._ Note M, Sangala.

[127] The Adraïstai appear to be the people called in the _Periplûs of
the Erythraean Sea_, the Aratrioi. Lassen identifies them with the Aratta
of the _Mahâbhârata_. Diodôros calls them the Adrêstai, and Orosius in
his _History_ (iii. 19) the Adrestae. Their capital, Pimprama, has not as
yet been identified with certainty, but V. de Saint-Martin suggests that
it may be represented by _Bhéranah_, a place eight leagues distant from
Lahore towards the south-east. The same author thinks that the _Adrastae_
are very probably the _Aïrâvatâ_ or _Raïvâtaka_ of Sanskrit.

[128] Chinnock notes that Caesar’s troops were assailed in a similar
manner by the Helvetians.—_v._ Caesar’s _De Bello Gallico_, i. 26.

[129] Curtius gives the loss of the Kathaians at 8000 killed. Arrian’s
numbers here seem to be greatly exaggerated.

[130] The Hyphasis, now the Beäs or Beias, is variously called by
the classical writers the Bibasis, the Hypasis, and the Hypanis. Its
Sanskrit name is the _Vipâsâ_, which means “uncorded,” and it is said
to have been so called because it _destroyed the cord_ with which one
of the Indian sages intended to hang himself. It joins the Satlej (not
the Hydraôtês, as Arrian says in his _Indika_) and the united stream is
called in Sanskrit the Śatadru, _i.e._ “flowing in a hundred channels.”
It marked the limit of Alexander’s advance eastward. In his time it
flowed in a different channel, one by which it reached the Chenâb about
40 miles above Uchh. Curtius and Diodôros inform us that Alexander
before reaching this river had entered the dominions of King Sôphites,
who submitted without resistance, and was therefore left in possession
of his sovereignty. Another chief (called Phêgeus by Diodôros, but more
correctly Phegelas by Curtius), whose dominions adjoined the Hyphasis,
entertained Alexander and his army for two days. By this time he had been
rejoined by Hêphaistiôn, who had been conducting operations elsewhere,
and he then proceeded to the bank of the river. The country beyond it
Arrian represents as exceedingly fertile, whereas in Curtius and Diodôros
we read how Alexander was informed that a desert lay beyond it which
would occupy a journey of eleven days. Arrian’s statement holds true of
the northern districts beyond the river, and the other statement of the
southern districts. Thirlwall, following the latter statement, takes it
that Alexander reached the Satlej after it had received the Hyphasis, but
this is a very questionable view.

[131] The name of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, had
originally the digamma, and hence was written as Ivon. The Hebrew
transcription of this digammated form is _Javan_, the name by which
_Greece_ is designated in the Bible. The Sanskrit transcription is
_Yavana_, the name applied in Indian works to Ionians or Greeks and
foreigners generally.

[132] The Tanais is properly the Don, but Alexander meant by it the
Jaxartes, which formed the eastern boundary of the Persian empire, and
which he had crossed to attack the nomadic Skythians, who had made
threatening demonstrations against him on the right or northern bank
(_v._ the 16th and 17th chapters of the fourth book).

[133] It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that the Kaspian or
Hyrkanian Sea was a gulf of the great ocean which encircles the earth,
and not an inland sea.

[134] Arrian (vii. 1) says: “When Alexander reached Pasargadai and
Persepolis he conceived an ardent desire to sail down the Euphrates and
Tigres to the Persian sea, and survey their mouths.... Some writers have
stated that he had in contemplation a voyage round the greater portion
of Arabia, the land of the Aethiopians, Lybia, and Numidia beyond Mount
Atlas to Gadeira (Cadiz) inward into the Mediterranean.” One of the
writers referred to is Plutarch, who says (_Alexander_, c. 68): “Nearchos
joined him (Alexander) here (at the capital of Gedrosia), and he was so
much delighted with the account of his voyage that he formed a design to
sail in person from the Euphrates with a great fleet, circle the coast
of Arabia and Africa, and enter the Mediterranean by the Pillars of
Hercules.” Herodotos (iv. 42) says that Nekô, king of the Egyptians, sent
certain Phoenicians in ships with orders to sail back through the Pillars
of Hercules into the Northern Sea (the Mediterranean that is), and so to
return to Egypt. The pillars designated the twin rocks which guard the
entrance to the Mediterranean at the eastern extremity of the Straits of
Gibraltar, the one on the European side being called _Kalpê_, and that
on the African side, where now stands the citadel of Ceuta, _Abila_ or
_Abyla_. _v._ Pliny (iii. prooem.): “Proximis autem faucibus utrimque
impositi montes coercent claustra, Abyla Africae, Europae Calpe, laborum
Herculis metae, quam ob causam indigenae columnas ejus dei vocant.”

[135] Arrian (iii. 30) informs us that in the opinion of some the Nile
formed the boundary of Asia, but he writes here as if Lybia or Northern
Africa were part of Asia.

[136] The Macedonian kings claimed to be descended from Heraklês, who
resided for some time at Tiryns, one of the most ancient cities in
Greece, situated near Argos, and, like Argos, famous for its Cyclopean
walls.

[137] “Alexander,” says Arrian (iii. 19), “on reaching Ekbatana, sent
back to the sea the Thessalian cavalry and the other Grecian allies,
paying them the full amount of the stipulated hire, and giving them
besides a donative of 2000 talents.” Was Baktra a slip of memory on the
part of Koinos?

[138] The drenching rains to which the Macedonian soldiers were
continually exposed during their march from Taxila to the Hyphasis
must have had a considerable effect in exhausting their strength and
depressing their spirits.

[139] Karchêdon is Carthage. The name is said to be a corruption
of _Kereth-Hadeshoth_ or _Carth-hadtha_, _i.e._ “new city,” in
contra-distinction to Utica, which either signifies in Phoenician “old
city,” or is derived, as Olshausen thinks, from a root signifying “a
colony.”

[140] See Note N, Alexander’s altars on the Hyphasis.

[141] “This city,” says Lassen, “lay probably where Wazirâbâd now stands.
Here the great road to the Hydaspês parts into two, one leading to
Jalâlpûr, and the other to Jhelam. It is the sixth of the Alexandreias
mentioned in Stephanos Byz.” _v. Ind. Alt._ ii. 165, n. The Chenab here
has a width of about a mile and a half.

[142] Arsakês, to judge from his name and what is here said of him, was
probably the king of Uraśa. This district, the Arsa of Ptolemy, the
W-la-shi of Hwen Thsiang, and now Rash in Dantâwar, included all the hill
country between the Indus and Kaśmîr as far south as Attak.

[143] _v._ Strabo (XV. i. 29). Between the Hydaspês and Akesinês ...
is the forest in the neighbourhood of the Emodoi mountains, in which
Alexander cut down a large quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety
of other trees fit for shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the
Hydaspês. With this he constructed a fleet on the Hydaspês near the
cities which he built on each side of the river where he had crossed it
and conquered Pôros. “The timber,” says Sir A. Burnes, “of which the
boats of the Panjâb are constructed is chiefly floated down _by the
Hydaspês_ from the Indian Caucasus, which most satisfactorily explains
the selection of its banks by Alexander in preference to the other
rivers.” Bunbury, citing this passage, adds: “The navigation of the Indus
itself for a considerable part of its course below Attock is so dangerous
on account of rapids as to render it wholly unsuitable for the descent of
a flotilla such as that of Alexander.”

[144] This is the _nelumbum speciosum_, or Cyathus Smithii, the sacred
Egyptian or Pythagorean bean. The use of its fruit was forbidden to the
Egyptian priests (_v._ Herod. ii. 37).

[145] “It is remarkable to see how in this respect the geographical
information of the Greeks seems to have retrograded since the time of
Herodotus. No allusion is found to the voyage of Scylax related by that
historian, while the just conclusions derived from it by Herodotus had
fallen into the same oblivion. But absurd as was this identification (of
the Indus with the Nile), the general resemblance between these rivers,
which are constantly brought into comparison by the Greek geographers
(Strabo, XV. p. 692, etc.), is certainly such as to justify their
observations. The resemblance of the lower valley of the Indus from the
time it has received the waters of the Panjab with Egypt is dwelt upon
by modern travellers. One description (says Mr. Elphinstone) might serve
for both. A smooth and fertile plain is bounded on one side by mountains,
and on the other by a desert. It is divided by a large river, which forms
a Delta as it approaches the sea, and annually inundates and enriches
the country near its banks. The climate of both is hot and dry, and rain
is of rare occurrence in either country.”—_v._ Bunbury’s _Hist. of Anc.
Geo._ p. 510.

[146] Arrian in the 19th chapter of the _Indika_ states that the number
of men conveyed in the fleet was 8000, and that the whole strength of
his army was 120,000 soldiers, including those whom he brought from the
shores of the Mediterranean, as well as recruits drawn from various
barbarous tribes armed in their own fashion. In the preceding chapter
he gives a list of the great officers whom Alexander appointed to be in
temporary command of the triremes. Of these, thirty-three in number,
twenty-four were Macedonians, eight were Greeks, and one a Persian.
Seleukos is the only officer of note whose name does not appear in this
list.

[147] Diodôros and Curtius, as has been pointed out (in Note M), place
the dominions of Sôpeithês between the upper Hydraôtês and the Hyphasis,
but here we find them transferred to a more western position. Strabo was
unable to decide where they lay. “Some writers (he says) place Kathaia
and the country of Sôpeithês, one of the monarchs, in the tract between
the rivers (Hydaspês and Akesinês); some on the other side of the
Akesinês and of the Hyarotis, on the confines of the territory of the
other Pôros, the nephew of Pôros who was taken prisoner by Alexander,
and call the country subject to him Gandaris.... It is said that in
the territory of Sôpeithês there is a mountain composed of fossil salt
sufficient for the whole of India. Valuable mines, also, both of gold
and silver, are situated, it is said, not far off among other mountains,
according to the testimony of Gorgos the miner.” Strabo then describes
(as do also Diodôros and Curtius) the fight between a lion and four dogs
which Sôpeithês exhibited to Alexander. To account for the discrepancy
in these statements one is almost tempted to believe that as there were
two princes of the name of Pôros, each ruling dominions of his own, so
there were also two chiefs of the name of Sôpeithês or (as Curtius more
correctly transcribes it) Sôphytês. General Cunningham would identify
_Gandaris_ with the present district of _Gundulbâr_ or _Gundurbâr_, and
fixes the capital of Sôphytês on the western bank of the Hydaspês at _Old
Bhira_, a place near Ahmedabad, with a very extensive mound of ruins,
and distant from Nikaia (now Mong) three days by water. His rule must
have extended westward to the Indus, since the mountain of rock-salt
which Strabo includes in his territory can only refer to the salt range
(the Mount Oromenus of Pliny, xxxi. 39) which extends from the Indus to
the Hydaspês. The transcription of the name _Sôphytês_ will be found
discussed elsewhere.

[148] Arrian in his _Indika_, where he apparently follows Nearchos
instead of Ptolemy as here, gives the whole number of ships at only 800,
including both ships of war and transports. Schmieder and some other
editors would correct this to 1800, but it seems more probable, Bunbury
thinks, that the basis of the two calculations was different. Ptolemy, he
says, distinctly includes the ordinary river boats which would doubtless
have been collected in large numbers to assist in transporting so great
an army and its supplies; while the terms of Nearchos would seem to imply
only ships of war or regular transports. Krüger would correct the 2000 of
the text to 1000, which is the number of the vessels as given by Diodôros
and Curtius. The fleet began the downward voyage at the end of October
326 B.C.

[149] Alexander deduced his pedigree from Ammôn, just as the legend
traced the pedigree of Heraklês and Perseus to Zeus. He accordingly made
an expedition to the oasis in the Libyan desert where Ammôn had his
oracle for the purpose of more certainly learning his origin. His mother,
Olympias, according to Plutarch, used to complain that Alexander was for
ever embroiling her with Juno.

[150] “The Indians (says Arrian in his _Indika_, c. 7) worship the other
gods, and especially Dionysos, with cymbals and drums, which he had
taught them to use. He taught them also the Satyric dance, called by the
Greeks _Kordax_.”

[151] See Note O, Voyage down the Hydaspês and Akesinês to the Indus.

[152] This halting-place was at Bhira or Bheda, if Cunningham is right in
fixing the capital of Sôphytês in its neighbourhood.

[153] Diodôros carelessly represents these rapids as occurring at the
confluence of the two rivers with the Indus. The dangers of their
navigation seem to have been exaggerated by the ancient writers, though
their accounts have some foundation in fact. Sir A. Burnes, the first
European known to have visited the spot, says there are no eddies and no
rocks, nor is the channel confined, while the ancient character is only
supported by the noise of the confluence, which is greater than that of
any of the other rivers. The boatmen of the locality, however, still
regard the passage as a perilous one during the season when the river
is swollen (v. _Travels_, i. p. 109). Thirlwall thinks the principal
obstructions have been worn away. According to Curtius, Alexander’s own
ship was here in imminent danger of being wrecked.

[154] These barbarians were probably the Sibi (_v._ Diodôros, xvii. 96).

[155] Hêphaistiôn by this arrangement would beset the banks of the
Hydraôtês, Ptolemy those of the Akesinês. The former probably marched
to the Hydraôtês by way of Shorkote, which Cunningham thinks may be the
Sôrianê of Stephanos Byz.

[156] The Hydaspês loses its name as well as its waters to the Akesinês.
The junction of the latter with the Hydraôtês (Râvi) occurs at present at
a point more than thirty miles above Multân, but in Alexander’s time it
occurred some miles below that city.

[157] See Note P, The Malloi and Oxydrakai.

[158] General Cunningham has identified this place with Kot-Kamâlia, a
small but ancient town situated on an isolated mound on the right or
northern bank of the Râvi, marking the extreme limit of the river’s
fluctuations on that side. The small rivulet on which Alexander encamped
at the end of his first march he believes to be the lower course of
the Ayek river which rises in the outer range of hills and flows past
Syâlkot towards Sâkala, below which the bed is still traceable for some
distance. It appears again, he says, eighteen miles to the east of
Jhang, and is finally lost about two miles to the east of Shorkot. Now
somewhere between these two points Alexander must have crossed the Ayek,
as the desert country which he afterwards traversed lies immediately
beyond it. If he had marched to the south he would have arrived at
Shorkot, but he would not have encountered any desert, as his route
would have been over the Khâdar, or low-lying lands in the valley of
the Chenâb. A march of forty-six miles in a southerly direction would
have carried him also right up to the bank of the Hydraôtês or Râvi,
a point which Alexander only reached after another night’s march. As
this march lasted from the first watch until daylight, it cannot have
been less than eighteen or twenty miles, which agrees exactly with the
distance of the Râvi opposite Tulamba from Kot-Kamâlia. The direction of
Alexander’s march must therefore have been to the south-east; first to
the Ayek river, and thence across the hard, clayey, and waterless tract
called Sandar-bâr, that is the bâr, a desert of the Sandar or Chandra
river. Thus the position of the rivulet, the description of the desolate
country, and the distance of the city from the confluence of the rivers,
all agree in fixing the site of the fortress assaulted by Alexander with
Kot-Kamâlia.—_Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 208-210.

[159] The city to which Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander,
Cunningham has identified with Harapa. “The mention of marshes (he says)
shows that it must have been near the Râvi, and, as Perdikkas was sent
in advance of Alexander, it must also have been _beyond_ Kot-Kamâlia,
that is to the east or south-east of it. Now this is exactly the position
of Harapa, which is situated sixteen miles to the east-south-east of
Kot-Kamâlia, and on the opposite high bank of the Râvi. There are also
several marshes in the low ground in its immediate vicinity.” Cunningham
then gives a description of Harapa as it now exists. He had encamped at
the place on three different occasions. It had been visited previously
and described both by Burnes and Masson. Its ruined mound forms an
irregular square of half a mile on each side, or two miles in circuit
(_Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 210, 211). It seems to me a serious objection
to this identification that Kot-Kamâlia and Harapa (Harup, in Ainsworth’s
large map) lie on _opposite_ sides of the Râvi, while Arrian’s narrative
leads us to suppose that they both lay to the west of that river. No
mention is made of Perdikkas crossing it, and had the fortress he
attacked lain beyond it, he could easily have intercepted the inhabitants
in their flight to the marshes of the river.

[160] Cunningham identifies this well-fortified position with Tulamba.
“A whole night’s march (he says) of eight or nine hours could not have
been less than twenty-five miles, which is the exact distance of the Râvi
opposite Tulamba from Kot-Kamâlia.” It was defended by brick walls and
enormous mounds of earthen ramparts. Tulamba lies on the high road to
Multân, to which, as the capital of the Malloi, Alexander was marching.

[161] The Brachmans, as is well known, formed a religious caste, and were
not a distinct race or tribe. Their city Cunningham has identified with
the old ruined town and fort of Atâri, which is situated twenty miles to
the west-south-west of Tulamba and on the high road to Multân, from which
it is thirty-four miles distant. The remains consist of a strong citadel
750 feet square and 35 feet high. On two of its sides are to be found the
remains of the old town. Of its history there is not even a tradition,
but the large size of its bricks shows that it must be a place of
considerable antiquity. The name of the old city is quite unknown, Atâri
being merely that of the adjacent village, which is of recent origin.
Curtius states that Alexander went completely round the citadel in a
boat, and Cunningham thinks this is probable enough, as its ditch could
be filled at pleasure with water from the Râvi. Curtius must, however,
be romancing when he says that the three greatest rivers in India except
the Ganges (Indus, Hydaspês, and Akesinês) joined their waters to form
a ditch round the castle (v. _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 228-230). The
mention of a special city of the Brachmans, Lassen observes, shows that
but few priests lived in this part of the country, and that they had
established themselves in particular cities to protect themselves against
those people by whom they were held in but small esteem.

[162] See Note Q, The capital of the Malloi.

[163] Arrian (i. 11) relates that Alexander, after crossing the
Hellespont, proceeded to Ilion, where, after sacrificing to the Trojan
Athênê, he placed his own armour in the temple of that goddess, and took
away in exchange some of the consecrated arms which had been preserved
from the time of the Trojan war.

[164] Called in Greek a _dimoiritês_ in Latin a _duplicarius_.

[165] Alexander’s dress and arms on the day of Arbêla are thus described
by Plutarch: “He wore a short tunic of the Sicilian fashion, girt close
round him, over a linen breastplate strongly quilted; his helmet,
surmounted by the white plume, was of polished steel, the work of
Theophilos; the gorget was of the same metal, and set with precious
stones; the sword, his favourite weapon in battle, was a present from a
Cyprian king, and not to be excelled for lightness or temper; but his
belt, deeply embossed with massive figures, was the most superb part of
his armour; it was a gift from the Rhodians, on which old Helikôn had
exerted all his skill. If we add to these the shield, lance, and light
greaves, we may form a fair idea of his appearance in battle.”

[166] The descendants of Asklêpios (Aesculapius) were called by the
patronymic name _Asklêpiadai_. They were regarded by some as the real
descendants of Asklêpios, but by others as a caste of priests who
practised the art of medicine, combined with religion. Their principal
seats were Kôs and Knidos.

[167] Plutarch writes to the same effect: “The great battle with
Darius was not fought at Arbêla, as most historians will have it, but
at Gaugamêla, which, in the Persian tongue, is said to signify _the
house of the camel_, so called because one of the ancient kings, having
escaped his enemies by the swiftness of his camel, placed her there, and
appointed the revenues of certain villages for her maintenance.”—_Life of
Alexander_, c. 31.

[168] Kleitarchos, who accompanied Alexander to Asia, and wrote a history
of the expedition, and Timagenes, an historian in the reign of Augustus,
gave currency to this fiction, which Curtius is at one with Arrian
in rejecting. Ptolemy received his title of Sôtêr (saviour) from the
Rhodians, whom he had relieved from the attacks of Dêmêtrios Poliorkêtês
(_v._ Pausanias, I. viii. 6).

[169] Thirlwall has noted that this line is found in Stobaeus. It is a
fragment from one of the lost tragedies of Aeschylus, δράσαντι γάρ τι καὶ
παθεῖν ὀφείλεται.

[170] The Hyphasis is here probably the Satlej, though the application
of the name so far down as is here indicated is contrary to Sanskrit
usage. Several arms of the Hyphasis may have anciently existed which
went to join the Hydraôtês or perhaps the lower Akesinês. Megasthenês
was the first who made the existence of the Satlej known. Pliny calls it
the Hesydrus, and Ptolemy the Zaradros. The united stream which joins
the Indus, called the Panjnad, has before the confluence a width of 1076
yards. The Indus after the confluence is augmented to 2000 yards from 600
yards only above the confluence. From the present confluence to the sea
the distance is 490 miles.

[171] The _Abastanoi_ are more correctly designated by Diodôros (xvii.
102) the _Sambastai_, under which form of the name the _Ambashtha_,
who are mentioned as a people of the Panjâb in the _Mahâbhârata_ and
elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, can be recognised. It is evident from
the text that they were settled on the lower Akesinês. They appear to be
the people called by Curtius the _Sabarcae_, and by Orosius _Sabagrae_.

[172] The Xathroi are the Kshâtri of Sanskrit mentioned in the Laws of
Manu as an impure tribe, being of mixed origin. In Williams’s _Sanskrit
Dictionary_ a _Kshâtri_ is defined as “a man of the second (_i.e._
military) caste (by a woman of another caste?).”

[173] V. de Saint-Martin suggests that in the _Ossadioi_ we have the
Vasâti or Basâti of the _Mahâbhârata_, a people whom Hematchandra in his
_Geographical Dictionary_ places between the Hydaspês and the Indus, on
the plateau of which the Salt Mountains form the southern escarpment. If
the Vasâti were really so placed, it can scarcely be supposed that they
would have sent offers of submission to Alexander, who had already passed
through their part of the country, and was now marching homeward, leaving
them far in his rear. Cunningham prefers to identify them with the
_Yaudheya_ or _Ajudhiya_, now the _Johiyas_, who are settled as formerly
along the banks of the lower Satlej. _Assodioi_ or Ossadioi seems a
pretty close transcription of _Ajudhiya_.

[174] The name of this city is not given by any of the historians, but in
all probability it bore the name of its founder. Its site has generally
been referred to the neighbourhood of Mithânkôt, a town situated on the
western bank of the Indus a little below the junction of that river
with the united streams of the Panjâb. V. de Saint-Martin identifies it
more precisely with Chuchpûr or Chuchur, an ancient fort standing on
the eastern bank of the Indus right opposite Mithânkôt. This fort bore
formerly the names of Askalanda, Askelend, and Sikander, which are but
variant forms of Alexandreia. The great confluence, however, did not
anciently take place at Mithânkôt, but at Uchh, an old city lying forty
miles to the north-east of the confluence at Mithânkôt. The place is
called by Rashed-ud-din _Askaland-usah_, which, as Cunningham points
out, would be an easy corruption of _Alexandria Uchha_ or _Ussa_, as
the Greeks must have written it. The word _uchha_ means “high” both in
Sanskrit and in Hindi, and Uchh seems to owe its name to the fact that
it stands on a mound. “Uchh is chiefly distinguished (says Masson) by
the ruins of the former towns, which are very extensive, and attest the
pristine prosperity of the locality.” _v._ V. de Saint-Martin, _Etude_,
pp. 124, 125; Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 242-245.

[175] _v._ Note R, Alexander in Sindh.

[176] In Strabo (XV. i.) we find several references to the country of
Mousikanos. These were based on information supplied by Onesikritos, who
expatiates in praise of its fertility, on the virtues of its people, and
the goodness of the laws and government under which they lived. It seems
now generally agreed that Alôr, which was anciently and for many ages
the metropolis of the rich and powerful kingdom of Upper Sindh, was the
capital of Mousikanos. Its ruins were visited by M’Murdo and Lieutenant
Wood, and afterwards by General Cunningham, who thus describes their
site: “The ruins of Alôr are situated to the south of a gap in the low
range of sandstone hills which stretches from Bhakar towards the south
for about twenty miles until it is lost in a broad belt of sandhills
which bound the Nâra, or old bed of the Indus, on the west. Through this
gap a branch of the Indus once flowed, which protected the city on the
north-west. To the north-east it was covered by a second branch of the
river, which flowed nearly at right angles to the other at a distance
of three miles.... In A.D. 680 the latter was probably the main stream
of the Indus, which had gradually been working to the westward from its
original bed in the old Nâra.” With regard to the name of the king it
appears to be a territorial title, since Curtius designates the people
_Musicani_. Lassen (_Ind. Alt._ ii. 176) takes this to represent the
Sanskrit Mûshika (which means _a mouse_ or _a thief_), and points out
that a part of the Malabar coast was also called the Mûshika kingdom.
Saint-Martin thinks that the Mûshika still exist in the great tribe of
the Moghsis, which forms the most numerous part of the population of Kach
Gandâra, a region bordering on the territories of the ancient Mûsikani
(_Etude_, p. 162).

[177] Curtius calls the subjects of Oxykanos the Praesti, a name which
would indicate that they inhabited a level country, since the Sanskrit
word of which their name is a transcript—_prastha_—denotes _a tableland_
or _a level expanse_. The name, Saint-Martin thinks, is in Justin altered
to _Praesidae_; but Justin, it appears to me, means the Praisioi thereby.
Oxykanos is called both by Strabo and Diodôros _Portikanos_, representing
perhaps the Sanskrit _Pârtha_, “a prince.” It is not easy to determine
where his dominions lay. They were not on the Indus, for Alexander left
that river to attack them. Cunningham places them to the west of the
Indus in the level country around Larkhâna, which, though now close
to the Indus, was in Alexander’s time about forty miles distant from
it. Their capital he identifies with Mahorta, a place about ten miles
north-west from Larkhâna, where there are the remains of an ancient
fortress on a huge mound, whence perhaps its name _Mâhaurddha_, “very
high.” Lassen, on the other hand, followed by Saint-Martin, places the
country of Oxykanos to the east of the river, and therefore in the vast
Mesopotamia (the Prasiane of Pliny) comprised between the old or eastern
arm of the Indus and the present channel (_v._ Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ ii.
177; Saint-Martin, _Etude_, p. 165; Cunningham, _Anc. Geog. of India_,
pp. 259-262).

[178] See note S, Sindimana.

[179] See Note T, City of the Brachmans, Harmatelia; also Note H_h_,
Indian Philosophers.

[180] In the 15th chapter of this book Arrian states that Alexander had
sent Krateros away by this route after he had left the Sogdian capital
(near Bhakar). From this we may infer that Krateros, soon after he set
out on his homeward march, had been temporarily recalled by Alexander,
who may have found the resistance to his arms more formidable than he had
anticipated. Strabo states in one place (XV. ii. 5) that Krateros set out
on his march from the Hydaspês and proceeded through the country of the
Arachotoi and the Drangai into Karmania, and in another (XV. ii. 11) that
he traversed Choarênê and entered Karmania simultaneously with Alexander.
Now the former of these routes would have been so needlessly circuitous
that it cannot be supposed it was that which Krateros selected. He no
doubt marched through Choarênê (the district of Ariana nearest India),
to which there was access from India through the Bolan Pass. Before
rejoining Alexander he must have encountered formidable difficulties in
traversing the great desert of Karman, which occupies the northern part
of Karmania, and extends from thence to the confines of Yezd, Khorasân,
and Seïstan. “This desert (says Bunbury) is a vast track of the most
unmitigated barrenness, and a considerable portion of this interposed
between the fertile districts of Murmansheer in Northern Carmania, and
the Lake Zarrah in Seïstan must of necessity have been traversed by
Craterus with his army. An Afghan army which invaded Persia in 1719
suffered the most dreadful hardships in this waste” (_v._ his _Hist. of
Anc. Geog._ p. 522, also Droysen’s _Geschichte Alexanders_, p. 454, and
Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ ii. 180).

[181] According to Aristoboulos, as cited by Strabo (XV. i. 17), the
voyage down stream from Nikaia on the Hydaspês to Patala occupied ten
months. “The Greeks (he says) remained at the Hydaspês while the ships
were constructing, and began their voyage not many days before the
setting of the Pleiades (late in the autumn of B.C. 326), and were
occupied during the whole autumn, winter, and the ensuing spring and
summer in sailing down the river, and arrived at Patalênê about the
rising of the dog-star (towards the end of summer B.C. 325). The passage
down the river lasted ten months.” According to Plutarch, Alexander spent
seven months in falling down the rivers to the ocean. Sir A. Burnes
ascended the Indus up to Lahore in sixty days, a distance of about 1000
miles. He estimated that a boat could drop down from Lahore to the sea in
fifteen days, and from Multân in nine days.

[182] In the 41st chapter of the _Periplûs of the Erythraian Sea_ it is
said that in the regions adjoining the Indus mouths “there are preserved
even to this very day memorials of the expedition of Alexander, old
temples, foundations of camps, and _large wells_.”

[183] _v._ Note U, Patala.

[184] This was the northern channel of the Ghâra, the waters of which,
some centuries after Alexander, found another channel more to the south,
in the southern Ghâra which joins the main stream below Lâri Bandar.

[185] Caesar’s fleet, it is well known, suffered a similar disaster on
the shores of Britain. The tides in the Indus are not felt more than
sixty miles from the sea, whence Cunningham concludes that Alexander must
then have reached as far as Bambhra on the Ghâra, which is about fifty
miles by water from the sea. The breaking up of the monsoon, which occurs
in October, is attended with high winds, intervals of calm, and violent
hurricanes.

[186] Plutarch says that Alexander called this island Skilloustis, but
others Psiltoukis. It was from this island Nearchos started on his
memorable voyage early in October, before the monsoon had subsided. On
his reaching the port now called Karachi, the great emporium of the trade
of the Indus, he remained there for twenty-four days, and renewed the
voyage as soon as the weather permitted.

[187] The eastern branch of the Indus is that now called the Phuleli.
It separates from the main channel at Muttâri, twelve miles above
Haidarâbâd, and enters the sea by the Kori estuary, named by Ptolemy
the Lonibari mouth. Its bed is now almost dry except at the time of the
inundations, when it assumes the appearance of a great river. At the
lower part of its course it is known as the Guni. On its east side it
receives the branch of the Indus, which in ancient times passed Arôr, and
is now called the _Purana darya_ or _Old river_.

[188] This exaggerated estimate Arrian has taken from the Journal of
Nearchos. Aristoboulos said that the distance was 1000 stadia. The truth
is here pretty accurately hit.

[189] “This great lake (says Saint-Martin) might have been the western
extremity of the Ran of Kachh, a vast depression which abuts on the point
where the estuary begins, and which for some months of the year (from
July to October) is inundated by the waters of several rivers. By a
singular coincidence the terrible earthquake of 1819 has formed a large
hollow and created a spacious lake traversed by the Korî, and occupying
probably the same site as the lake mentioned by Arrian. Brahmanic
tradition, moreover, preserves the memory of a lake formerly existing
near the Korî, not far from its embouchure. In the _Bhagavata Purâna_
translated by Bournouf, we read that ‘in the west at the confluence of
the Sindhu and the ocean is the vast tank of Nârâyana Saras, which is
frequented by the Recluses and the Siddhas.’... A local tradition picked
up by M’Murdo refers to the disappearance of this lake of old times, and
explains the event by a conflagration of the country” (_v._ _Etude_, pp.
178, 179).

[190] In Italy the Pleiades set in the beginning of November. The
south-west monsoon prevails from April to October. It sets in on the
Sindh coast with strong west-south-westerly winds, which cause a heavy
swell on the sea. The north-east monsoon, which is favourable for
navigation, begins in the Arabian Sea about the middle of October.

[191] The name of this river has various forms, Arabis, Arbis, Artabis,
and Artabius. It is now called the Purâli and is the river which, rising
in the mountain range called by Ptolemy the Baitian, flows through the
present district of Las into the Bay of Sonmiyâni. It gave its name to
the Arabioi, whose territory it divided from that of the Oritai, who
were farther west. Curtius states that Alexander reached the eastern
boundary of the Arabioi (which may be placed about Karâchi) in nine days
from Patala, and their western boundary formed by the Arabius in five
days more. The distance from Haidarâbâd to Karâchi is 114 miles, and
from Karâchi to Sonmiyâni fifty miles. The average of a day’s march was
therefore about twelve miles, the same as now in these parts.

[192] The Arabitai are called in the _Indika_, _Arabies_; in Strabo,
_Arbies_; in Diodôros, _Ambritai_; in Marcian the geographer, _Arbitoi_;
and in Dion. Perieg. _Aribes_. Their territories extended from the
western mouth of the Indus to the river Purâli. This people and their
neighbours, the Orîtai, Cunningham would include within the geographical
limits of India, although they have always been beyond its political
boundaries during the historical period. They were tributary to Darius
Hystaspês, and were still subject to the Persians when the Chinese
pilgrim Hwen Thsiang visited their country in the seventh century of our
aera.

[193] In the country of the Oreitai is a river called the Aghor, from
which, it has been supposed, the people take their name, as thus:
Aghoritai, Aoritai, Oritai, or Horatae, as they are called by Curtius.
They are the Neoritai of Diodôros. The length of their coast Arrian
gives in his _Indika_ at 1600 stadia, while Strabo extends it to 1800.
The actual length is 100 English miles, somewhere about half of Arrian’s
estimate taken from Nearchos. The western boundary of the Oritai was
marked by Cape Mâlân (the _Malana_ of Arrian), which is twenty miles
distant from the river Aghor. According to Strabo the Oritai were the
people by whose poisoned arrows Ptolemy was all but mortally wounded.

[194] This name is probably a transcription of the Indian _Râmbâgh_,
which designated the place where pilgrims assemble before starting for
the Aghor Valley, in which the principal sacred places are connected
with the history of Râma, the great hero of the Râmâyana. Cunningham
accordingly identifies Râmbâgh with Arrian’s Rambakia, and remarks that
the occurrence of the name of Râmbâgh at so great a distance to the west
of the Indus, and at so early a period as the time of Alexander, shows
not only the wide extension of Hindu influence in ancient times, but also
the great antiquity of the story of Râma (_v._ his _Anc. Geog. of India_,
pp. 307-310).

[195] D’Anville and Vincent have assumed that Ora is the _Haur_ mentioned
by Edrisi as lying on the route from Dîbal, near the mouth of the Indus,
to Firûzâbâd in Mekran. Its situation is uncertain, however, as its name
does not occur in any recently published account of the country. Ora
may perhaps have been in the neighbourhood of Kôkala, mentioned in the
_Indika_ as situated on the Oreitian coast, probably near Cape Katchari,
to the east of the Hingul river, where the fleet was supplied with a
fresh stock of provisions. Perhaps it may have here denoted the country
of the Oreitai.

[196] Gadrôsia in Arrian denotes the _inland_ region which extends from
the Oreitai to Karmania. The _maritime_ region between the same limits
he calls the country of the Ichthyophagoi. The Gedrôsian desert since
the days of Alexander has protected Lower Sindh from any attack by the
maritime route. The Persian invader has preferred to encounter the
dangers and difficulties of the mountain passes of Afghânistân rather
than to expose himself to such horrible sufferings in the burning desert
as were experienced by the soldiers of Semiramis, Cyrus, and Alexander.
The length of the Makrân or Beluchistan coast between the Oreitai and
Karmania is given by Arrian at 10,000 stadia and by Strabo at 7000 only.
The actual length is 480 English miles, and the time taken by Nearchos in
its navigation was twenty days.

[197] A description of this unguent is given by Pliny (_N. H._ xii. c.
26). He there mentions that a special kind of it was produced in the
Gangetic regions. In the 33d chapter of the same book will be found a
description of the myrrh-tree and its produce.

[198] Chinnock notes that this was probably the _snow-flake_.

[199] This, says Sintenis, can be nothing else than a kind of acacia. He
points out that Dioscorides (i. 33) applies to this thorn the expression
ἀκακία, which Willdenow identifies with the acacia catechu. It grows
abundantly in the Bombay and Bengal presidencies, producing a gum
employed both as a colouring matter and a medicinal astringent, and known
in commerce by the name of cutch.

[200] These people were the Ichthyophagoi of whom Arrian makes frequent
mention in his _Indika_ when describing the voyage of Nearchos along
their coast. His description of their appearance and habits closely
agrees with that given by Strabo in his chapter on Ariana.

[201] Kallatis or Kallatia was a large city of Thrace on the coast of the
Euxine, colonised from Milêtos. Pliny says its former name was Cerbatis.

[202] _v._ Note V, Alexander’s march through Gedrôsia, Poura.

[203] In Latin _triumphi_.

[204] That is, to one who, like Alexander, approached it from Central
Asia.

[205] Eratosthenes and other ancient writers describe India as of a
rhomboidal figure with the Indus on the west, the mountains on the north,
and the sea on the east and the south. Curtius follows them here in
reckoning its length from west to east.

[206] These are the mountains of the peninsular part of India.

[207] By the Red or Erythraean Sea is meant the Indian Ocean, which
included both the Red Sea proper and the Persian Gulf. Curtius here makes
the two great Indian rivers flow into the same sea. His conception of the
configuration of India perhaps resembled that of Ptolemy, in whose map
India is so misrepresented that it appears without its peninsula, but
with a point (a little below the latitude of Bombay) whence the coast
bends at once sharply to the east instead of pursuing its actual course
southward to Cape Comorin.

[208] “Iomanes, a clever conjectural insertion due to Hedike. Foss had
suspected some such omission, as the old attempt to make the Acesines
run into the Ganges by finding some other modern name for it was
preposterous” (_Alexander in India_, by Heitland and Raven, p. 90). The
Iomanes appears in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ as the Diamouna—that is the
Yamunâ or Jamnâ, the great river which, after passing Delhi, Mathurâ,
Agrâ, and other places, joins the Ganges at Allâhâbâd. It rises from hot
springs not far westward from the sources of the Ganges. Arrian, who in
his _Indika_ calls it the Jobares, says that it flows through the country
of the Sourasenoi, who possess two great cities, Methora (Mathurâ) and
Kleisobara (Krishnapura?). Pliny (vi. 19) states that it passes through
the Palibothri to join the Ganges. At its junction with the Jamnâ, and
a third, but imaginary river, the Sarasvatî, the Ganges is called the
_Trivênî_, _i.e._ “triple plait,” from the intermingling of the three
streams.

[209] This river is most probably that which is called the Doanas in
Ptolemy’s _Geography_, where it designates the Brahmaputra. The Doanas
was probably also the Oidanes of Artemidôros, who, according to Strabo
(XI. i. 72), described it as a river that bred crocodiles and dolphins,
and that flowed into the Ganges. If the first two letters in _Doanas_ be
transposed, we get almost letter for letter the _Oidanes_ of Artemidôros,
and we get it again, though not so closely, if we discard _r_ from the
Dyardanes of Curtius. That these two writers had the same river in view
is confirmed by their mentioning the very same animals as bred in its
waters.

[210] No satisfactory identification of this river has as yet, so far
as I am aware, been proposed. The river called by Arrian (iv. 6) the
_Erymandros_, and by Polybios the _Erymanthus_, and now known as the
Helmund, has a name pretty similar, but it does not discharge into the
sea. It enters the inland lake called Zarah, in the province of Seistan
in Afghanistan. According to Arrian it disappears in the sands.

[211] These statements about the north wind as it affects India have no
basis in fact, and those that immediately follow reach the very acme of
absurdity. The cold season occurs in India as in Europe during winter,
but snow never falls on the plains. During the hot season, however,
hailstorms occasionally occur and inflict more or less damage on the
crops. I have myself witnessed in Calcutta a thunderstorm accompanied
with a descent of hail, commingled with large pieces of ice, and this in
one of the hottest months of the year, June or July, I forget which.

[212] Agatharchides, a writer of the second century B.C., begins his work
on the Erythraean Sea by inquiring into the origin of its name. On this
point four different opinions were held, and of these he adopted that
which fathered the name on King Erythrus. He then tells the story of
this king (who was a Persian) as he had learned it from a Persian called
Boxos who had settled in Athens. Strabo (xvi. 20) gives a brief summary
of this passage, and Pliny (_N. H._ vi. 28) a still briefer. Nearchos, as
we learn from Arrian’s _Indika_ (c. 37), in the course of his memorable
voyage put into an island called Oärakta (now Kishm), where the natives
showed him the tomb of the first king of the island. They said that his
name was Erythrês, and that the sea in those parts was called after him
the _Erythraean_. Opinions still differ as to the origin of the name.
According to some it was given from the red and purple colouring of the
rocks which in some parts border the sea, according to others from the
red colour sometimes given to the waters by the sea-weed called Sûph.
Fresnel, however, rejecting such views, interprets the name as meaning
the sea of the Homêritai, _i.e._ _Himyar_ or _Hhomayr_, or _red men_,
whose name and the Arabic word _ahhmar_ (red) have the same root. The
people here indicated occupied Yemen, and were called _red men_ in
contrast to the _black men_ of the opposite coast. Others again attribute
the name to _Edom_ (Idumea), which bordered the Gulf of Akaba, the
eastern arm of the Red Sea, at its northern extremity. _Edom_ signifies
_red_. Further references to this subject will be found in Mela (III.
viii. 1), Solinus (c. 36), Dio Cassius (lxviii. 28), and Stephanos Byz.
_s.v._ Ἐρυθρά.

[213] As the dress of the natives was made in ancient times as at
present, chiefly from cotton, this perhaps may be the substance meant
here by flax. The valuable properties of the wool-like product of the
cotton plant (_Gossypium herbaceum_, the _Karpâsa_ of Sanskrit) were
early known, as in one of the hymns of the Rig-veda mention is made of
female weavers intertwining the extended thread. “The dress worn by the
Indians (says Arrian, citing Nearchos) is made of cotton, a material
produced from trees. They wear an under-garment of cotton which reaches
below the knee half-way down to the ankles, and also an upper garment
which they throw partly over their shoulders, and partly twist in folds
round their head” (_Indika_, c. 16). This costume is mentioned in old
Sanskrit literature, and is carefully represented in the frescoes on the
caves of Ajanta. We learn from the _Periplûs of the Erythraean Sea_ that
muslin (othonion) was imported into the marts of India from China, and
exported thence along with Indian muslin and coarser cotton fabrics to
Egypt.

[214] Strabo (XV. i. 67) states on the authority of Nearchos that
the Indians wrote letters upon cloth, which was well pressed to make
it smooth, but adds that other writers affirmed that the Indians had
no knowledge of writing. They were, however, acquainted with writing
for some centuries before Alexander’s time, but whence they got their
alphabet is a question not yet quite settled, though the weight of
opinion inclines to assign it a Himyaritic origin. We learn from Pliny
(xiii. 21) that paper made from the papyrus plant did not come into
common use out of Egypt till the time of Alexander the Great. He then
goes on to say that for writing on, the leaves of palm-trees were first
used, and then the barks (_libri_) of certain trees. Some of the Egyptian
papyrus-rolls are as old as the sixth dynasty.

[215] Nearchos, as we learn from Arrian’s _Indika_, c. 15, was taken
with surprise when he heard in India parrots talking like human beings.
Pliny says (x. 58) that India produces this bird, which is called the
_Septagen_, and that it salutes its masters, and pronounces the words it
hears. If it fails to do so it is beaten on the head, which is as hard
as its bill, with an iron rod, until it repeats the words properly. Ovid
(_Amores_, ii. 6) calls the parrot the imitative bird from the Indians of
the East. Another Indian bird, the Maina, which in size and appearance
somewhat resembles the thrush, can be taught to speak with great
distinctness. It is probably the bird which Aelian (_Hist. Anim._ xvi. 3)
describes under the name of the _Kerkiôn_.

[216] Here Curtius makes a mistake, for not only is the rhinoceros bred
in India, but the Indian species is the largest known, and its flesh was,
by the Brahmans, allowed to be eaten, though most other kinds of animal
food were interdicted. Ktêsias describes it, but very incorrectly, under
the name of the one-horned ass. It is described also in Aelian’s _History
of Animals_ (xvi. 20) in a passage supposed to have been copied from
the lost _Indika_ of Megasthenes. It is there called the Kartazôn. The
fables about the unicorn had their source most probably in the fanciful
account Ktêsias has given of the Indian wild ass. Aristotle, referring
to it, says briefly: “We have never seen a solid-hoofed animal with two
horns, and there are only a few of them that have one horn, as the Indian
ass and the oryx.” Kosmas Indikopleustes, who, as his surname shows, had
visited India, gives in the eleventh book of his _Christian Topography_ a
description of the rhinoceros, illustrated with a picture of the animal
which represents it as somewhat like a horse, with its nose surmounted by
a pair of horns slightly curved. We know that the picture is meant to be
that of the rhinoceros from the name being attached. Kosmas says that he
had only seen the animal from a distance. He has also given a description
and picture of the unicorn, an animal which he had never seen, but had
delineated from four brazen statues of it which adorned a palace in
Aethiopia. A single straight horn of great length is represented as
springing up from the top of its head.

[217] Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. viii. 11) notes, like Curtius here, that India
produced the largest elephants. He had, however, stated previously (vi.
22) that, according to Onesikritos, the elephants of Taprobane (Ceylon)
were larger and more warlike than those of India. Many references to
the Indian elephants occur in the classics. Arrian, in the thirteenth
and fourteenth chapters of his _Indika_, describes the mode in which
they were hunted, and other particulars regarding them. Polybios (v. 84)
says that the African elephants could neither endure the smell nor the
trumpeting of their Indian congeners.

[218] Herodotos (iii. 106) says that gold was produced in great
abundance in India, some of it washed down by the streams, and some
dug out of the earth, but the greater part of it being the ant-gold
surreptitiously procured. The heavy tribute levied by Darius on the
Indian provinces (chiefly west of the Indus) was paid in gold-dust. We
learn, notwithstanding, from Arrian that the companions of Alexander
found that the Indian tribes they met with, which were numerous, were
destitute of gold. The ant-gold produced in Dardistan seems therefore to
have found its way rather to the provinces west of the Indus than to the
Panjâb. Strabo (XV. i. 57), quoting Megasthenes, says that the rivers in
India bring down gold-dust, a part of which is paid as a tax to the king.
By the king is here meant Chandragupta (Sandrokottos), at whose court
Megasthenes for some years resided. As the river Sôn, which in his time
entered the Ganges at Palibothra (now Patna), was called poetically the
_Hiranyavâha_—_i.e._ “bearing gold,”—we may assume that gold was found
in the sands of that river. The grandson of Chandragupta, Aśôka, as is
stated in the _Mahavansâ_, sent missionaries to preach Buddhism into the
_gold district_ of Suvarnabhûmi, a region which Turnour identified with
Burma, but which Lassen took to be a maritime district situated somewhere
in the west (_v._ his _Ind. Alt._ ii. pp. 236, 237; also i. 237, 238).
Strabo (XV. i. 30) says that in the country of Sopeithês there were
valuable mines both of gold and silver among the mountains.

[219] Pliny, in the latter part of his 37th book, treats of the various
kinds of precious stones found in India, and of the uses to which they
are there applied. In some of the other books incidental notices of them
are also to be met with, while his 9th book is full of details about the
pearl. From Strabo (II. iii. 4) we learn that an adventurer, Eudoxos of
Kyzikos, who had been sent by Ptolemy Physkôn, king of Egypt, to India,
returned thence, bringing back with him precious stones, some of which
the Indians collect from among the pebbles of the river, and others of
which they dig out of the earth. In his 15th book he states that India
produces precious stones, as crystals, carbuncles of all kinds, and
pearls. In Ptolemy’s _Geography of India_, and in the _Periplûs of the
Erythraean Sea_ mention is made of the diamond, beryl, onyx, carnelian,
hyacinth, and sapphire as precious stones of India. They mention also
various pearl fisheries existing in and near India. Arrian states in his
_Indika_ (c. 8) that the pearl in India is worth thrice its weight in
refined gold, and that it was called in the Indian tongue _Margarita_.
This, which is also its classical name, may represent either the Sanskrit
_manjari_, or the Persian _marwarîd_.

[220] Arrian, on the authority of Nearchos, states in his _Indika_ (c.
16) that the Indians wear shoes of white leather elaborately trimmed, and
having thick soles (or heels) to make them look taller.

[221] Strabo notes from Kleitarchos similar statements regarding the
treatment of their hair by the Indians (XV. i. 71), and Arrian has noted
the Indian practice (which is still in vogue) of dying the beard of a
variety of colours.

[222] “In the processions at Indian festivals (says Strabo, XV. i. 69)
are to be seen wild beasts, as buffaloes, panthers, tame lions, and a
multitude of birds of variegated plumage and of fine song.” Aelian,
in a passage copied most probably from Megasthenes, says that the
favourite bird of the king of the Indians (Chandragupta no doubt) was
the hoopoe. He carried it on his wrist, and amused himself with it, and
never tired gazing with admiration on its exquisite beauty, and the
splendour of its plumage. The luxurious mode of life in which the Indian
king (Chandragupta) indulged is described by Strabo (XV. i. 55) much in
the same terms as by Curtius here. The native writings called _sutras_
describe in like manner how the kings at festivals march out on elephants
to the sound of all kinds of instruments, amid the scent of perfumes and
clouds of frankincense.

[223] Strabo adds the significant statement that the king at night is
obliged from time to time to change his couch from dread of treachery.
The frequency of changes in the succession shows that such a precaution
was not unnecessary. If a woman put to death a king when he was drunk,
she was rewarded by becoming the wife of his successor. From Athênaios we
learn that among the Indians the king might not get drunk. The assertion
made by Curtius that the Indians all use much wine is contrary to the
testimony of Megasthenes, who said that they use it only on sacrificial
occasions. Wine was no doubt imported into the marts of the Malabar
coast, but the quantity must have been limited, and could only have been
purchased by the rich. The Brahmans of the Ganges, from whom Megasthenes
obtained much information, punished indulgence in intoxicating drinks
with great severity. The Aryans of the Panjâb were less abstemious, and
this led to dissensions, and a final rupture between them and their
brethren of Iran. The wine used at sacrifices was the fermented juice of
the plant called _soma_. When required for drinking it was mixed with
milk.

[224] The diversity of views which prevailed in India regarding suicide
was noticed by Megasthenes. The book of the law, in case of incapacity,
regards it as meritorious, but the Buddhists altogether condemned it.
Pliny (vi. 19) says that the Indian sages _always_ ended their life by a
voluntary death on the funeral pile.

[225] This is a very vague and meagre account of the opinions and
practices of the Indian philosophers and ascetics. Other writers are
more copious on the subject, as Strabo (XV.), Arrian (_Anab._ vii. 2, 3;
_Indika_, 11), Diodôros (ii. 40), Plutarch (_Life of Alexander_, 64, 65).
References are made to it by Mela, Suidas, Orosius, Philo, Ambrosius,
Aelian, Porphyrius, and others (_v._ Notes W and H_h_).

[226] Certain trees are still held sacred in India. The pipal, for
instance, is thought to be frequented by bhûts, _i.e._ demons.

[227] See Note X.

[228] Arrian says, however, that most of the inhabitants of this city,
which belonged to the Aspasians, and was fortified by a double wall,
escaped to the mountains.

[229] Philostratos (ii. 4) says that Alexander did not ascend the
mountain, but, though anxious to do so, contented himself with offering
prayers and sacrifices at its base. He was afraid that the Macedonians on
seeing the vines would be reminded of home, and have their love of wine
revived after being accustomed to do without it.

[230] The Elzevir editor aptly quotes here Tacit. _H._ i. 55: _Insita
mortalibus natura, propere sequi, quae piget inchoare_.

[231] Justin (xii. 7) speaks of mountains which he calls _Daedali_, and
these Cunningham (p. 52) takes to be Mount _Dantalok_, which is about
three miles distant from _Palo-dheri_ (or _Pelley_, as General Court
calls it), a place forty miles distant from Pashkalavati (Hasht-nagar).
In the spoken dialect, he adds, _Dantalok_ becomes _Dattalok_, which the
Greek _Daidalos_ may fairly be taken to represent. I think, however,
Alexander had not penetrated so far eastward as this identification
implies. It has been taken by Müller to be Arrian’s _Andaka_ or _Andêla_,
which he would therefore alter to _Daidala_. An Indian city called
_Daidala_ is mentioned by Stephanos Byz., and in Ptolemy’s _Geography_
another city of the same name is mentioned as belonging to the
Kaspeiraioi (or Kashmirians), who in Ptolemy’s days had extended their
rule as far eastward as the regions of the Jamna. Abbot in his _Gradus
ad Aornon_ seems to identify Daedala with Doodial, and Acadira, which is
mentioned immediately after, with Kaldura.

[232] Arrian calls this river the _Euaspla_. It is most probably the
Kâmah or Kunâr river. Its name, _Cho-asp-es_, has one of the elements of
the name of the people in its neighbourhood, the _Asp-asioi_. The prefix
_cho_ may, like _eu_ or _su_, mean _river_, and Aspa means _a horse_, in
Zend.

[233] Beira, it has been supposed, is the _Bazira_ of Arrian; but as
this has been on adequate grounds identified with Bazâr of the present
day, the supposition is untenable. Bazâr lies too far east to suit the
requirements.

[234] “How this arrangement was to prevent the upper part of the wall
from settling down is a mystery as the text stands; and we can only
suppose that (_a_) Curtius has not understood his authorities, or (_b_)
has left out some important steps in the description, or (_c_) that the
text is mutilated so as to conceal his real meaning.”—_Alex. in India_,
p. 107.

[235] Seneca (_Epistle_ 59) puts almost the same words into his mouth:
“All swear that I am the son of Jupiter, but this wound proclaims me to
be a man.” This is perhaps the occasion to which Plutarch refers when he
states (_Alex._ 28) that Alexander when shot with an arrow turned in his
pain to his attendants, and said: “This blood, my friends, is not the
ichor which blest immortals shed”—a quotation from Homer.

[236] Pratt (ii. 276, n.) notices from Athenaios that these movable
towers were invented by Dyades, pupil of Polyeîdes, who accompanied
Alexander.

[237] According to Arrian, the besieged lost heart not from terror of the
engines, but on seeing their commander killed. We read in Caesar that
his engines produced a similar effect on the minds of the Gauls. They
said that they could not believe the Romans were warring without the help
of the gods since they were able to move forward engines of so great a
height and with such celerity (_De Bell. Gall._ ii. 31).

[238] Curtius had no doubt here in his eye a passage from Livy, whose
picturesque style was his exemplar: “Ipse collis est in modum metae in
acutum cacumen a fundo satis lato fastigatus” (B. xxxvii. 27). In the
centre of the Roman circus ran lengthways down the course a low wall, at
each extremity of which were placed, upon a base, three wooden cylinders
of a conical shape which were called _metae_—the goals.

[239] _Ex sua cohorte_—that is, from the retinue of pages in immediate
attendance on the king. From this body officers were selected to fill the
highest civil and military posts in the Macedonian state.

[240] Perhaps passed by a council of war or a general assembly of the
troops. Philôtas, the son of Parmenion, was condemned to death by the
Macedonian army.

[241] The readers of Virgil will be reminded by this episode of that
of Euryalus and Nisus. Curtius indeed seems to me to have borrowed his
account of the death-scene from that poet rather than from any historical
authority.

[242] He is called Aphrikês by Diodôros.

[243] Diodôros less accurately calls him Môphis. His name _Ambhi_ (in
Sanskrit) is found in the Gana-pâtha, a genuine appendix to Pânini’s
_Grammar_ (v. _Journal Asiatique_, Series VIII. tome xv. p. 235). For
remarks on the _coined money_ which he gave to Alexander, see Note K_k_.

[244] It was Krateros, however, and not Ptolemy, who was left in charge
of the division of the army which faced the camp of Pôros. Curtius has
therefore here made a mistake.

[245] That is, Pôros had been enticed down the bank so far that the
island which lay where the passage was really to be made was no
longer visible. Curtius says nothing of the other island on which the
Macedonians landed under the erroneous impression that they had gained
the bank of the river, and Diodôros is equally silent.

[246] According to Arrian this force was commanded by the son of Pôros.

[247] See Note Y, Battle with Pôros.

[248] Boukephalos was no doubt the horse to which Curtius here refers,
but according to some accounts that famous steed was not in the battle.
Curtius here follows Chares, as the following passage quoted from this
writer by Aulus Gellius (_Noct. Attic._ v. 2) will show: “The horse
of King Alexander was both by his head and by his name _Bucephalas_
(_i.e._ ox-head). Cares has stated that he was bought for thirteen
talents, and presented to King Philip.... Regarding this horse it seems
worth recording that when caparisoned and armed for battle he would not
suffer himself to be mounted by any one but the king. It is also told
of this horse that in the Indian war when Alexander, mounted upon him,
and performing noble deeds of bravery, had with too little heed for his
own safety entangled himself amid a battalion of the enemy, where he
was on all sides assailed with darts, his horse was stabbed with deep
wounds in the neck and sides. Ready to expire, and drained of nearly
all his blood, he nevertheless bore back the king from the midst of his
foes at a most rapid pace; and when he had conveyed him beyond reach
of spears, he straightway dropped down, and having no further fear for
his master’s safety, he breathed his last as if with the consolation of
human sensibility. Then King Alexander having gained the victory in this
war, built a town on this spot, and in honour of his horse called it
Bucephalon.”

[249] Arrian says that the first messenger sent was Taxilês himself.

[250] According to Arrian, Taxilês escaped by a hasty flight.

[251] Diodôros states, on the contrary, that Alexander checked the
slaughter.

[252] This is scarcely probable. The incident is mentioned by no other
writer.

[253] Curtius has here marred with his rhetoric and moral reflections the
simple and dignified answer of Pôros, that he wished to be treated like
a king. Lucan similarly has dilated into some twenty lines of rhetoric
Caesar’s famous words to the boatmen in the storm: “Fear not, you carry
Caesar and his fortunes.” Plutarch, both in his _Life of Alexander_ and
in his _De Ira Cohibenda_ (c. 9), has stated the reply of Pôros in the
same terms as Arrian.

[254] Cicero (_pro Marcello_) extols Alexander in the highest terms
for acting thus towards his vanquished enemy; and Seneca in his _De
Clementia_ follows in a similar strain.

[255] Philostratos, in his life of Apollonios of Tyana, states that
Alexander dedicated likewise to the sun one of the elephants of Pôros,
the first of them that deserted to his side, and which he called _Ajax_,
and also the altars which he reared on the banks of the Hyphasis to mark
the limits of his advance. As the same author states that Apollonios saw
_Ajax_ still alive at Taxila some 370 years later, his veracity may be
suspected.

[256] See Note Z, Indian Serpents.

[257] The Sanskrit name of the rhinoceros is _Ganda_, also _Gandaka_ and
_Gandânga_.

[258] This is the _ficus Indica_, commonly called the banyan-tree,
because of the frequent use made of its shelter by traders who dealt in
grain, called in India _Banyans_. Strabo (XV. i. 21) describes this tree
from Onesikritos, who saw it growing in the country of Mousikanos. Pliny
also (_N. H._ xii. 11) describes the tree and its fruit, adding that it
grows chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Acesines (_Chenâb_); see also
Theophrastos, _De Plantis_, iv. 5, and Arrian’s _Indika_, c. 11. Several
English poets have made it the subject of their verse—Ben Jonson, Milton,
Tickell, and Southey. Its stately stems rise in solemn grandeur like the
basaltic pillars of Fingal’s Cave, and with the over-arching boughs form
a vast and wondrous dome—

    “Where as to shame the temples decked
    By skill of earthly architect,
    Nature herself, it seems, would raise
    A minster to her Maker’s praise.”

[259] Ailianos (_H. A._ xii. 32) says that while the Indians knew the
proper antidote against the bites of each kind of serpent, none of the
Greek physicians had discovered any such antidote. See Note Z, Indian
Serpents.

[260] See Note A_a_, Indian Peacocks.

[261] This must be the town which Arrian calls _Pimprama_, distant a
day’s march from Sangala. The accounts of the two historians are at
variance, however, since Arrian says that the place surrendered without
resistance.

[262] This place was Sangala, for which see Note M.

[263] Caesar’s men were similarly alarmed on seeing for the first time
the war chariots of the Britons: _perturbatis nostris novitate pugnae_
(_Bell. Gall._ iv. 34). See also Livy, x. 28.

[264] Arrian mentions gaps between the waggons, but does not state that
they were fastened together. Vegetius (_De re Militari_, iii. 10),
however, observes: “All barbarians fasten their chariots together in
a ring in the fashion of a camp, and thus keep themselves safe from
surprise during the night.”

[265] “It is impossible to compare the numbers given by Curtius and
Arrian, as neither gives the total of killed, and the details of the
numbers who fell in the separate operations of the siege are not so
stated as to admit of comparison” (_Alex. in India_, p. 130).

[266] The better form of the name is _Sôphytes_, which properly
transliterates the Sanskrit original _Saubhutu_, but see Biographical
Appendix, _s.v._ Sôphytes.

[267] According to Strabo the inspection was made when the child was two
months old. He notices that the practice of widow-burning was known here.

[268] “The Indians,” says Solinus (c. 55), “rub down the beryl into
hexagonal forms in order to impart vigour to the dull tameness of the
colour by the reflection from the angles. Of the beryl the varieties
are manifold.” Pliny, from whom Solinus no doubt drew this information,
states (xxxvii. 5) that beryls were seldom found elsewhere than in India,
and that the Indians had discovered how to make counterfeit gems and
especially beryls by staining crystal.

[269] See Note B_b_, Indian Dogs.

[270] The ordinary and correct reading is not _Phegeus_, as in the text
from which I translate, but _Phegelas_, which transliterates the Sanskrit
_Bhagala_. See Biog. Appendix, _s.v._ Phegelas.

[271] A sandy desert stretches from the southern borders of the Panjâb
almost to the Gulf of Kachh. The breadth of this desert from east to
west is about 400 miles. In some places it is altogether uninhabited; in
others villages and patches of cultivation are found thinly scattered. On
the east it gradually gives way to the fertile parts of India.

[272] For Gangaridae see Note C_c_, and for Prasii, Note D_d_. The common
reading of this name in the editions of Curtius is Pharasii.

[273] The name as given here seems less correct than the form in Diod.
_Xandrames_, which can be referred to the Indian word _Chandramas_,
meaning _moon-god_. See Biog. Appendix, _s.vv._ Xandrames and
Sandrokottos.

[274] On the contrary, elephants are easy to tame. Arrian in his _Indica_
(c. 13, 14) has described the manner both of trapping and taming them.
The same methods are still employed, with only slight variations. See
also Pliny, viii. 8-10; Diodôros, iii. 26; Ailianos, viii. 10 and 15, and
x. 10; and Tzetzes, _Chiliad_, iv. 122.

[275] There was no great disparity of numbers in the battle of the
Granîkos between the Greeks and Persians, 35,000 on Alexander’s side and
40,000 on the other.

[276] So Caesar, when his soldiers, terrified by the accounts they had
heard of the Germans, refused to advance against them, said, that if
nobody else would go with him he would set out with the Tenth Legion
alone (_Bell. Gall._ i. 40). Thirlwall is of opinion that Alexander’s
threat to throw himself on his Baktrian and Skythian auxiliaries, and
make the expedition with them alone, most likely misrepresents the tone
which he assumed.

[277] Cerealis addressed his men in similar terms: “Go, tell Vespasian,
or Civilis and Classicus who are nearer at hand, that you deserted your
leader on the field of battle” (Tacitus, _H._ iv. 77).

[278] “This speech, put into the mouth of Coenus, has a peculiar literary
interest beyond the ordinary run of orations written for their leading
characters by the rhetorical historians of antiquity. In the remaining
works of the elder Seneca we have a _suasoria_ or hortatory oration (see
Mayor on Juvenal, i. 16) on this very subject, in which are arranged all
the telling sentences that some of the most famous Roman rhetoricians
could compose to suit the situation. The remarkable parallels found in
this collection to the present speech of Curtius illustrates in a very
striking way the artificial nature of these harangues, and show what
a vast amount of labour this spirited and polished specimen probably
took to produce. The corresponding speech in Arrian, v. 27, though less
pointed than that in Curtius, is more natural and easy, and certainly far
superior to that put into the mouth of Alexander” (_Alexander in India_,
p. 140, n. 5).

[279] See Note N, Alexander’s Altars on the Hyphasis.

[280] Curtius is here in error as to the place of his death, for he died
at the Hydaspês, as will be seen by a reference to Arrian, vi. 2. He is
further in error, like Diodôros, in making the fleet start on its voyage
from the Akesinês instead of from the Hydaspês.

[281] “It is recorded,” said Colonel Chesney in his Simla lecture on
Alexander, “that he sent to Greece for 20,000 fresh suits of armour. A
suit of armour and arms probably weighed three-fourths of a maund (60
lbs.), and we may assume that with the arms a good many other articles
were indented for at the same time. Altogether we may take it that the
requisition was for not less than from 20,000 to 30,000 mule loads—30,000
laden mules to be despatched from Macedonia to the Satlej! A large order.
And this suggests another consideration. Alexander’s army on the Satlej
was 50,000 strong; how about his lines of communication? During the
late Afghan war over 50,000 men crossed the frontier, yet I believe the
general had never at any time more than 10,000 men in hand at the front;
the rest were swallowed up in holding obligatory posts and keeping up
the line of communication. Now if 40,000 men are needed for this purpose
to keep 10,000 effective in the front, when the distance to be covered
was only 200 miles, what would be the force required to secure the line
of communication between Macedonia and the army halted on the banks of
the Satlej? The answer is to be found in the system of war pursued by
Alexander’s Greek generals, and garrisons were left at certain points
on the road; and where complete submission was made, the enemy was left
in possession of his country and converted into an ally. But when the
resistance was obstinate Alexander left no enemies behind.” As Alexander
led into India 120,000 men, Colonel Chesney’s estimate that he had only
50,000 at the Hyphasis (which he calls the Satlej) must surely be far
below the mark.

[282] Yet Pliny (vi. 17) says that though Alexander sailed on the Indus
never less than 600 stadia per day, he took more than five months to
complete the navigation of it! This would give the Indus a length of
12,000 miles! Aristoboulos said the navigation occupied ten months, but
we may strike off a month from this estimate. The voyage began near the
end of October 326 B.C. The distance from the starting-point to the sea
by the course of the river is between eight and nine hundred British
miles.

[283] See Note E_e_, The Sibi.

[284] See Note F_f_, The Agalassians.

[285] Curtius has here confounded the junction of the Hydaspês and
Akesinês with that of the Indus and the combined stream of the Panjâb
rivers. The geography of the passage is inexplicable. Arrian has given
a vivid description of the confluence, but does not indicate that
Alexander’s life was in danger from its perilous navigation.

[286] This rhetorical passage will remind the readers of Virgil of his
description of the zones (_Georg._ i. 231-251): “Five zones comprise the
heaven ... of which two, the frozen homes of green ice and black storms,
stretch far away.... One pole is thrust down beneath the feet of murky
Styx ... where eternal night, wrapped in her pall of gloom, sits brooding
in unending silence.” The passage was probably, however, suggested by the
lines of the sixth book of the _Aeneid_, 794-796: “He (Augustus Caesar)
will stretch his sway beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is
lying outside the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path.”

[287] Racine (_Alex._ v. i.), imitating the present passage, says: “_des
déserts que le ciel refuse d’éclairer, où la nature semble elle-même
expirer_” (_Alex. in Ind._ p. 148).

[288] From which they were yet some 600 miles distant!

[289] Called the Oxydrakai by Arrian. See Note P. Curtius here differs
from Diodôros, who says that the Syrakousai (Oxydrakai) and Malloi could
not agree as to the choice of a leader, and ceased in consequence to keep
the field together. Both these historians are silent as to the operations
conducted by Alexander during his march from the junction of the Hydaspês
and the Akesinês to the capital of the Malloi situated above the old
junction of the united stream of these two rivers with the Hydraôtês.

[290] But according to Arrian, Strabo, and Plutarch, the city where
Alexander was nearly wounded to death belonged to the Malloi.

[291] Thirlwall, with good reason, regards this incident as a mere
embellishment of the story. “It is certain,” he says, “that even if
Alexander believed in such things less than he appears to have done,
he was too prudent to disclose his incredulity, and so throw away an
instrument which a Greek general might so often find useful” (_Hist. of
Greece_, vii. c. 54). The story is found in Diodôros also. If a fiction,
it may have been suggested by the fact that Alexander on approaching
Babylon, where he died, was warned by Chaldaean soothsayers not to enter
that city. If true, Alexander had doubtless in his mind the words of
Hector (_Iliad_, xii. 237-243), where he expresses his contempt for omens
drawn from the flight of birds. Hannibal had a similar contempt, as
appears from Cicero, _de Div._ ii.

[292] Curtius, like Plutarch, represents Alexander to have been wounded
after he had scaled the _city_ wall, and thence leaped down into the
_city_. But this is a mistake. It was the wall of the _citadel_ he
scaled, and it was within the _citadel_ he was wounded, as we learn both
from Arrian and Diodôros.

[293] “Probably a piece of gratuitous padding put in by Curtius to
heighten the effect of his picture. Nothing of the kind is found in
Arrian or Diodôros” (_Alex. in India_, p. 151).

[294] Timaeus and Aristonus are mentioned only by Curtius as among those
who came first to Alexander’s rescue. It is supposed that the Timaeus of
Curtius is the same person as the Limnaios of Plutarch.

[295] Pliny (vii. 37) mentions a Critobulus who acquired great celebrity
by extracting an arrow from the eye of Philip, Alexander’s father.
Arrian again says that some authors assigned the credit of the operation
in Alexander’s case to Kritodêmos, a physician of Kôs, but others to
Perdikkas.

[296] So Marius in like circumstances forbade himself to be bound
(Cicero, _Tusc. Disput._ ii. 22).

[297] The Hydraôtês or Râvi, which in those days joined the Akesinês
below Multân.

[298] Arrian, on the contrary, states, on the authority of Nearchos, that
Alexander was annoyed by the remonstrances of his friends.

[299] A Thracian tribe whose country is mentioned in Ptolemy’s
_Geography_ as a _stratêgia_—that is, a province governed by a general of
the army.

[300] That is when he crossed the Tanaïs (Jaxartês) to attack the
Skythians. “Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis.”

[301] Referring to his descent from Achilleus, whose career was short but
glorious.

[302] Alexander here refers to the plot of Hermoläos and the pages
against his life.

[303] Philip was assassinated by Pausanias while entering the door of
a theatre. The Elzevir editor aptly quotes an epigram on Henry IV. of
France, to whom a saying was attributed _Duo protegit unus_:

    “Gallorum Rex regna, inquis, duo protegit unus;
    Protexêre tuum nec duo regna caput.”

[304] The incident is mentioned briefly by Diodôros (xvii. 99). The 3000
Greeks who left their colonies to return home suffered great hardships on
the way, and were slain by the Macedonians after Alexander’s death.

[305] The Sudracae and the Malli. They arrived while Alexander was still
in camp near the confluence of the Hydraôtês with the Akesinês, where he
had joined Hêphaistiôn and Nearchos.

[306] A statement, as Thirlwall observes, hardly consistent either
with the boasts of independence made by the two nations, or with their
recorded actions.

[307] Athenaios (vi. 13) relates, on the authority of Aristoboulos,
that this Dioxippos, the Athenian, whom he calls a _pankratiast_, when
Alexander on a certain occasion was wounded, and the blood flowing,
exclaimed: “This is ichor such as flows in the veins of the blessed
gods.” Ailianos in his _Hist. Var._ (x. 22) describes his combat with the
Macedonian. Pliny (xxxv. 11) informs us that Dioxippos was painted as a
victor in the Olympic _pancratium_ by Aleimachus.

[308] It is uncertain whether the Macedonians were of the same blood
as the Greeks. Their kings undoubtedly were, but Grote, influenced by
his antipathy to Alexander, who had crushed the liberties of Greece,
considered him little better than a barbarian, “who had at most put
on some superficial varnish of Hellenic culture.” See on this point
Freeman’s _Historical Essays_, vol. ii. pp. 192-201, 3rd ed.

[309] “The sword blades of India had a great fame over the East, and
Indian steel, according to esteemed authorities, continued to be imported
into Persia till days quite recent. Its fame goes back to very old times.
Ktesias mentions two wonderful swords of such material that he got from
the King of Persia and his mother. It is perhaps the _ferrum candidum_
of which the Malli and Oxydracae sent 100 talents’ weight as a present
to Alexander. Indian iron and steel are mentioned in the _Periplus_ as
imports into the Abyssinian ports.” See Yule’s _Marco Polo_, i. p. 94.

[310] We learn from the _Periplus of the Erythraean Sea_ that tortoise
and other shells formed an important element in the ancient commerce of
the East with the West. For an account of Indian shells see _British
India_ of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, III. c. v. pp. 136-144.

[311] Alexander had, however, by this time taken their capital. We
learn from Arrian (_Indika_, c. 4) that their dominions extended to the
junction of the Akesinês with the Indus.

[312] Lassen identifies this people with the _Sambastai_ of Diodôros.
Orosius calls them the _Sabagrae_. In Arrian the _Sambastai_ appear
as the _Abastanoi_, a name which transliterates the Sanskrit word
_avasthâna_, which means, however, “a dwelling-place,” and does not
denote a people. See note on Arrian, p. 155.

[313] Two other tribes are mentioned by Arrian as having sent deputies
to Alexander while in camp near the confluence, the _Xathroi_ and the
_Ossadioi_, concerning whom see notes on Arrian, p. 156.

[314] Their alarm would no doubt be increased by the sight of the many
coloured flags of the vessels, as we may infer from the words of Pliny
(xix. 1): “The first attempt at dyeing canvas with the costliest hues for
dyeing wearing apparel was made in the fleets of Alexander the Great when
he was navigating the river Indus, for then his generals and prefects
had distinguished by differences of colour the ensigns of their vessels,
and the natives along the shore were lost in amazement at the variety of
their colours. It was with a purple sail Cleopatra came with Antony to
Actium, and fled therefrom. This was the colour of the admiral’s ensign.”

[315] Chachar opposite Mithânkôt, a little below the great confluence.
See Note on Arrian.

[316] See Note on Arrian, p. 156.

[317] Called Tyriaspês by Arrian. Oxyartes was Alexander’s father-in-law.

[318] For the Praesti and Porticanus see Note to Arrian, p. 158.

[319] See Note S.

[320] Aurengzêb captured Surat by a similar device, and to the great
astonishment of the inhabitants.

[321] According to Diodôros this happened in the neighbourhood of
Harmatelia, for conjectures as to the position of which see Note T.
Strabo says it happened in the country of the Oreitai.

[322] It has been thought this name may be constructed from _Maharâjah_,
“great king.” For identification of Patala see Note U.

[323] This island is called by Arrian Killouta, and by Plutarch
Skilloustis. See Note on Arrian, p. 164.

[324] See Note G_g_, Tides in Indian Rivers.

[325] This lake, however, was discovered neither on this voyage nor on
this arm of the Indus, but during a subsequent voyage which Alexander
made down the eastern arm.

[326] “No magnificent idea,” says Vincent, “is requisite to conceive the
building of cities in the East. A fort or citadel with a mud wall to mark
the circumference of the pettah or town is all that falls to the share of
the founder. The habitations are raised in a few days or hours.... The
Soldan of Egypt insults Timour by telling him: ‘The cities of the East
are built of mud, and ephemeral; ours in Syria and Egypt are of stone,
and eternal.’”

[327] Nearchos with the fleet rejoined the army at a point on the river,
Pasitigris or Karun, near the modern village of Ahwaz, where was a bridge
by which Alexander led his army from Persis to Sousa, where he arrived
February 324 B.C.

[328] The Alexandreia of Diodôros, and probably also the Alexandreia
which, as we learn from Pliny (vi. 25), was built by Leonnatos by
Alexander’s orders on the confines of the Arian nation. It may also be
the fifteenth of the Alexandreias of Stephanos Byz., which he places in
the country of the Arachosians next to India. It was perhaps, however,
the _Portus Alexandri_, now Karâchi, where Nearchos was detained by the
prevalence of the monsoon for twenty-four days.

[329] Hence their name _Ichthyophagoi_. They inhabited the maritime parts
of the Oreitai and Gedrosians. In sailing along their coast Nearchos
and his men suffered great hardships from scarcity of provisions. See
Arrian’s _Indika_, 24-31. Much may also be read of this people in Strabo,
Pliny, Ailianos, and Agatharchides.

[330] Arrian (vi. 27) says, however, that Phrataphernes brought the
provisions spontaneously. Diodôros is at one with Curtius on the point.

[331] This description is much overdrawn. Thirlwall thus remarks upon
it: “We cannot wonder that, in the enjoyment of pleasures, from which
they had been so long debarred, they abandoned themselves to some
excesses, perhaps only following the example of their chiefs and of
Alexander himself;” and this was probably the main ground of fact for the
exaggeration of later writers.

[332] Arrian alludes to his execution in his _Indika_, c. 36.

[333] This happened at Mazaga, the capital of Assakênos. Plutarch, it
will be seen, justly condemns Alexander for this gross violation of the
compact into which he had entered with the Indian mercenaries.

[334] For its identification see Note F, Aornos.

[335] Aphrikês is called Eryx by Curtius.

[336] More correctly _Omphis_ as given by Curtius. See Biog. Appendix,
_s.v._ Omphis.

[337] The father of Omphis had quite recently died, and Omphis did not
assume the sovereignty at once on his decease, but waited till Alexander
sanctioned his doing so. He then, as a matter of course, along with the
sovereignty assumed also the dynastic title _Taxilês_.

[338] Alexander’s campaign, in which he conquered the country extending
from the Hindu Kush to the Indus, took place in the year 327 B.C. In
the year following he marched eastward through the Panjâb as far as the
Hyphasis, conquering on his way Pôros and the Kathaians, and from the
Hyphasis he retraced his way to the Hydaspês. He then sailed down that
river, and then down the Akesinês into which it falls, until about the
end of the year he reached the Indus. It will be seen from Arrian, v. 19,
that the battle with Pôros was fought in the archonship of Hêgemôn at
Athens, whose year of office, it is otherwise known, extended from the
28th of June 327 to the 17th of July 326 B.C. Hêgemôn was succeeded by
Chremês, so that Diodôros antedates his archonship. He was archon after
the defeat of Pôros and not before. With regard to the two consuls named,
it does not appear that they ever held the consulship simultaneously.
Publius Cornelius (Scipio Barbatus) was consul in 328 B.C. along with
C. Plautius Decianus. In the following year _Spurius_ Postumius Albinus
was master of the horse to the Dictator Claudius Marcellus, but I can
find nowhere in the lists the name of _Aulus_ Postumius as holding any
office about that time. In Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_ the year 327
B.C. appears as the _annus mirabilis_ of Alexander’s life, for early in
the spring he completes the conquest of Sogdiana and marries Roxana.
Thereafter he returns to Baktra, then marches to invade India, and
crossing the Hydaspês defeats Pôros. He then marches to the Hyphasis, and
thence returns to the Hydaspês. In the autumn he sails down the Hydaspês
to the Indus! See vol. iii. p. 1346 and vol. i. _s.v._ Alexander III. The
events of two years are thus compressed into the space of a single year.
Clinton’s chronology, which is very confused for the period from 327 to
323, seems to have been followed.

[339] His name appears in Arrian more correctly as Abisares. He may be
described as the King of Kashmir.

[340] Boukephala and Nikaia, for which see Note on Arrian, p. 110.

[341] See Note Z, Indian Serpents.

[342] This is the whip-snake which is thus described in _British India_
of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. iii. pp. 121, 122: “The whip snake
is common to the Concan, where it conceals itself among the foliage of
trees, and darts at the cattle grazing below, generally aiming at the
eye. A bull, which was thus wounded at Dazagon, tore up the ground with
extreme fury, and died in half an hour, foaming at the mouth. The habit
of the reptile is truly singular, for it seems to proceed neither from
resentment nor from fear, nor yet from the impulse of appetite; but
seems, ‘more than any other known fact in natural history, to partake of
that frightful and mysterious principle of evil, which tempts our species
so often to tyrannize for mere wantonness of power.’”

[343] The Adraïstai of Arrian. See Note on that author, p. 116.

[344] See Note I_i_, Suttee.

[345] More correctly Sôphytês. See Biog. Appendix, _s.v._

[346] This was also a Spartan institution.

[347] See Note B_b_.

[348] More correctly _Phegelas_ as given by Arrian. See Biog. Appendix,
_s.v._

[349] Usually called the Hyphasis. It is now the Beäs which joins the
Satlej. The name of the Hyphasis was sometimes, however, applied to the
united stream, but this is contrary to Sanskrit usage.

[350] See Notes C_c_ and D_d_.

[351] The Indian barber (_nâpit_) belonged to the Sudra or servile caste.
Besides the duties proper to his calling, he has other avocations, his
services being often required for the performance of certain domestic
ceremonies such as those connected with marriage, etc.

[352] “Kallisthenes adds (after the exaggerating style of tragedy) that
when Apollo had deserted the oracle among the Branchidai, on the temple
being plundered by the Branchidai (who espoused the party of the Persians
in the time of Xerxes), and the spring had failed, it then reappeared _on
the arrival of Alexander_; that the ambassadors also of the Milesians
carried back to Memphis numerous answers of the oracle respecting the
descent of Alexander from Jupiter, and the future victory which he should
obtain at Arbela, the death of Darius, and the political changes at
Lacedaemon” (Strabo, XVII. i. 43). See also Introd. p. 28.

[353] Properly the _Gangaridai_.

[354] Diodôros should have said the _Hydaspês_.

[355] See Note on Curtius, p. 231.

[356] See Note E_e_, The Sibi.

[357] See Note F_f_, The Agalassians.

[358] See Curtius, ix. 4.

[359] This happened at the junction of the Akesinês with the _Hydaspês_
and not with the _Indus_, as here represented. For the contest of
Achilles with the Simoeis and Skamander, see the twenty-first book of the
_Iliad_.

[360] The Oxydrakai.

[361] “The two races (_Oxydrakai_ and _Malloi_) were composed of widely
different elements, for the name of one appears to have been derived
from that of the Sudra caste; and it is certain that the Brahmins were
predominant in the other. We can easily understand why they did not
intermarry, and were seldom at peace with each other, and that their
mutual hostility was only suspended by the common danger which now
threatened their independence.”—Thirlwall’s _Hist. of Greece_, vii. c. 54.

[362] Called Horratas by Curtius.

[363] For a notice of Dioxippos, see Note on Curtius, p. 249.

[364] For their identification, see Note on Curtius, p. 252.

[365] See Note R for their identification.

[366] Cunningham inclines to believe that the _Massanoi_ of Diodôros
are the _Musarnoi_ of Ptolemy, whose name, he says, still exists in the
district of _Muzarka_ to the west of the Indus below Mithankot. See his
_Anc. Geog. of Ind._ p. 254.

[367] For its identification see Note R and Note on Arrian, p. 156.

[368] See Note on Arrian, p. 157, regarding the position of this country.

[369] Porticanos is called Oxykanos by Arrian. See Note on that author,
p. 158.

[370] For the kingdom of Sambos see Note S.

[371] See Note T.

[372] See Note on Curtius, p. 256.

[373] Evidently an error for _Patala_, for the identification of which
see Note U.

[374] See Note on Curtius, p. 262.

[375] All these particulars are recorded at length in the _Indika_ of
Arrian, from c. 24 to c. 31.

[376] Generally called Parthia, then a small state.

[377] Drangianê, now the province of Seistan. The inhabitants Drangoi,
and also Zarangoi. Drangianê was separated from Gedrôsia by the Baitian
mountains, now called the Washati.

[378] Areia was a small province included in Ariana which embraced nearly
the whole of ancient Persia. The name is connected with the Indian word
_ârya_, “noble” or “excellent.” It occupied the tract from Meshed to
Herat.

[379] Arrian, however, relates in his _Indika_ (c. 23), that Leonnatos
defeated the Oreitai and their allies in a great battle in which all the
leaders and 6000 men were slain, while his own loss was very trifling.

[380] Arrian gives in his _Indika_ (c. 33-35) full details of the
journey of Nearchos from the coast to Alexander’s camp, which lay a five
days’ march inland, and of the affecting interview between the king and
his admiral, whom he had given up for lost. Arrian’s narrative may be
implicitly trusted, as it was based on the _Journal_ of Nearchos, whose
veracity is unimpeachable. The admiral did not appear in the theatre
until his interview with Alexander had been concluded. Diodôros is
clearly in error in placing Salmous on the coast.

[381] This incident occurred at Mazaga, the capital of Assakênos.

[382] The Brahmans of Sindh are here referred to.

[383] “When the Greek writers tell us that the district between the
Hydaspes and the Hyphasis alone contained 5000 cities (!), none of which
was less than that of Cos (Strabo, xv. p. 686), and that the dominions of
Pôros, which were confined between the Hydaspes and the Acesines—a tract
not more than 40 miles in width—contained 300 cities (_id._ p. 698),
it is evident that the Greeks were misled by the exaggerated reports
so common with all Orientals, and which were greedily swallowed by the
historians of Alexander with a view of magnifying the exploits of the
great conqueror.”—Bunbury, _Hist. of Anc. Geog._ I. p. 453.

[384] See Note to Arrian, p. 112, and to Curtius, p. 212.

[385] This seems an almost inexcusable mistake on Plutarch’s part—his
conducting Alexander as far as the Ganges! The author of the _Periplûs_
made the same egregious blunder. It is possible, however, to put a
different construction on the expressions used by Plutarch, and to
suppose that he wrote so carelessly that he did not mean what his words
seem to imply.

[386] See Notes C_c_ and D_d_ for these people.

[387] More correctly Sandrakyptos, or Chandragupta. See Biog. Appendix,
_s.v._ Sandrokottos.

[388] See Note N, Altars at the Hyphasis.

[389] See Biog. Appendix, _s.v._ Sandrokottos.

[390] This was the wall of the citadel, not of the city, as Plutarch
represents.

[391] This fact, attested by all the historians, confirms the truth of
the reports as to the great skill of the Indians in archery.

[392] Called Timaeus by Curtius, p. 240.

[393] He is called Sambos by Arrian, and was the ruler of the mountainous
region west of the Indus, having Sindimana for his capital, the city now
called Sehwan. See Biog. Appendix, _s.v._ Sambos.

[394] “He (Alexander) caused ten Indian philosophers, whom the Greeks
called _gymnosophists_, and who were naked as apes, to be seized. He
proposes to them questions worthy of the gallant Mercury of Visé,
promising them with all seriousness that the one who answered worst would
be hanged the first, after which the others would follow in their order.
This is like Nabuchodonosor, who absolutely wished to slay the Magians
if they did not divine one of his dreams which he had forgotten, or the
Calif of _The Thousand and One Nights_ who was to strangle his wife when
she came to the end of her stories. But it is Plutarch who tells this
silly story; we must respect it; he was a Greek” (Voltaire, _Dict. Phil._
s.v. _Alexandre_). See also Note H_h_, Indian Gymnosophists.

[395] The interviews of Onesikritos with the Indian philosophers took
place earlier than is here stated—when Alexander was at Taxila.

[396] Called Killouta by Arrian. The native name has not otherwise been
preserved. The city which Pliny calls Xylenopolis was probably situated
in Killouta, and was the naval station whence Nearchos started on his
voyage. The name means “city of wood.”

[397] Arrian relates in his _Indika_ (c. 26) that Nearchos in the course
of his voyage, having landed at a place on the Gedrôsian coast called
Kalama, received from the natives a present of sheep and fish. The
admiral recorded that the mutton had a fishy taste like the flesh of
sea-birds, because for want of grass the sheep were fed on fish.

[398] See Note on Curtius, p. 266.

[399] See Note on Curtius, p. 194.

[400] The Queen of Mazaga, capital of the Assakenians. See Note D.

[401] The rock Aornos, identified with Mount Mahaban. See Note F.

[402] The Adrestae are the Adraïstai of Arrian. See Note on that author,
p. 116. The Gesteani seem to be the Kathaians. The Praesidae must be the
Prasians (though Saint-Martin would identify them with the Praesti of
Curtius), and the Gangaridae the people of Lower Bengal.

[403] The river reached was the Hyphasis. How Justin came to call it
the Cuphites it is difficult to understand. Can he have had in his
recollection the Kâbul river, called sometimes by the classical writers
the _Kuphes_, with _Kuphet_ as the stem for the oblique cases, and
mistaken it for the river which arrested Alexander’s progress? Like
Plutarch, he erroneously supposes that the Macedonian army was confronted
with a great host encamped on the opposite bank of the river.

[404] _Hydaspes_ he should have said.

[405] For the identification of this people, see Note F_f_.

[406] The _Silei_ are probably the _Sibi_. See Note E_e_.

[407] By the _Ambri_ must be meant the _Malli_, and by the _Sigambri_ the
_Oxydrakai_. The text must be corrupt.

[408] This is supposed to be a corrupt reading for Ambiregis, in which
case _Ambi_ is a mistake for _Sambi_. We know that the incident referred
to happened in the dominions of this king. In Orosius (iii. 19) the name
is transcribed as _Ambiraren_.

[409] Nothing is known of this city, unless it be, as Cunningham thinks,
the _Barbari_ of Ptolemy, and the _Barbarike Emporium_ of the author of
the _Periplûs_. See his _Anc. Geog._ p. 295.

[410] _Nandrum_ has been here substituted for the common reading
_Alexandrum_, which Gutschmid (_Rhein. Mus._ 12, 261) has shown to be an
error.

[411] Quoted by Heitland in the original.

[412] _Ibid._

[413] The _Râmâyana_ (ii. 70. 21) mentions among the Kaikeyas, “the dogs
bred in the palace, gifted with the strength of the tiger and of huge
body” (Dunck. iv. p. 403).

[414] Referring to the terms in which he was summoned to go to Alexander.
He was to go to “the son of Zeus.”

[415] According to Dr. Bellew this name is the Greek equivalent of the
Persian _Mâhîkhorân_, “fish-eaters,” still surviving in the modern
_Makrân_. [Since the above note was written the cause of Eastern
learning and research has suffered a grievous loss by the death of this
distinguished Orientalist, whose work on the Ethnology of Afghanistan
will prove a lasting monument to his fame. The work discusses _inter
alia_ the ethnic affinities of the various races with which Alexander
came into contact during his Asiatic expedition.]

[416] Major E. Mockler, the political agent of Makrân, contributed some
years ago to the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society a valuable paper
on the identification of places on this coast mentioned by Arrian,
Ptolemy, and Marcian, in which he corrected some errors into which the
commentators on these authors had fallen.

[417] A slight emendation of the reading (suggested by Schwanbeck)
restores the passage to sense, making Arrian say that Sandrokottos was
greater even than Pôros.

[418] It seems that Pôros, after Alexander’s death, had possessed himself
of the satrapy of the Lower Indus, held till then by Peithôn son of
Agênôr.

[419] The passage states that Amitrochates, the king of the Indians,
wrote to Antiochos asking that king to buy and send him sweet wine, dried
figs, and a sophist; and that Antiochos replied: We shall send you the
figs and the wine, but in Greece the laws forbid a sophist to be sold.
Athênaios quotes Hêgêsander as his authority.




INDICES




I. GENERAL INDEX


_N.B._—When a person or place is designated by two or more names more
or less different, these names are generally given together. The modern
names of ancient cities, rivers, etc., are bracketed in italics. Proper
names which appear in one part of the text spelled after the Greek form,
and in another after the Latin, will be found indexed under the Greek
form; hence names which commonly begin with C should be looked for under
K.

  Abars or Sous, 344

  Abastanoi, 155, 252, 292-3

  Abisara (_Hazâra_), 375

  Abisarês, 69, 76, 92, 112, 115, 129, 202, 203, 216, 274, 278, 380, 402

  Abreas, 146-8, 150

  Abyla, 123

  Acacia, 171

  Acadira, 64

  Achaimenids, 31, 34

  Achilles, Achilleus, 15, 246, 286

  Adraïstai, Adrestae, 116, 279, 323

  Adrapsa, 39

  Agalasseis, 232, 285, 324, 366-7

  Agathoklês, 371

  Agêma, the Royal Escort, 20

  Aghor, river, 168

  Agrammes, Xandrames, 221-2, 281-2, 407, 409, 413

  Agrianians, 20 _passim_

  Ahmedâbâd, 134

  Ahwaz, 262

  Aigina, Aegina, island of, 150

  Aigyptos, river. _See_ Nile

  Airâvatî, river. _See_ Hydraôtes

  Aithiopians, 85, 132

  Ajanta, Caves of, 186

  Ajax, the elephant of Pôros, 215

  Akbar, 407

  Akesinês, Asiknî, Chandrabhâga Sandabala, river (_Chenâb_). Its
        source, and direction of its course, 87, 88;
    its Vedic name, 93;
    described by Ptolemy Sôtêr, 112-3;
    crossed by Alexander, 113,
      and recrossed, 129-30, 284, 324;
    its turbulent confluence with the Hydaspês, 137-9;
    its confluence with the Indus, 155;
    the voyage down its stream, 350

  Aleimachos, 249

  Alexander Aigos, 50, 404
    a young Macedonian hero, 198-9
    King of Epeiros, 380
    the Great, his birth, education, and accession to the throne, 15,
        16;
      crosses into Asia, defeats the Persians in three great battles,
        and takes Babylon, Sousa, and Persepolis, 17-34;
      pursues and overtakes Darius, 34, 35;
      invades Hyrkania, quells revolt of the Areians, crosses the
        Indian Kaukasos, reduces Baktria and Sogdiana and defeats the
        Skythians, 35-44;
      recrosses the Kaukasos, subdues the tribes of Northern
        Afghanistân, crosses the Indus, defeats Pôros, subdues the
        Panjâb and valley of the Indus, and returns by way of Gedrosia,
        Karmania, Persis and Sousis to Babylon, 57-328;
      his death and character, 47, 48;
      his personal appearance and habits, 48, 49;
      his dress and arms, 147;
      wars of his successors, 49-53;
      general results of his eastern expedition, 3-5;
      list of his historians and estimate of their credibility, 6-15

  Alexandreia in Egypt, 27, 49, 80
    now Herat, 37
    Eschatê, 41
    under Kaukasos, 39, 44, 58, 80, 331-2
    near Mithânkôt, 253

  Alikasudara, Alexander, King of Epeiros, 374

  Alingar, river (_Kow_), 61

  Alishang, river, 61

  Alketas, 50, 57, 68, 69, 97, 374, 382

  Allahâbâd, 184

  Allitrochadês, Vindusâra, 383, 405, 409

  Alôr, 157, 165, 353-4

  Altars of Alexander on the Hyphasis, 129, 215, 230, 234, 284, 311,
        348-50

  Amastris, 393

  Amazons, 42, 340

  Amb, 77

  Ambashtha, Sambastai, Abastanoi, 155

  Ambiger, 356, 375

  Ambri, probably the Malloi, 324-5

  Amisea, birthplace of Strabo, 412

  Ammôn, an Egyptian deity identified by the Greeks with Zeus, 27, 49,
        135, 164, 282

  Amphipolis, 396, 404

  Amritsar, supposed by some to occupy the site of Sangala; its name
        means “Pool of immortality,” 348

  Amtikina, Antigonos Gonatas, 374

  Amyntas, 8, 58, 375-6

  Anabasis of Xenophôn, 10

  Anamis, river (_Minâb_), 397

  Anaximenês, 8

  Andaka, Andêla, 62, 194

  Androsthenes, 8, 376

  Ankyra (_Angora_), 24

  Antigenês, 50, 104, 160, 209, 376

  Antigonos, 50, 51, 369, 375-6, 382-4, 385, 394, 398, 399, 400-1, 406,
        410, 412
    Gonatas, King of Macedonia, 52, 376, 380
    Dôsôn, 377

  Antiochos, a commander of the Hypaspists, 76
    father of Seleukos Nikator, 409
    I. surnamed Sôtêr King of Syria, 6, 377
    II. King of Syria, 52, 377, 380
    III. King of Syria, 52, 53

  Antipater, Regent of Macedonia, 19, 50, 377-8, 393, 394, 400, 402

  Antiyoka, Antiochos II., 52, 374

  Antoninus Pius, 9

  Antony, Mark, 253

  Ants, gold-digging, 85, 341-2

  Aornis. _See_ Aornos, Rock of

  Aornos, a city of Baktria, 39

  Aornos, Rock of, 70-3, 76, 124, 197, 271, 285, 322, 336-9, 410

  Apama, wife of Seleukos Nikator and mother of Antiochos Sôter, 409

  Apellês, 49

  Apes, Indian, 277-8

  Aphrikês. _See_ Eryx

  Apollodotos, 372

  Apollonios, 344, 349, 378

  Apollophanês, 169, 177, 378

  Arabios, Arabis, river (_Purali_), 167, 168, 262, 397

  Arabitai, Arabites, 167, 262, 296

  Arachosia, 38, 88 _passim_

  Arachôsians, 249, 262

  Aral, Sea of, 17, 41

  Aratrioi, 116

  Aratta, 406

  Araxes, river (_Bund-Amîr_, the _Bendameer_ of Moore), 33

  Arbêla. _See_ under Battle

  Areia, 36, 38, 298, 411

  Archelaos, a geographer in Alexander’s Expedition, 8

  Argos, 124

  Argyraspides, the silver-shielded, 20, 321, 376

  Ariaspians, Euergetai, _i.e._ Benefactors, 38

  Aribes. _See_ Arabitai

  Arigaion, 64

  Ariobarzanês, 33, 378

  Arispai, 367

  Aristoboulos, 7, 44, 378

  Aristonous, 180, 240, 379

  Aristophylai, 58

  Aristotle, 15, 44, 379-80, 392

  Arjunâyana, Agalassians, 367

  Armaël, Armabil. _See_ Harmatelia

  Armour, 20,000 suits of, received by Alexander, 231

  Arrhidaios, Alexander’s half-brother, 50

  Arrhybas, 394

  Arrian, life of, 9-10

  Arrow, Indian, described as long and heavy, 210;
    Alexander wounded by one at Massaga, 195;
    and in the Mallian stronghold, 148, 239, 289, 312, 325;
    Ptolemy wounded by one tipped with poison, 255-6, 294-5, 326;
    the kind used by Indian king in hunting, 189

  Arsakês, 129, 377, 380

  Arsinoê, mother of Ptolemy Sôtêr, 402-3

  Artabazos, 36, 39, 376, 380, 385, 393, 395, 398, 403

  Artabios, river. _See_ Arabios

  Artakoana, 36

  Artaxerxes III., 380

  Artemidôros, 380

  Artemision, 150

  Asiknî, river. _See_ Akesinês

  Asklêpiadai, 149

  Asklêpios, Aesculapius, 380

  Aśôka, king of Magadha, grandson of Chandragupta, 52, 187, 343, 374,
        376, 377, 380, 381, 404, 407, 409
    Inscription of, 372-3

  Aspasioi, war with the, 60-5, 333-4, 339

  Ass, wild, 186-7

  Assacanus, 194

  Assakênoi, Assacani, defeat of the, 65-6, 333-4

  Astês, 381

  Atâri, 143, 352

  Athêna, Minerva, 146, 200, 400

  Athênaios, 381

  Athênodôros, 247, 381

  Athens, 362, 363, 379, 384, 386, 389

  Athôs, Mount, 379

  Atlas, Mount, 123

  Attak, Attock, 72, 78, 84, 131, 343

  Attakênoi, 114

  Attalos, uncle of Kleopatra the wife of King Philip, Alexander’s
        father, 16, 17, 381

  Attalos, Commander of the Agrianians, 381

  Attalos, one of Alexander’s great officers, 51, 57, 62, 64, 69, 98,
        160, 206, 375, 382

  Augustus, 11, 13, 15, 389, 412

  Aurengzêb, 254

  Austanês, 57

  Ayek, river, 141


  Babylon, 29, 31, 32, 47, 122, 325, 327, 385, 388-9, 400, 402, 410

  Bacchus. _See_ Dionysos

  Bahâwalpûr, 350

  Bahîka, 350

  Baitian Mountains (_Washati_), 167, 298

  Baitôn, one of Alexander’s _Mensores_, 8, 331, 345, 382

  Baktra (_Balkh_), 39, 41, 44, 58, 247

  Baktria, 34, 37;
    conquered by Alexander, 41-4;
    included in the dominions of Seleukos Nikator, 410;
    made an independent kingdom by Theodotos, 377;
    coins of Graeco-Baktrian Kings, 370-1

  Balakros, 64, 200, 382

  Balarâma, Indian Heraklês, 70

  Balistai, engines for hurling missiles, 21

  Bambhra, 164

  Banpûr, Bunpoor, 357

  Banyan-tree, Ficus Indica, 217

  Barber, Indian, 282

  Barcê, 326

  Bargosa, Barygaza (_Baroch_), 389

  Battle of Arbêla, 29, 150, 380, 393, 395
    with the Aspasians, 65
    of Chaironeia, Chaeronea, 16
    of Chilianwâla, 103
    of Gaugamêla. _See_ Arbêla
    of the Granîkos, 21-3, 150, 225, 392, 395
    of the Hydaspês, 4, 100-10, 203-14, 307-8, 345-6, 360-1, 393, 395
    of Ipsos, 51, 376, 410
    of Issos, 25, 29, 30, 394, 395, 402
    with the Kathaians, 116-9, 217-8, 279, 323
    of Kounaxa, Cunaxa, 19
    of Kynoskephalai, 21
    with the Malloi, 145, 236
    of Meani, 30-1

  Barsinê, Stateira, daughter of Darius, and wife of Alexander, 46,
        382, 398, 404

  Barzaentes, 37, 203, 382

  Bazâr, 194, 335

  Bazaria (_Bokhara?_), 43

  Bazira, 67, 70-1, 335

  Beas, river. _See_ Hyphasis

  Bean, the Egyptian, 131

  Begrâm, plain of, 332

  Beira, 194

  Bela, 356-7

  Beluchistan, 170

  Bêlus, temple of, 31

  Beryls, Indian, 220

  Bêssos, Satrap of Baktria, 34, 35, 36, 39-40, 41, 76, 150, 382-3,
        398, 410

  Bhakar, 160, 353, 354

  Bhêranah, 116

  Bhimber, 366

  Bhira, Bheda, 136

  Bibasis, river. _See_ Hyphasis

  Bidaspes, river. _See_ Hydaspês

  Birds, Indian, which talk, 186

  Bitôn, 247-8

  Bokhara, 41

  Bolan Pass, 160, 354, 382, 393, 403

  Bôlitai (_Kabulîs_), 158

  Bosporos, 90

  Boukephala, a city founded in honour of Alexander’s favourite horse,
        110, 130, 231, 277, 284, 309, 323

  Boukephalos, Boukephalas, Alexander’s favourite horse, 101, 110, 111,
        309, 323, 212

  Boumodos, river, 150

  Boxos, 185, 247-8

  Brahmanâbâd, 353, 355, 356

  Brachmans, Brahmans, 143, 159, 160, 293, 306, 343, 358-9, 362, 368,
        378, 392, 395

  Brahmaputra, river, 184, 367

  Branchidai, 282

  Bridge made over the Indus, 72, 78, 83, 90, 272

  Bridging of rivers, 90-1

  Buddha, 408

  Buddhism, 381

  Buddhists, 359

  Bulls, Indian, 202

  Burindu, Parenos, river, 77, 339

  Burma, 187

  Byzantium (_Constantinople_), 379


  Caesar, 12, 13, 14, 214

  Calingae, 364

  Camp, Alexander’s, on the Hydaspês, 344-5

  Cedrôsia. _See_ Gedrôsia

  Cerealis, a Roman General, 227

  Ceylon, 374

  Chachar. _See_ Chuchpûr

  Chaironeia. _See_ under Battle

  Chânakya, 370, 408, 409

  Chandrabhâga, river. _See_ Akesinês

  Chandragupta, King of Palibothra. _See_ Sandrokottos

  Chares, Cares, 7, 44, 383

  Charikar, 38, 331

  Chariots, war, 207

  Charus, a brave Macedonian youth, 198, 199

  Chenâb, river. _See_ Akesinês

  Chittral, 61

  Choarênê, 160

  Choaspes, river, 61, 62, 64, 194, 338

  Chremês, an Athenian Archon, 110, 273-4

  Chuchpûr, Chachar, 156, 293, 253

  Cicero, 11

  Claudius, 11, 395

  Cleochares, 92, 203

  Cleophis, Queen of Massaga, 194, 196-7, 269, 322, 335, 383

  Clitarchos. _See_ Kleitarchos

  Coins, Roman, 372;
    Indian, 201

  Colonies founded by Alexander, 58

  Colonists, Baktrian, 289

  Comorin, Cape, 184

  Companion, Cavalry, 57 _passim_

  Confluence of the Hydaspês and Akesinês, 137-9, 233-4, 286
    of the Akesinês and Hydraôtês, 155, 242, 352
    of the united stream of the Panjâb rivers (called the Akesinês,
        now the _Panjnad_) with the Indus, 155
    of the Hyphasis with the Satlej, 120-1, 349
    of the Hyphasis (Satlej?) with the Akesinês, 155

  Constantine the Great, 408

  Corinth, Isthmus of, 150

  Cornelius, P., 274

  Cotton, 186, 188

  Crete, 386

  Crocodiles, 139

  Cuphetes, river, 323

  Curtius, Q. Rufus, life of, 10-12

  Cutch, a colouring matter, 171

  Cyprus, 27

  Cyropolis, 40

  Cyrus the Great, 17, 34, 38, 40, 46, 86, 170, 173, 358

  Cyrus the Younger, 19


  Daedala, Daidala, 64, 194, 322, 335

  Daedali Mountains (_Mt. Dantalok?_), 64, 335

  Dahae, Dahans, 208, 225

  Daityas, 83

  Damascus, 26

  Damis, 344

  Dandamis. _See_ Mandanês

  Dardai, 341

  Dardistan, 187

  Darius Hystaspes, divides his empire into satrapies, 18;
    copy of his seal, 29;
    was paid tribute by the Arabitai and Oreitai, 167
    Kodomannos, state of the Persian empire at his accession to the
        throne, 18, 19;
    defeat of his army at the Granîkos, 21, 22;
      at Issos, 24-6;
    his treasures and family seized at Damascus, his offers to
        Alexander rejected, 28;
    his defeat at Gaugamêla, and flight to Arbêla, 29-31;
    his flight from Ekbatana and assassination, 34, 35;
    Arrian’s estimate of his character, 35;
    his contrast to Pôros, 108, 346

  Dataphernês, 39

  Dêimachos, 8, 383, 405

  Delta of the Indus, Patalênê, 84, 160, 352-3, 356
    of the Nile, 357

  Dêmêtrios, one of the Sômatophylakes, 38, 383, 403
    Son of Pythônax, 69, 98, 104, 114, 144, 360, 383
    Poliorkêtês, son of Antigonos, and King of Macedonia, 51, 151, 376,
        383, 400

  Dêmophôn, 236, 287

  Dêmosthenês, 16, 381

  Derbend, 77

  Desert east of the Indus, 221

  Dhanananda, 408

  Diamouna, river. _See_ Iomanês (_Jamnâ_)

  Dêbal, 169

  Dilâwar, 97

  Dimachai, 21

  Dimoirites, Duplicarius, 146, 147

  Diodôros Sic., life of, 13-14

  Diodotos of Erythrai, 8

  Diogenês, 315, 391, 398

  Diognêtos, 8, 331, 345

  Dionysopolis. _See_ Nysa

  Dionysos, Bacchus, 5, 79, 80, 82, 124, 136, 154, 179, 191, 192, 226,
        252, 265, 299, 317, 321, 340, 351

  Dioskorides, 384

  Dioxippos, a famous Athenian athlete, 249, 250-1, 290-2, 351

  Dir, 76

  Diridotis (_Teredon_), 397

  Doanas, river. _See_ Dyardanês

  Dog and lion fight, 220-1, 280, 363-4

  Dogs, Indian, 363-4

  Dorsanes, Indian Heraklês, 70

  Doxarês, 92

  Drachma, Greek silver coin, 372

  Drangiana (_Seistân_), 37, 298, 411

  Dudhiâl, 345

  Drypatis, daughter of Darius and wife of Hêphaistiôn, 386

  Dyades, 196

  Dyardanes, river (_Brahmaputra?_) 184

  Dyrta, 76


  Edom, 186

  Ekbatana, capital of Mêdia (_Hamadan_), 30, 34, 47, 126, 362, 384,
        385, 386, 392

  Elam, Mount, Râm Takht, 338-9

  Elburz Mountains, 35

  Elephants, presented to Alexander by Taxilês, 58;
    by Abisarês, 112;
    objects of terror to horses, 96;
    part played by them in the battle of the Hydaspês, 103-6, 208-13,
        274-5, 308;
    Sandrokottos gives five hundred to Seleukos Nikatôr in exchange for
        the Panjâb and territories west of the Indus, 410

  Embolima, 72, 200, 336-7

  Emodoi Mountains (_Himâlayas_), 131

  Enotokoitai, a fabulous race, 405

  Eordaia, 399

  Ephêmerides (_Daily Gazette_), 7, 384

  Epiktêtos, 9, 384

  Erannoboas, river (_Sôn_), 187, 407

  Eratosthenês, 384

  Erix, Eryx, Aphrikes, 77, 200, 272, 378

  Erythrae, 341

  Erythraian Sea, 13, 183, 185

  Erythrus, 185

  Etymander, river (_Helmund_), 38, 184

  Euaspla, Choaspes, river, 62

  Eudêmos, 45, 177, 384, 406, 412

  Eudoxos, 188

  Euergetai. _See_ Ariaspians

  Eukratides, 343, 344

  Eumenês, Alexander’s secretary, 7, 8, 50, 51, 119, 218, 369, 375,
        376, 380-5, 393, 398-401, 406, 410, 412

  Euphrates, river, 24, 29, 47, 88, 91, 123, 262, 296, 301

  Euryalus, 198

  Euthydêmos, 53


  Ficus Indica. _See_ Banyan-tree

  Firûzâbâd, 169


  Gadeira (_Cadiz_), 123

  Gadrôsoi. _See_ Gêdrosioi

  Gândhâra, 59, 62, 333, 364, 399

  Gandaridai, 279, 323

  Gandaris, 112, 133, 134

  Gangaridae (_Gonghrîs_), 221, 281, 283, 310, 364-5

  Gangê, 365

  Ganges, river, 12, 13, 84, 123, 183, 184, 221, 234-5, 310, 349, 353,
        367, 393, 407

  Gates, Amanian, 25
    Kaspian, 34, 122
    Kilikian, 223
    Persian (_Kaleh Safed_), 33, 378
    Syrian, 24

  Gaugamêla. _See_ under Battle

  Gaza, 27, 400

  Gedrosioi, 169, 171-2, 175, 179, 180, 262-4, 296, 298, 317, 401, 412

  Gesteani. _See_ Kathaians

  Ghâra, river, 162

  Ghôri, tribes of, 66

  Girnâr, 374

  Glaukias, murderer of Rôxana, 404

  Glausai, Glaukanikoi, 111

  Gods, Indian, 191

  Gold, 187, 341-2

  Gordian knot, 24

  Gordion, Gordium, 24

  Gorgias, 59, 98, 385

  Gorys or Gorydalê, 61, 62

  Gouraios, river (_Panjkora_), 60, 66

  Granîkos, river. _See_ under Battle

  Griffins, Gryphons, 85

  Gundulbâr, 134

  Gymnosophists. _See_ Philosophers


  Hadrian, 9

  Hagês, 207

  Haidarâbâd, Patala, 84, 165, 167, 353, 355-7, 396

  Halikarnassos, 23

  Hannibal, 23, 100, 237

  Harapa, 141

  Harmatelia, 256, 294-5, 355

  Harpalos, cousin of Alexander, 230, 379, 385-6, 396

  Hasan Abdâl, 342

  Hashtnagar, 59, 339, 342

  Haur. _See_ Ora

  Hêgelochos, admiral of Alexander’s fleet in the Aegean Sea, 28

  Hêgemôn, an Athenian Archon, 95, 110, 214

  Hêkataios, 386

  Hekatompylos (_Damaghan?_), 35, 36

  Helikôn, a Rhodian artificer, 147

  Hêlioklês, 371

  Hellespont, 90, 122, 410

  Helmund, river. _See_ Etymander

  Henry IV. of France, 246

  Hêphaistiôn, 38, 45, 47, 59, 60, 71, 78, 83, 98, 114, 121, 129, 133,
        136, 137, 139, 161, 162, 167-9, 180, 191, 201, 202, 209, 262,
        279, 281, 285, 381, 385, 386, 392-3

  Hêraklês, Hercules, 5, 15, 28, 70, 71, 82, 124, 135, 191, 197, 208,
        226, 232, 271, 285, 290, 322, 341, 366

  Hêraklês, son of Alexander by Barsinê, 398, 402

  Hêrakôn, 178, 386

  Herat, 37, 298

  Hermês, 356

  Hermolaos, 44, 246, 403

  Hermos, river, 89

  Hêrodotos, 18, 70

  Hesidrus, river. _See_ Satlej

  Hiacensanae. _See_ Agalassi

  Hieronymos, 7

  Hieropolis, 384

  Hindu-Kush Mountains, 407

  Himyar, 185

  Hingul, river, 169

  Hippasioi. _See_ Aspasioi

  Hiranyagupta, 409

  Hoplites, 60

  Horratas, Horatus, Koragos, 249-51, 290-2, 390-3, 351

  Houpiân, Opianê, 332

  Hydaspês, river, Vitastâ, Bedasta (_Jhîlam_, _Jhelum_), 84, 88, 92-5,
        129-39, 202, 204, 229, 230, 345-6, 350, 396, 400, 409, 412

  Hydraôtês, river (_Râvî_), 84, 88, 114, 115, 120, 129, 141, 144, 154,
        155, 217, 232, 347, 352, 401

  Hylobioi, Indian ascetics of the woods, 358, 368

  Hypanis, river. _See_ Hyphasis

  Hypaspists, 20, 60 _passim_

  Hyphasis, river, Hypanis Vipasâ (_Beas Beias_), 88, 112, 114, 120,
        121, 126, 129, 155, 221, 281, 345, 347-8, 401, 411

  Hyrkania, 35, 124, 401

  Hyrkanian Sea (_the Kaspian_), 87, 122-3

  Hwen Thsiang, a Chinese pilgrim, 168


  Iarchas, 378

  Ichthyophagoi, 169, 171, 172, 180, 262-3, 298, 316, 397

  Ida, Mount, 21

  Ilion, Troy, 23, 146, 148, 401

  Illyrians, 20, 124, 245

  India, general description of, 85-6, 183-191

  _Indika_, Arrian’s, 10, 86
    of Megasthenês, 10, 407-8

  Indus, river, sources of, 84;
    its breadth, 85, 155;
    its length, 161, 231;
    its bifurcation, 162;
    changes of its course, 157, 158-9, 353;
    its mouths, 164-6, 191, 257-61;
    its tides, 163, 258-61, 367;
    its resemblance to the Nile, 132

  Infanticide, practised in the Panjâb, 219, 280, 347

  Interment of the dead, curious mode of, among the Oreitai, 297

  Iomanês, river, Yamunâ (_Jamnâ_), 93, 184

  Ionia, 23, 122

  Istros, river (_Danube_), 90

  Ivy, 80, 82, 193


  Jalâlâbâd, 61, 62, 333, 338

  Jalâlpûr, 94, 97, 110, 129, 344, 345, 349

  Jaxartes, river, 40, 41, 86, 88, 122, 245, 411

  Jhîlam, Jhelum, a town, 94, 97, 129, 344, 345
    river. _See_ Hydaspês

  Johiyas. _See_ Ossadioi

  Juno, 135


  Kabul, river, 3, 323

  Kach Gandâva, 157, 354

  Kachh, Gulf of, 221
    Ran of, 165, 353

  Kafîristân, 61, 332-3

  Kafîrs, 340

  Kaikeyas, 349, 363

  Kaîkos, river, 89

  Kailasa, Mount, 84

  Kalaka Serai, 342

  Kalama, 316

  Kalânos, 46, 301, 315, 343, 386-92

  Kallisthenês, 8, 44, 58, 379, 380, 392

  Kalpê (_Rock of Gibraltar_), 123

  Kâlsi, 374

  Kambistholi, 114

  Kambysês, 403

  Kandahar, 38, 112

  Kanishka, 344, 392

  Kanoje, Kanyakubja, 366

  Kappadokia, 9, 24, 122

  Karâchi, 164, 167, 262, 297, 396

  Karchêdôn (_Carthage_), 127

  Kardia, 7

  Karians, 132

  Karmania, 45, 160, 169, 179, 180, 397, 412, 413

  Kartazôn, Unicorn, 186-7

  Karun, river, 262, 397

  Kashmîr, 69, 111, 112

  Kaspatyros, 341

  Kassander, 51, 379, 394, 398, 402, 404, 410

  Kassandreia, 378

  Katanês, 57

  Katapeltai (_Catapults_), 21

  Kathaia, 133, 347, 369

  Kathaians, 115, 279, 323, 406

  Kâthiawâr, 347

  Kaukasos, Mount, 58, 83, 84, 87, 88, 95, 122, 131, 183

  Kaÿstros, river, 89

  Kedj, 357

  Kekaya, Kêkeoi. _See_ Kaikeyas

  Kelainai, Caelaenae, 23

  Kerkiôn (_Maina?_), 186

  Kêteus, 369

  Khaiber Pass, 59, 60, 385

  Khoês, river (_Kow_), 61

  Khojent, 40

  Khorasmians, King of the, 42

  Khoriênês, 44, 59

  Kijil, 39

  Kilikia, Cilicia, 24-6, 223, 384

  Killouta. _See_ Skilloustis

  Kleander, 178, 392

  Kleisobara, 184

  Kleitarchos, Clitarchus, 8, 11

  Kleitos, 22, 38, 43, 59, 98, 116, 140, 203, 380, 386, 392-3

  Kleopatra, Alexander’s half-sister, 394
    Queen of Egypt, 253, 403

  Knîdos, 149, 380

  Kôa, river (_Kabul R._), 61

  Koinos, Coenus, 98, 104, 105, 113, 114, 125, 127, 128, 133, 194, 200,
        209, 227, 229, 230, 360, 393

  Kôphês, Kôphên, river (_Kabul_), 43, 59, 61, 62, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73,
        78, 79, 93, 323, 334, 338, 339, 364

  Koragos. _See_ Horratas

  Korî, river, 165

  Kôs, island of, 149, 241, 380

  Kôs Meropis, 112

  Kot Kamalia, 141

  Krateros, 35, 36, 42, 44, 45, 47, 50, 57, 62, 64, 66, 97, 98, 102,
        107, 111, 114, 133, 136, 137, 139, 157, 158, 160, 177, 191,
        192, 205, 243, 252, 285, 354, 375-6, 382, 393, 400, 402

  Krêtheus, 172

  Krishna, 355

  Kritoboulos, 241

  Kritodêmos, 149, 241

  Kshatri. _See_ Xathroi

  Kshatriya caste, 347, 401

  Kunâr, river. _See_ Choaspes

  Kydnos, Cydnus, river, 24

  Kynanê, Alexander’s half-sister, 375

  Kyrênê, 28, 384

  Kyrsilos, 8, 393

  Kyzikos, Cyzicus, 21


  Lagos, reputed father of Ptolemy Sôtêr, 403 _passim_

  Lahore, 114, 161, 348

  Lampsakos, 8

  Landai, river, 59, 66, 72

  Laodikê, 377

  Larissa, 8

  Larkhâna, 158

  Leonidas, one of Alexander’s tutors, 15

  Leonnatos, 51, 61, 64, 65, 146, 147, 148, 150, 162, 166, 169, 179,
        209, 240, 261-2, 264, 297, 299, 394, 397, 399

  Libya, 122, 123

  Limnaios, 312

  Livy, 12

  Lizards, 339

  Lydia, 122

  Lykia, 23, 122

  Lysimachia, 410

  Lysimachos, one of Alexander’s tutors, afterwards King of Thrace, 15,
        50, 51, 98, 119, 180, 388, 394, 410

  Lysippos, 49


  Maedi, 245

  Magadha (_Bihâr_), 365-6, 380, 404-8

  Magas, 52, 374, 380

  Mahâban, Mount. _See_ Aornos

  Mahorta, 158

  Maiandros, Maeander, river, 23, 89

  Maiôtic, Lake (_Sea of Azof_), 87

  Mâlân, Cape, 168

  Malayaketu, 409

  Malloi (_People of Multân_), 4, 115, 137, 139, 140, 144, 149, 154,
        179, 234, 236-40, 311, 350, 400

  Manchur, Lake, 355

  Mandanes, Dandamis, head of the Gymnosophists, 315, 386, 391

  Manikyâla, 344

  Mansura, 355

  Marakanda (_Samarcand_), 40, 41, 43

  Marcus Aurelius, 9

  Mardians of Persis, 34
    of Hyrkania, 36

  Mardonios, 16

  Mareôtis, Lake, 27

  Marginia (_Marginan_), 42

  Marius, Roman Consul, 241

  Markianos, Marcian, 380

  Mar-Koh. _See_ Mêros

  Mars, God of War, 290

  Marsyas, river, 23

  Marsyas, a Pellaian educated with Alexander, 379

  Masianoi (People of Massaga?), 339

  Massaga, Massaka, Masoka, Mazaga, 66, 67, 71, 194, 269, 306, 334,
        338-9, 375

  Maurya, 408

  Mêdos, river (_Polvar_), 33

  Megasthenês, 394-5, 405, 407

  Mekrân, 170, 357, 397

  Mela, Pomponius, 395

  Meleager, 51, 58, 59, 98, 160, 203, 395, 410

  Memnôn the Rhodian, 21, 23, 28, 230, 264, 395, 398

  Memphis, 27, 28, 31, 49, 282

  Menander, a Graeko-Baktrian king, 332

  Menelaos, 89

  Mentôr, brother of Memnôn the Rhodian, 395

  Mercenaries, Indian, 269-70, 306

  Meroês, 108, 109

  Mêros, Mount, 80, 81, 193, 338-9, 340

  Meshed, capital of Khorasân, 36, 298

  Meta, 197

  Methora (_Muttra_), 184

  Midas, 24

  Mieza, 400

  Milêtos, 23, 89, 172, 386

  Minerva. _See_ Athêna

  Mithânkôt, 156, 253, 293

  Mitylênê, 7, 384

  Moeres, Moeris, 256, 357

  Moghsis, 157

  Mong. _See_ Nikaia

  Monsoon, 164, 166, 167, 396

  Mounychion, an Athenian month, 95, 110

  Mousikanos, 157, 158, 160, 217, 253, 293, 356, 395, 399, 400, 404

  Mudrâ Râkshasa, a Hindu drama, 409

  Müller, Professor Max, 359

  Mullinus, Eumenês (?), 197, 248-9, 395

  Multân, 114, 139, 143, 161, 353, 352

  Mura, 409

  Mushti Mountains (_Washati_), 357

  Muttâri, 165

  Mykalê, Mount, 87

  Myrrh-trees, 170


  Nanda, 409

  Nandrus, 327, 405-6

  Nangnihâr, Nanghenhar, 333, 338

  Napoleon, 24, 32

  Narâyanasaras, a lake at the mouth of the Indus, 166, 261

  Nard, 170

  Naukratis, 381

  Nautaka (_Kurshee or Kesh_), 43

  Nearchos, 7, 10, 45, 46, 50, 76, 86, 87, 123, 134, 139, 164, 165,
        185, 186, 261-3, 296, 300, 316, 376, 379, 385, 394-8

  Nekô, 123

  Neoritae, 168

  Nerbada, river, 367

  Nero, 384

  Neudros, river, 114

  Nikaia (_Mong_), 110, 130, 134, 161, 231, 284, 323, 332, 344, 350, 398

  Nikanôr, 58, 72

  Nikomêdeia (_Ismiknid_), birthplace of Arrian, 9

  Nile, river, 27, 89, 131, 123

  Nora, 197

  Numidia, 123

  Nysa, 79, 81, 124, 133, 192, 194, 305, 321, 338-40

  Nysatta, 339


  Oarakta, Island of (_Kishm_), 185

  Oasis, Libyan, 135

  Ochos, a Persian King, 46

  Ochos, river (_Aksou_), 42

  Oidipous, Oedipus, 408

  Ohind, 78, 337

  Olympias, mother of Alexander, 15, 51, 132, 135, 247, 377-9, 381,
        385, 398

  Olynthos, 8, 392

  Omphis, Môphis. _See_ Taxilês

  Onêsikritos, 315-6, 134, 261, 379, 398

  Opianê (_Houpiân_), 331

  Ora (_Haur?_), 69, 71, 169, 173, 180, 375

  Ordanês, 178

  Oreitai, 167-9, 256, 262, 264, 296-7, 316, 394, 397

  Orestis, 180, 393, 400

  Orobatis (_Arabutti_), 72

  Oromenus, Mount, the Salt range, 93, 94, 134, 156, 411

  Orosius, 398

  Ortospanum (_Kabul_), 58, 331, 338

  Orxinês, 45, 46

  Oryx, 187

  Ossadioi, Yaudheya, Johiyas, 156, 252

  Ouxians, Uxians, 110, 111

  Ouxian Pass (near Bebehan), 33

  Oxus, river (_Amû darya_), 39, 41, 411

  Oxyartes, father of Rôxana, one of Alexander’s wives, 42, 44, 156,
        157, 253, 398, 404, 412

  Oxydrakai, 137, 149, 154, 234, 236, 248-9, 287, 324-5

  Oxykanos, Porticanus, 158, 253-4, 293

  Ozinês, 264


  Pages, Royal, 198
    conspiracy of the, 44, 58, 392

  Paionians, Paeonians, 20

  Paktyikê, 341

  Palestine, 27

  Palibothra, Palimbothra, Pataliputra (_Pâtnâ_), 8, 71, 187, 366, 405,
        407, 408

  Pallakopas, river, 397

  Pamphylia, 122

  Pandaia, daughter of Indian Heraklês, 70

  Pânini, the great Indian grammarian, 399

  Panjnad, river, 155

  Panjshîr, river, 39, 61, 70

  Paper, 186

  Paphlagonia, 24, 122

  Papyrus, 186

  Paraitakai, 43, 44, 57, 375

  Paraitonion, Paraetonium, 28

  Parmeniôn, 24-6, 29, 30, 34, 37, 178, 393, 399, 410

  Paropamisadai, 58, 59, 82, 83, 253, 399, 413

  Paropamisos, Paropanisos, Mountains of, 38, 58, 82, 87, 410

  Parrots, 186

  Parsioi, 58

  Parthalis, 364

  Parthyaia, Parthia, 298, 401

  Parysatis, said to have been wife of Alexander, 46

  Pasargadai, 34, 45, 123

  Pasitigris, Karun, river, 397

  Patala (_Haidarâbâd_), 84, 161, 162, 165-7, 256, 261, 356-7, 396

  Patalênê, Indus Delta, 161, 357

  Pataliputra. _See_ Palibothra

  Pâtnâ. _See_ Palibothra

  Patroklês, 8, 399

  Paurava, 402

  Pausanias, 399

  Peacocks, Indian, 217, 362-3, 407

  Pearls, 188

  Peithôn, son of Agênôr, 157, 159, 160, 161, 165, 385, 399, 400, 402

  Peithôn, son of Krateuas, 50, 140, 143, 144, 180, 399

  Pella, birthplace of Alexander, 15, 379, 394

  Pellaians, 180

  Peloponnêsos, 124

  Pelusium, 27

  Perdikkas, 50, 57, 59, 71, 78, 98, 99, 116, 140, 141, 145-6, 149,
        352, 375-9, 382-5, 395, 399, 400-402, 404, 409, 410, 412

  Periklês, 363

  Petronius, 11

  Peukelaôtis (_Hashtnagar_), 59, 60, 72, 331, 342, 381

  Peukestas, 46, 50, 51, 146-8, 150, 179, 180, 239, 312, 382, 394, 400

  Perinthos, 375

  Persepolis, 33, 45, 123, 378, 388

  Perseus, 28, 135

  Persian Gulf, 87, 123

  Persians, defeat of, by the Skythians, 86

  Persis, 122, 179, 386, 397

  Peshâwar, 59, 72

  Phalanx, how organised and equipped, 19-20

  Pharasii. _See_ Prasioi

  Pharnabazos, 28

  Pharsalos, 8, 393

  Phegelas, Phegeus, 121, 221, 281, 365, 401

  Philip, King of Macedonia and father of Alexander, 15, 212, 241, 246,
        323, 379, 394, 396, 400, 402-3, 409

  Philippos, Philip, one of Alexander’s great generals, 45, 65, 72, 92,
        112, 133, 136, 139, 154, 155, 177, 309, 384, 401, 412

  Philosophers, Indian, 190, 306, 313-4, 358-9, 368-9

  Philostratos, 378

  Philôtas, 37, 65, 198, 382, 383, 386, 398, 403

  Phôkiôn, Phocion, 402

  Phraortes, 378

  Phrataphernes, 112, 178, 264, 401

  Phrygia, 23

  Phuleli, river, 165

  Phylarchos, 405

  Pillars of Hercules, 123

  Pimprama, 116, 217

  Pinaros, river, 25

  Pipal tree, 191

  Pîpilika, 341

  Pisidia, 23

  Pittakos, 411

  Plato, 368, 379

  Pliny, 411

  Plutarch, life of, 12-3

  Polyainos, 402

  Polykleitos, 8, 402

  Polysperchôn, Polyperchon, 50, 57, 97, 139, 325, 197, 385, 393, 402

  Polytimêtos, river (_Kohik_), 40, 41

  Pontos, 83

  Pôros, Porus, 4, 13, 92, 110, 112-5, 120, 129, 133, 202-13, 216, 222,
        231, 274-6, 282, 322, 365, 386, 393, 400, 401, 405, 406, 412
    nephew of, 112, 114, 133, 279
    son of, 101, 102, 107
    an Indian king who sent an embassy to Augustus Caesar, 389

  Portikanos. _See_ Oxykanos

  Pôseidôn, 164

  Postumius, A., 274

  Potidaia, Kassandreia, 7

  Poura, 123, 172, 177, 357-8

  Praesti, 158, 253

  Prasioi, Praisioi, 13, 221, 281, 310, 323, 365, 349

  Prasianê, 159

  Precious stones, Indian, 188

  Presidae. _See_ Prasioi

  Promachos, 389

  Promêtheus, 82, 83

  Prophthasia (_Furrah_), 37, 38

  Propontis (_Sea of Marmora_), 21

  Psiltoukis. _See_ Skilloustis

  Ptolemy, son of Lagos, surnamed Sôtêr, King of Egypt, 7, 11, 38, 40,
        46, 50, 51, 61, 63-5, 73, 99, 112, 117, 139, 151, 168, 180,
        194, 205-6, 209, 244, 255, 262, 295, 296-7, 355, 378-9, 380-5,
        388, 394, 396, 399, 400, 402-3, 410
    II. Philadelphos, 49, 377, 403
    III. Euergetes, 52, 380, 384, 403
    VI. Philomêtôr, 404
    VII. Physkôn, 188, 404
    Keraunos, son of Ptolemy Sôtêr, and King of Macedonia, 410

  Purali, river, 167

  Pyramids of Egypt, 27

  Pythagoras, 315, 391

  Pythia, 282


  Râja Hodi, fort of, 337

  Râjapatha, Royal road, 93, 349

  Rajputs, 350, 354

  Râma, 168, 340

  Râmâyana, 168

  Râmbakia, 168

  Rânigat, 337

  Râvi, river. _See_ Hydraôtês

  Rawal Pindi, 344

  Red Sea, 183, 185-6

  Rhagai, 34

  Rhenos, river (_Reno_), 90

  Rhine, river, 90

  Rhinoceros, 186, 187

  Rhodians, 147

  Rhone, river, 100

  Rhotas, 94, 344

  Rôxana, wife of Alexander, 42, 50, 156, 382, 398, 400, 404, 412


  Sabagrae. _See_ Sabarcae

  Sabarcae, 155, 252

  Sabbos. _See_ Sambus

  Sainte-Croix, 10, 13

  Sâkâbda, 392

  Sakala, 411, 347

  Salamis, 150

  Sâlatura, 399

  Salt Hills. _See_ Oromenus

  Salmous, 300

  Samaxus, 203

  Sambastai. _See_ Abastanoi

  Sâmkala (Sangala), 348, 411

  Samudragupta, 351, 367

  Sandabala (Sandabaga?), river. _See_ Akesinês

  Sandrokottos, Androkottos, Sandrokoptos, Chandragupta, 4, 8, 15, 53,
        88, 187, 310, 327-8, 365, 380, 384, 386, 395, 399, 404-9, 410

  Sangala, 4, 115-20, 217-8, 347-8, 394, 406

  Sanggaios, 60

  Sanglawâla-Tiba, 348

  Saranges, river, 114

  Sarasvatî, river (_Sursooty_), 184, 365

  Sardis, 23

  Sarissa, the long pike of the Macedonians, 19, 250

  Sarmans, Śramanas, 358-9, 368, 389

  Satibarzanes, 36, 38

  Satlej, river, Śatadru, Zaradros, Hesydrus, 4, 120, 121, 155, 231, 349

  Satrap, Kshatrapa, 18

  Saubhuta, Realm of Sôphytês, 348

  Sehwan. _See_ Sindimana

  Seistan, 160

  Seleukos Nikator, King of Syria, 6, 8, 50-2, 99, 100, 104, 133, 310,
        327, 377, 385, 394, 399, 404, 405, 407, 409-10

  Semiramis, a mythical Queen of Assyria, 170, 173, 246, 358

  Septagen, 186

  Septimius Severus, 10

  Serpents, Indian, 217, 361-2

  Shiraz, 33

  Shoes, what kind of, worn by Indians, 188

  Shorekôt, 139, 141

  Siboi, Sibi, 139, 232, 285, 286, 324, 366

  Sibyrtios, Tibyrtios, 88, 177, 264, 412

  Sigambri. _See_ Oxydrakai

  Silei. _See_ Sibi

  Silphium, 39

  Silver, 187, 371

  Simoeis, river, 286

  Sindh, 352-4, 402

  Sindimana (Sehwân), 254-5, 354-5, 404

  Sisikottos, Sisocostus, 76, 102, 200, 410

  Sisunâga, 409

  Sitalkês, 178, 410-11

  Śiva, 70

  Skamander, river, 286

  Skilloustis, Killouta, 164, 316

  Skylax, 132

  Skythians, 122-4, 208, 226-7

  Smyrna, 89

  Sogdiana, 39

  Sogdians, 225

  Sogdoi, Sodrai, Seorai, 157, 293, 354

  Sôkrates, 9, 315, 391

  Solinus, 4, 11

  Soloi, 411

  Sôma, 190

  Somatophylakes, Alexander’s select body-guard, names of the, 179, 180

  Sôn, river. _See_ Erannoboas

  Sonmiyâni, Bay of, 167

  Sopeithes, Sopithes, Sôphytes, 133, 134, 187, 219, 220-1, 279, 280-1,
        348, 349, 411

  Sophagasenos, 53

  Souastos, river, 59, 61, 334, 335

  Sourasenoi, 184

  Sousa, 32, 45, 178, 301, 385, 386, 393, 394, 400, 401, 403, 409

  Sousia (_Sous_), 36

  Sousis, Sousiana, 397

  Sparta, 16, 296

  Sphines. _See_ Kalânos

  Spitakês, Pittacus, 107, 411

  Spitamenes, 39, 40-3, 379, 409, 411

  Śramanas. _See_ Sarmans

  Stadium, length of, 71

  Stageira, 379

  Stateira, daughter of Darius, and wife of Alexander, 301, 386, 412

  Stathmos, 8

  Stephanos of Byzantium, 412

  Strabo, 412

  Stymphalia, 382

  Sudracae. _See_ Oxydrakai

  Sudras, 351, 354, 409

  Suicide, practice of, in India, 190, 306

  Sunium, 150

  Surât, 254

  Suttee, Satî, custom of, 219, 279, 347, 369

  Swât, river. _See_ Souastos

  Sword-blades of Indian steel, 252

  Syrakousai. _See_ Oxydrakai

  Syria, 26 and _passim_

  Syria, Hollow, 122


  Tabrânâlâ. _See_ Tiberoboam

  Tapeirians, people of _Taburistân_, 35

  Taprobanê, Ceylon, 187, 372-4, 398

  Tauala, Patala, 296

  Taurôn, 100, 104, 209, 412

  Tauros, Mount, 23, 24, 58, 87, 88, 398

  Taxila, 44, 83, 92, 107, 126, 215, 285, 342-4

  Taxilês, Omphis, Môphis, 45, 58, 59, 72, 83, 92, 93, 108, 112, 177,
        201-3, 212, 231, 273, 305-6, 361, 365, 371, 378, 383, 384, 386,
        390, 398, 401, 402, 406, 412

  Telephos, 172

  Terioltes. _See_ Tyriaspês

  Têthys, ocean goddess, 216

  Thapsakos, 29

  Thasos, 8

  Thatha, Dêval, 356-7

  Thebes, in Boiôtia, 17, 124, 400

  Theodotos, Diodotos, 52, 377

  Theophilos, 147

  Theophrastos, 379

  Thessalians, 20, 126

  Thôas, 171, 177, 412

  Thracians, 20, 124, 156, 245

  Thriamboi, Triumphi, 179

  Tiberius, 412

  Tiberoboam, river, 342-3

  Tibyrtios. _See_ Sibyrtios

  Tides, Indian rivers, how affected by, 163, 256-61

  Tigris, river, 29, 45, 88, 91, 123, 180, 367-8, 397

  Tilla, 94

  Timaeus, 240

  Timagenes, 11

  Timour, 40, 43, 261

  Tiryns, 124

  Tlepolemos, 177, 413

  Tmôlos, Mount, 79

  Tomyris, Queen of the Skythians, 86

  Towers, movable, 196

  Trajan, 13

  Triballians, 124

  Triparadeisos, 50, 412

  Trogus, 15

  Tulamba, 141

  Tyre, 26-9, 68

  Tyriaspês, 58, 112, 157, 252


  Uchh, 121, 156, 351, 352

  Umritsar. _See_ Amritsar

  Unicorn, 186, 187

  Uraśa, 129

  Utica, 127


  Vasati. _See_ Ossadioi

  Vaugelas, 12

  Velleius, 11

  Vespasian, 10

  Vindusâra, Allitrochadês, 343, 349, 380, 409, 413

  Vipaśâ. _See_ Hyphasis

  Vishnu, 70

  Vitastâ. _See_ Hydaspês


  Wazîrâbâd, 129

  Weber, Professor, 129

  Wells, dug by Alexander’s orders, 261

  Whales, 298, 300

  Whip-snakes, 278

  Wine, 190

  Wives, how selected, in the kingdom of Sophytês, 280

  Writing, material used for, 186;
    art of, known in India before Alexander’s time, _ibid._


  Xandrames. _See_ Agrammes

  Xathroi, Kshatriya, 147, 156, 252

  Xenippa, 43

  Xenophôn, 9, 12

  Xerxes, 16, 33, 90, 282

  Xylenopolis, 316


  Yamuna, river. _See_ Iomanês

  Yaudheyas. _See_ Ossadioi

  Yavana, Greeks, 122, 374, 409, 413

  Yemen, 185

  Yusufzai, 61, 334


  Zadrakarta (_Sari?_), 26

  Zagros, Mount, 33

  Zaradros, river. _See_ Satlej

  Zariaspa, Baktra (?), 40, 41, 42, 264, 383

  Zarmanochegas, Sarmanachârya, 389

  Zarrah, Lake, 160, 184





II. INDEX OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED OR REFERRED TO


  Abbott, General, 59, 77, 83, 194, 333, 335, 336, 338, 344

  Agatharchidês, 185, 263

  Ailianos, Aelian, 7, 186, 190, 217, 224, 249, 263, 361, 362, 363, 365

  Aischylos, 87, 153

  Appian, 404

  Aristoboulos, 101, 111, 150, 161, 165, 179, 231, 357, 361, 390

  Aristotle, 93, 187, 364

  Arrian, 57-180 _passim_

  Artemidôros, 184

  Athênaios, 7, 190, 196, 249, 363, 382-3, 392, 405, 409


  Baber, 332, 334, 366

  Bellasis, 355

  Bellew, Dr., 334, 335, 337, 339, 397

  Benfey, 356

  Bhandarkar, 411

  Bournouf, 166

  Bunbury, Sir E. H., 131, 132, 134, 160, 332, 333, 347, 349, 350, 353,
        396

  Burnes, Sir A., 131, 137-8, 142, 161, 344, 347, 356


  Caesar, 91, 93, 117, 163, 196, 218, 227

  Chardin, 360

  Charês, 212, 389, 392

  Chesney, General, 30, 78, 94, 231, 346

  Chinnock, Dr., 110, 117, 170

  Chronicle of Ceylon. _See_ Mahavanso

  Cicero, 214, 237, 241, 392

  Clinton, 274

  Court, General, 76, 194, 337, 344

  Cunningham, General Sir A., 78, 97, 134, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143,
        156, 157, 158, 159, 163, 167, 168, 194, 293, 326, 331, 333,
        335, 337, 342, 347-8, 351, 352, 354, 356, 365, 371

  Curtius, 183-266 _passim_


  D’Anville, 169

  Dio Cassius, 186

  Diodôros Sic., 269-301 _passim_

  Dionysios Periêgêtês, 167, 337

  Dioskoridês, 171

  Droysen, 48, 104, 107, 160, 333, 356

  Dryden, 33

  Duncker, 86, 358-9, 363

  Dutt, R. C., 369-70


  Edinburgh Cabinet Library, 252, 278

  Edrisi, 169

  Elphinstone, Lord, 93, 132, 332, 340, 344

  Elzivir Curtius, 246, 361

  Epigraphia Indika, 347

  Eratosthenês, 82-3, 88, 193


  Freeman, Professor, 2, 13, 32, 250

  Fresnel, 185

  Foss, 184


  Gellius, Aulus, 212, 383

  Grote, 5, 48, 250, 346

  Gutschmid, 327


  Hardy, 332

  Heber, Bishop, 340

  Hedike, 184

  Heitland, 360-1

  Hêkataios, 89

  Hematchandra, 156

  Hêrodotos, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 123, 132, 187, 341, 370

  Homer, 89, 132, 237, 284

  Humboldt, 6

  Hunter, Sir W., 89

  Hwen Thsiang, 332, 342, 343, 348


  Ibn Haukal, 355


  Jerome, Saint, 15

  Journal Asiatique, 201, 342, 348

  Justin, 321-328

  Juvenal, 245


  Kallisthenês, 282, 392

  Kleitarchos, Clitarchus, 151, 188, 240

  Köchly and Rustow, 104

  Kosmas Indikopleustês, 187

  Krüger, 134

  Ktêsias, 3, 84, 186, 252


  Lassen, 53, 76, 129, 143, 158, 160, 187, 252, 333, 335, 347, 349,
        354, 356, 381

  Le Clerc, 359

  Lêvi, Sylvain, 342, 348, 401, 411, 413

  Livy, 100, 197, 218

  Loewenthal, 337

  Lucan, 13, 214

  Lucian, 378-9, 392


  M’Murdo, Captain, 157, 166, 353, 356

  Mahâbhârata, 111, 116, 155, 156, 333, 350, 351

  Mahâvanso, Chronicle of Ceylon, 187, 332, 404

  Mann, 156, 190

  Marco Polo, 364

  Markianos, Marcian, 167, 397

  Masson, 61, 142, 156, 331, 349

  Maximus Tyrius, 361

  Megasthenês, 3, 7, 8, 14, 86, 88, 93, 155, 187, 190, 341, 358, 361,
        364, 386, 412

  Mela, Pomponius, 186, 190

  Mitford, 48

  Moberly, 104, 105

  Mockler, Major, 397

  Moorcroft, 366

  Müller, C., 194, 343


  Nearchos, 165, 186, 188, 244, 341, 361, 391-2

  Nikolaos of Damascus, 365, 389

  Nonnus, 333


  Olshausen, 127

  Onêsikritos, 7, 157, 187, 217, 307, 309, 361, 390-1

  Orosius, 7, 116, 155, 190

  Ovid, 186


  Panini, 201, 334, 348, 350, 367, 411, 413

  Patroklês, 6, 8

  Pausanias, 49, 72, 151, 246

  Periplous of the Erythraian sea, 59, 110, 116, 161, 186, 188, 252,
        310, 367

  Peutinger Tables, Geographer of Ravenna, 110

  Philo, 190

  Philostratos, 193, 215, 344, 349

  Pliny, 7, 123, 134, 155, 159, 170, 172, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190,
        217, 220, 231, 241, 253, 262, 263, 331, 339, 341, 343, 345,
        348, 351, 364, 365, 380

  Plutarch, 305-317 _passim_

  Polyainos, 107, 340, 345, 411

  Polybios, 21, 100, 184, 187

  Porphyrios, 190

  Pratt, 196

  Pseudo-Kallisthenês, 342, 392

  Ptolemy Sôtêr, 101, 102, 128, 134, 148, 150, 179, 392
    the Geographer, 58, 59, 61, 114, 129, 155, 165, 167, 183, 184, 188,
        194, 245, 293, 326, 338, 343, 347, 365-6


  Racine, 235, 383

  Rajput Chronicle, 111

  Râmâyana, 349, 363

  Rashîd-ud-Dîn, 363

  Raven, 218, 230, 237

  Rennell, 334, 356

  Rig-veda, 93, 186, 370

  Ritter, 64, 72, 333, 356

  Rooke, 360

  Ross, Major, 357

  Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of, 343


  Saint Ambrose, 392

  Sainte-Croix, 48

  Saint-Martin, V. de, 64, 111, 116, 156, 157, 158, 159, 323, 333, 339,
        349, 350, 351, 352, 354, 355, 356, 365, 367

  Sallat, 372

  Salt, 85

  Scaliger, 360

  Schmieder, 110, 134

  Senart, 374

  Seneca, 195, 229

  Sintenis, 171

  Smith, V. A., 371-2

  Solinus, 186, 220, 364

  Sophoklês, 339

  Sôtiôn, 309

  Stephanos of Byzantium, 57, 129, 139, 186, 194, 262, 331, 351

  Stobaeus, 153

  Strabo, 6, 7, 39, 57, 95, 110, 112, 114, 131-2, 133, 134, 157, 160,
        161, 168, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 217, 219, 282, 339, 341,
        347, 351, 358, 361, 365, 369, 383, 389, 393, 399

  Suidas, 190


  Tacitus, 193, 227

  Theobald, W., 370-2

  Theophrastos, 217

  Thirlwall, Bishop, 19-20, 41, 48, 104, 107, 121, 138, 227, 237, 249,
        266, 287, 351

  Timagenês, 151, 240

  Turnour, 187

  Tzetzes, 224


  Varâha Sanhita, 111, 367

  Vegetius, 218

  Vigne, 78

  Vincent, 169, 261, 356

  Virgil, 199, 234, 365

  Voltaire, 313


  Weber, Professor A., 332, 359

  Wilford, 365, 367

  Willdenow, 171

  Williams, Archdeacon, 48
    Sir Monier, 156

  Wilson, Dr. John, 356
    Dr. H. H., 59, 331-2, 335, 336

  Wood, Lieut., 78, 157


  Xenophôn, 86, 364


  Yule, Colonel Sir H., 252, 356


  Zumpt, 10, 11


THE END

_Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh._




[Illustration: MAP OF THE ROUTE TAKEN BY ALEXANDER IN HIS ASIATIC
EXPEDITION

John Bartholomew & Co.

_NOTE:—Lines of Route shewn thus_ ——]