\M3 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Date Due ■MY-S- fr ttffi J- IWtM&MRAl <*s7> El q(fe^49gsiiy trtrt* ffi #UT rz^ngb/M 1 ^ JUI PRINTED IN U. 5. A CAT. NO. 23233 OF 234.6WI13 lSr 3 rs ' ,y Ub ~» Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028252546 OTHER WORKS BY Mr. M'CRINDLE. ANCIENT INDIA As described by the Classical Authors, being a series of copiously annotated translations of all the Greek and Roman texts which relate to India. I. Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian. With an Introduction, Notes, and a Map of Ancient India. Bombay, 1877. 8vo . . .5s. nett. II. The commerce and navigation of the Erythraean Sea, being a translation of the Periplus Maris Erythmi, and of Arrian's account of the voyage of Nearkhos. Bombay, 1879. 8vo 5s. nett. III. Ancient India as described by KtSsias the Knidian. Bom- bay, 1882. 8vo 4s. 6d. nett. IV. Ancient India as described by Ptolemy. With an Intro- duction, Map of India according to Ptolemy, and a very copious Index. Bombay, 1885. 8vo . . 5s. nett Of the above books few copies remain for sale. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. ■ * * * In rendering the results of Dr. Schwanbeck's industry accessible to English readers by this translation of the collected frag- ments of the lost Mdika of Megasthenes, perhaps the most trustworthy of the Greek writers on India, Mr. M'Crindle would have performed a most valuable service even had he not enriched the original^ by the addition of copious critical notes, and a translation of Arrian s work on the same subject. — The Calcutta Review. * * * Mr. M'Crindle's translations of the accounts of Ancient India by Megasthenes and Arrian, is a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of the subject in the days when Greeks and Romans were ruling the world. — The Pioneer. * * * Mr. M'Crindle deserves the thanks of all who take an interest in Ancient India, and, should he be able to fulfil his promise to translate "the entire series of classical works relating to India," he will give an impetus to the study of the early civilisation of this country among native as well as European scholars. — The Madras Times. * * * He is to be congratulated on having made a very useful con- tribution to the popular study of Indian antiquities. — The Westminster Review. * * * To those students who have neither the learned work of Dr. Vincent, nor the Geographi Grceci Minores of C. Muller within reach, this handy volume (Megasthenes) will prove very serviceable. — The Academy. * * * The fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes, collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, with the first part of the Indika of Arrian, the Periplus Maris Erythnei, and Arrian's account of the voyage of Nearkhos, have been translated, in two most useful volumes, by Mr. J. W. M'Crindle, M.A. The Indika of Ktesias with the fifteenth book of Strabo is also promised, and the sections referring to India in Ptolemy's Geography would complete a collection of the highest value to Indian history. — Note, under the article India, in the new edition of " The Encyclopaidia Britannica." * The amount of patient and scholarly work which they indicate is of the kind that we are rather accustomed to look for from a German savant, and can hardly be properly appreciated by one who does not know by experience the difficulties of such investigations. — The Scottish Geographical Magazine. * * * What he has proposed to do has been very carefully worked out. His notes are of special interest. — The Jour. R. .4s. Soc. * * * Mr. M'Crindle has earned a solid reputation by his learned research on subjects connected with Ancient India, and his latest pro- duction, Ancient India as described by Ptolemy, will be appreciated by scholars and geographers. — The Scotsman, * * * Mr. M'Crindle, who has translated divers of the old accounts of Arrian, Megasthenes, and others, now comes forward to give us a " succinct account of Ptolemy's geographical system," to show us how the disguise of places named by that writer can be pierced, and to push etymological inquiry to somewhat dim and distant limits. He is entitled to credit for research, diligence, and knowledge of his subject. — The Saturday Review. ANCIENT INDIA ITS INVASION BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT .-♦•♦ ****** .!T*>vili CE o o *a o yo O * I C o cr 8 3 5 ® o ©■ IS o A L E X a N D E R THE G R E A T .[OUR N I N .; T H E D E A F H OK M O U K E P H A L O S 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 PANJ.&B SINDH GEDROSIA AND KARMANIA WITH AN INTRODUCTION CONTAINING A LIFE OF ALEXANDER COPIOUS NOTES ILLUSTRATIONS MAPS AND INDICES J W M'CRINDLE M-A M-RA-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 Q8tetm.ineUt ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY 14 PARLIAMENT STREET S-W MDCCCXCIII All rights reserzied A.yf3e>i DF Ms TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE List of Illustrations . . ix Preface . xi Introduction, containing a Life of Alexander . 3 Arrian . ... 57 Q. Curtius Rufus . . . . ,183 Diod6ros . . 269 Plutarch . 305 Justin ... .321 Appendices — Notes A-L/ . . 331 Biographical Appendix . 375 General Index . . 4 X 7 Index of Authorities quoted or referred to 430 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Alexander the Great Mourning for Boukeehalos 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. i. LYSI MACHOS 2. Aristotle 3. Seal of Darius . 4. Alexander the Great 5. Diodotos . 6. Antiochos the Great 7. euthydemos 8. The Tyrian Herakles 9. Eumenes . 10. Ptolemy Soter 11. Indian Bowman 12. Sothytes . Gold coin of Lysimachos (B.C. 306- 281), struck at Lysimachia, in the British Museum . .16 From an intaglio gem, engraved on sard, in the British Museum . 16 From a cylinder of chalcedony, in- scribed " I am Darius the great king," in Persian, Median, and Babylonian, in the Brit. Museum 29 On a silver coin struck in Thrace by Lysimachos, in the Brit. Museum . 48 On a gold stater struck in Baktria, in the British Museum . . 52 On a gold coin (B.C. 222-187), m tne British Museum . . . -52 On a silver Baktrian coin, in the British Museum . • • S3 On a silver coin struck at Tyre (B.C. 125), in the British Museum . 71 Silver coin of Eumenes I. (b.c. 263- 241), struck at Pergamos, in the British Museum ... 120 On a silver coin (B.C. 306-284), in the British Museum . . .151 From a coin of Chandragupta II. (a.d. 395-415), in the Brit. Mus . 210 From a silver coin, in the Brit. Mus. 280 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 13. Greek Warship 14. Seleucus Nicator 15. eukratides 16. Antimachos 17. Agathokles 18. Heliokles 19. Apollodotos 20. As'oka Inscription . 21. Antigonos Gonatas . 22. Antigonos Doson 23. Antiochos II. . 24. Demetrios Poliorketes . 25. Ptolemy III. From a silver coin of Sidon, in the British Museum . . . 3 ! ° Obverse of a silver coin struck in Pergamos, in the British Museum 327 On a silver Baktrian coin, in the British Museum .... 344 On a silver Baktrian coin, in the British Museum .... 370 Silver coin of Agathokles, in the British Museum . . 371 On a silver Baktrian coin, in the British Museum . . . -371 On a silver Baktrian coin, in the British Museum 372 Reduced from an impression of the Kalsi Edict by Dr. James Burgess, CLE 373 Silver coin of Antigonos Gonatas (B.C. 277-239), in the Brit. Mus. . 376 Silver coin of Antigonos Doson (B.C. 229-220), in the British Museum . 377 On a silver coin (B.C. 261-246), in the British Museum . . . 377 Silver coin of Demetrios Poliorketes (B.C. 294-288), in the Brit. Mus. . 383 On a gold coin (B.C. 247-222), in the British Museum . . . 403 MAPS Map of Alexander's Route in the Panjab . . F,vht~~ s~ Map of the Route taken by Alexander in his Asiatic Expedition 43:: PREFACE En inventant l'histoire, la Grece inventa le jugement du monde, et, dans ce jugement, l'arrft de la Grece fut sans appel. A celui dont la Grece n'a pas parle, l'oubli, c'est-a-dire le neant. A celui dont la Grece se souvient, la gloire, c'est-a-dire la vie. — Discours de M. Ernest Renan du J 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 Ktesias the Knidian, and of the Indika of Megasthenes, the Indika of Arrian, the Periplous of the Erythraian Sea by an un- known 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 is to 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. xii PREFACE 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 GescJiichte Alexanders des grossen. Williams's Life of Alexander. Sainte- Croix's Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens dAlexandre le Grand. C. Muller'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 Indischc Alterthumskiindc. General Sir A. Cunningham's Geography of Ancient India. V. de Saint-Martin's Etude sin- la Geographic Grccque et Latiuc dc Fliide, and his Ah'moirc Analytique sur la carte de I' Ask Ccntralc et dc I'Inde. PREFACE xiii 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 t/ie 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 A lexander. Wesseling's Latin Translation of Dioddros. 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 i?i 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 Miiller'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 com- positions. 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 xiv PREFACE (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 dis- cussed 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 vindica- tion 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 tran- scribing Sanskrit or other Indian names I have in all cases used the circumflex to distinguish the long a, 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 ( ^ ) is never written unless it begin a word, for it is supposed to be inherent in every consonant. The letter s' with the acute accent represents the palatal sibilant ( ST ) which is sounded like sh. PREFACE xv 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 Afghanistan 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 Panjab 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 photo- graph from which the As'oka 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 con- temporary 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. Diodoros we believe to be per- fectly 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 regard- ing 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 Ktesias of Knidos. A com- parison 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 Ktesias left it, until the maritime passage to the East by the Cape of Good Hope had been dis- covered. It was early in the year 326 B.C. that Alexander, fresh from the conquest of the fierce tribes of northern Afghan- istan, led his army over into the plains of India by a bridge 6f 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 1 With the exception of Alexander, have sprung from provinces towards all the great conquerors who have Tartary and Northern Persia, crossed the Indus to invade India 4 INTRODUCTION in that brief space he reduced the Panjab 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 Pdros, 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 Poros ; 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 politicar c on- dition of the country when he entered it eminently favour- able 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 over- come. Alexander, in pursuance of his usual policy, sought to secure the permanence of his Indian conquests INTRODUCTION 5 by founding cities, 1 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 administra- tion 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. 2 1 According to Plutarch, seventy happened had his invasion been as Asiatic cities at the least owed their mythical as the Indian expeditions of origin to Alexander. Of those, forty Dionysos and Herakles. Nor do I can still be traced. Grote thinks the by any means overlook the effects number is probably exaggerated, and produced by Greek ideas on the Indian disparages their importance. mind — effects which can be traced in * In saying this, I do not forget a variety of spheres, such as religion, that the Grasco-Baktrian kings at one poetry, philosophy, science, architec- time extended their sway in India ture, and the plastic arts. On this even far beyond the parts conquered subject Professor A. Weber read a by Alexander ; but this cannot be very learned paper, entitled "Die regarded as having resulted from Griechen in Indien," before the his invasion. It might have equally Prussian Academy of Sciences in July 6 INTRODUCTION By this disruption of her relations with the rest of Alexander's empire, India fell back into her former isola- tion 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 com- panions 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 im- pressions of India and the races by which they found it inhabited. 1 These reports, even in the fragmentary state in which they have come down to us, have proved of inestim- able 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 uni- 1890. It is a paper which well deserves included a description of India, that to be translated into our language. while the army of Alexander took Scholars now rather incline to believe but a very hasty view of everything that, whatever may be the exact de- (in India), Alexander himself took a gree of the indebtedness of India to more exact one, causing the whole Greece, the ancient civilization of country to be described by men well India was much less original and self- acquainted with it. This description, contained than it was at one time Patrokles says, was put into his supposed o be. hands by Xenoklfis the Treasurer. m if, ok les /, wh ° held on important On this subject Humboldt thus command m the East under Seleukos writes : " The Macedonian campaign, ^ in 1 T A " tl0c ' 10S , . L > «'hich opened so large and beautiful stated, in a work (now lost) which a portion of the earth to the influence INTRODUCTION 7 formly 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 him- self 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 sub- stance 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, Athenaios, 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 con- temporaries : — 1. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, who became king of Egypt. 2. Aristoboulos of Potidaia, or, as it was called after- wards, Kassandreia. 3. Nearchos, a Kretan by birth, but settled at Amphi- polis, admiral of the fleet. 4. Onesikritos of Astypalaia, or, as some say, of Aegina, pilot of the fleet. 5. Eumenes of Kardia, Alexander's secretary, who kept the Ephemerides or Court Journal. His country- man, 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. of one sole highly -gifted race, may rounded himself with men learned in therefore certainly be regarded in the all departments of science, as natural- strictest sense of the word as a scien- ists, geometricians, historians, philo- tific expedition, and, moreover, as the sophers, and artists." first in which a conqueror had sur- 8 INTRODUCTION 7. Kallisthenes of Olynthos, Aristotle's kinsman, author of an account of Alexander's Asiatic expedition. 8. Kleitarchos (Clitarchus), son of Deindn 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. 1 1 . Kyrsilos of Pharsalos, who wrote of the exploits of Alexander. 12. Anaximenes of Lampsakos, author of a history of Alexander. 13. Diognetos, who, with Baiton, measured and recorded the distances of Alexander's marches. 14. Archelaos, a geographer, supposed to have accom- panied Alexander's expedition. 1 5 . Amyntas, author of a work on Alexander's Stathmoi, i.e. stages or halting-places. 16. Patrokles, a writer on geography. 17. Megasthen£s, friend of Seleukos Nikator, and his ambassador at the Court of Sandrokottos, king of Palibothra, composed an Indika. 18. Delmachos, 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 Eumenes, 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 Niko- medeia. INTRODUCTION 9 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 Diodoros 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 Nikomedeia (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 Epiktetos (much in the same way as Xenophon attached himself to Sokrates), 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 tcrthe 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 io INTRODUCTION 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 Megas- thenes ; 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 un- worthy to take rank among the foremost writers in the Greek language, if Alexander be forsooth among the fore- most in arms." " Quel delire 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 A nabasis) 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 contem- poraries 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 INTRODUCTION u life now lost, places him as early as Augustus. 1 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 effec- tiveness 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 excel- lent 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 perus- ing 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 1 The editors of Alexander in to 54. They add that the Latin of India, however, say that this rheto- Curtius agrees well with this view, rician must have flourished early under which would place him between Vel- Claudius, who reigned from a.d. 41 leius and Petronius. I2 INTRODUCTION 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 entertain- ment to the world as Plutarch's Parallel Lives of tlie 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 to- gether, 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 achieve- ments 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 INTRODUCTION 13 King of the Praisians. 1 His account of the battle with P6ros is, however, excellent, and all the more interesting, because, as he tells us, he obtained the particulars from Alexander's own letters. 2 Plutarch was a native of Chairdneia, a town in Boiotia. 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 Chaironeia, where he discharged various magisterial offices and held a priest- hood. 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 char- acter. 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. DlODOROS THE SICILIAN Diodoros 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 1 The author of the Periplous of 2 Sainte-Croix and Professor Free- the Erythraian Sea also conducts man both express strong doubts of Alexander to the Ganges. So too the authenticity of Alexander's letters does Lucan — Pharsalia, x. 33. quoted by several writers. i 4 INTRODUCTION 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 com- position of his work, to which he gave the name of BibliotMke, 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 : ist, 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 BibliotMke are lost, but all the books relating to the period with which we are concerned are still extant. Diodoros constructed his narrative upon the plan of annals, placing the events of each year side by side with- out 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 contra- dictory. His style is, however, pleasing, having the merits of simplicity and clearness. In his second book he gives' a description of India epitomized from Megas- thenes. 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 Be Historiis Philippicis, informs us that it was " a kind of anthology " INTRODUCTION 15 — velutiflorum 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 else- where recorded. From the extracts relating to India we gather more information about Sandrokottos (Chandra- gupta) than from any other classical source. Trogus Pom- peius 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 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, i6 INTRODUCTION 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 Fig. i. — Lysimachos. Fig. i:. — Aristotle. 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 INTRODUCTION , 17 themselves from Macedonian dictation, and the barbarians of the north threatened his hereditary dominions with invasion. The youthful monarch was equal to the emerg- ency. 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 hardi- hood, 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 C 18 INTRODUCTION 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 1 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 Kodomannfcs, who had some reputa- tion 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 1 In Persian, Kshatrapa. INTRODUCTION 19 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 magni- tude of the enterprise which lay before it, proved never- theless, from the physical superiority, courage, and daring of the men, combined with the perfection of their organisa- tion 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 divi- sions, 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 cele- brated 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 20 INTRODUCTION 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 hind- most 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 bow- men, dartsmen, and slingers : probably according to the propor- tion 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, ac- coutrements, 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 Agema, 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 INTRODUCTION 21 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 circum- stances 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 Granikos, 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 22 INTRODUCTION 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 detach- ment 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 i ooo against only 1 1 5 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 there- fore first reduced all the western provinces of the empire which Darius after the defeat of his satraps had placed INTRODUCTION 23 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. Miletos, 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 2 4 INTRODUCTION was embellished with a palace and a royal park. Alex- ander, 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 Parmeni6n 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 INTRODUCTION 25 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 moun- tains 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, Parmenidn 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 detach- ment 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 dis- comfited. 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 degra- dation 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 26 INTRODUCTION 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 narrow- ness 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. Parmeni6n 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 Alex- ander 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 INTRODUCTION 27 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 resist- ance, until he obtained from Cyprus and Sidon a fleet superior to their own. He had also to construct a cause- way 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 Maredtis, 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 2 8 INTRODUCTION 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 Herakles 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 Kyrene, 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 ac- quired in the Aegean ; that their fleet had been dissipated, and that all their leaders were prisoners except Pharna- bazos, 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 INTRODUCTION 29 which he had fought at Issos, and, as it was drawn chiefly from the east, consisted of the best troops in his empire. 1 :: ' ""«. ■ -' y< ~ — < ■ ^ - "C ^ - '"'■- ; "~ 1" "" 5 \~.*~ \^"^^^.v. 1"^-- -~T; "" i — - \ ' — - "~\ V**''^ - . V N - '""'- <" [=*— -' . -I ^"■.^Cy*^ -~ -""- i f : | ^J^5^; , *? ,.:" f" - ~ ;• , X^™"^^-,,-" „-- •'■"•~ V **'\-~ V * '■' ~' "-' "^s, * t— -\ "T^"" ' a--., " 1 ■■ ' ' '"' !— ~ -^ I - — *v. — ' ' r '"V'»«aw— ^^^^- v '- . "' r - - ^XJ.J>" .■■■-' 3^ \ :■;:;■ ■ ) i ^ - ■ i ^ ••■-'■ Fig. 3. — Seal of Darius. 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. Alexander, having remained at Tyre until his prepara- tions 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 Parmenidn, 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 30 INTRODUCTION commanded the right wing and Parmenidn 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 Parmenidn most critical. 1 Alexander was re- called from the pursuit of Darius, whom he was eagerly bent on capturing, by a messenger sent by Parmenidn 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 there- fore 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. Dioddros 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 Dioddros at 500. 2 1 The Macedonian line in this part the battles of old times fought at close of the field being broken, some of the quarters." "The biographers of Sir Indians and of the Persian cavalry Charles Napier," he continues, "have burst through the gap and fought made a great point of the circum- their way to the enemy's baggage, stance that at the battle of Meani the where a desperate conaict ensued.— British force of less than 3000 men .4 man, 111. 14. was opposed by 40,000 of the enemy - General Chesney, commenting who fought desperately for several lately on these numbers, remarks hours. Now, the whole British loss that " numbers without discipline are, in killed and wounded was under 300, after a certain point, worse than use- so that, assuming every wound to less, the men only get in each others' have been inflicted by a separate way. This was especially the case in sword or bullet, it follows that out of INTRODUCTION 3' Alexander pursued the fugitive troops as far as Arbela — 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 Achai- menids 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 proces- sion 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 re- stored to his priests the immense revenues with which they had been endowed by the Assyrian kings. 1 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 the 40,000 desperate fighters, 39,700 a good deal of time would be taken contributed nothing to the fighting." up, the business must have been de- In another passage he points out that cided in a very few minutes when an ancient battle was in some respects once the infantry actually engaged, a much more formidable thing than a The fact is that when two bodies of modern one. In the battle of old men meet with sword or spear, a days the absence of noise, except the prolonged contest is from the nature words of command, the tramp of men, of the case impossible. In modern and the clashing of armour, above all warfare when a battle is lost, a large the closeness of one's adversary, must part of the defeated army is already have been of a kind to try the nerves at a distance and gets off unharmed, much more than the rattle of musketry, But there was no escape for the man the crashing of shells, and the thunder in armour, and when he turned his of the artillery in a modern battle. back his shield was no defence. What we shall never get back to is 1 "Against Phoenicians, Egyptians, hand-to-hand fighting at close quarters. Babylonians, Alexander had no mis- It was this that made a battle so de- sion of vengeance ; he might rather cisive in olden days, and caused the call on them to help him against the tremendous slaughter that used to common foe. ... If the gods of be the fate of the beaten side. An Attica had been wronged and insulted ancient battle was really a very short (by the Persians) so had the gods of affair. After the marshalling of the Memphis and Babylon". — Prof. Free- troops and the preliminary skirmish- man, Historical Essays, ii. pp. 202, ing of the cavalry and the archery 203. practice of the light troops, in which 32 INTRODUCTION 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 sur- round himself, 1 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 administra- tion 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 1 " From this unhappy time all the upon him till he could bear neither worst failings of Alexander become restraint nor opposition.''— Prof. Free- more strongly developed. . . . Im- man, Historical Essavs, ii. p. 206. petuosity and self-exaltation now grew INTRODUCTION 33 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 Medos, and the Araxes. 1 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. 2 He then plundered their villages, and, having received their sub- mission, pressed forward by way of the formidable pass called the Persian Gates. 3 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 1 20,000 talents, 1 The Medos is now the Polvar 8 The narrow defile near Kahh and the Araxes the Bund-Amir. Safed (the white fort), some fifty 2 Kinneir places the Ouxian passes miles to the north-west of Shiraz. to the north-west of Bebehan. 34 INTRODUCTION 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. 1 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 Parmenion 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 Mace- donian soldiers. 2 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 1 Curzon thinks that Pasargadai lay treasure-hoards produced such effects to the north-east of Persepolis at a as resulted in recent times from the distance of some thirty miles. For a discoveries of gold in California and discussion regarding their ruins and Australia. The prices of all commo- the tomb of Cyrus see his great work dities were greatly enhanced, and on Persia just published, vol. ii. pp. prosperity advanced by leaps and 70;92- bounds. 2 The release of these enormous INTRODUCTION 35 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 un- broken 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, 1 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 , * Perhaps Damaghan, but its posi- yond the Kaspian Gates, but accord- tion is very uncertain. According to ing to Pliny only 133 miles. See Apollodoros it was 1260 stadia be- Curzon's Persia, i. p. 287. 36 INTRODUCTION under Erigyios took the royal road which led westward from Hekatompylos to Zadrakarta. 1 The divisions on emerging from the denies 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 Satibar- zanes 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 appear- ance 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 1 Sari, according to Droysen. INTRODUCTION 37 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 Proph- thasia (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 exe- cuted. 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 Parmenidn, Philotas, 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, Parmenidn, 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 Ekba- tana, 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. Parmenion was, never- theless, 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 3 8 INTRODUCTION 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 Hephaistion. 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 Demetrios, a member of the king's bodyguard, was arrested on suspicion of his having been implicated with Phil6tas 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 Euer- getai, 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 la}- 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 Satibar- zanes, who had entered their province at the head of 2000 horse, and he immediately sent a detachment under Eri- gyios 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 INTRODUCTION 39 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 Bamian 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 4 o INTRODUCTION 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 Polytimetos (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. Alex-, ander remained for some time in this pleasant neighbour- hood 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 Eschate, or " the Extreme." In the midst of this undertaking, he was interrupted by the sudden out- break 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 mus- tered in great force on its right bank. After this victory he received tidings of the first serious disaster that had INTRODUCTION 41 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 Polytimetos 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 horse- men, 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 pro- nounced 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 strong- holds, 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 42 INTRODUCTION arrived, and rilled up the large gap which the late disaster had made in his ranks. There came thither also ambas- sadors 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 con- fused, 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 achieve- ments, the capture of a fortress perched on the summit of a steep, lofty, and strongly fortified rock, held by a power- ful 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. Spi.tamenes, meanwhile, assisted by the Massagetai, one of the Skythian tribes that ranged ' over the Khoras- mian 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, INTRODUCTION 43 Alexander hastened to Marakanda to settle the province and provide for its security against future hostile incur- sions. 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 Granikos, 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 sup- posed 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 de- feated 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 44 INTRODUCTION 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 Khorienes, 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. Khorienes 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 assassi- nation. 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 INTRODUCTION 45 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 Eudemos 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 Arachosia, 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 Hephaistidn 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 Pasar- gadai 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 4 6 INTRODUCTION 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 gymno- sophist, 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 him- self. 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 arrange- ments 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 Diodoros, Sousa, and with more probability, since we know that Xearchos 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 down-. He took himself a second wife, Barsin£, 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. INTRODUCTION 47 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 dis- missed, 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 Hephaistion, 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 demon- strated 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 neighbour- hood 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 Hephaistidn and by superstitious fears, he was less able to withstand its 4 8 INTRODUCTION 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 ex- travagant 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. Alexander was dignified both in ■ - • , his appearance and in his demeanour. \,^ r t --' - He was not above the ordinary height, / iojjj^lf '•»'" but his frame was well built and ex- \v ^©vi T tremely muscular. " He was very \VVt handsome in person," says Arrian, ^V " "' devoted to exertion, of an active „,„ . , mind and a most heroic courage, tena- Fig. 4. — Alexander . & ' the gkeat. cious 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 INTRODUCTION 49 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. 1 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 Amm6n 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, 2 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 per- manent 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 1 " Edicto vetuit ne quis se praeter a Pausanias, however, says that it Apellem Pingeret, aut alius Lysippo was Philadelphos who brought the duceret aera Fortis Alexandri vultum body to Alexandreia. simulantia. " — Horace. 5 o INTRODUCTION 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 lead- ing generals. Perdikkas soon began to use his position for the furtherance of his own selfish designs, and having secured the support of Eumenes, 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 fight- ing against Eumenes 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 Tripara- deisos. Under this arrangement Ptolemy held Egypt; Lysimachos, Thrace ; Antigonos, Phrygia or Central Asia Minor ; Seleukos, Babylon ; Antigenes, Sousiana ; Peu- kestas, Persia ; Peithon, son of Krateros, Media; Nearchos, Pamphylia and Lycia; Arrhidaios, Hellespontine Phrygia; Antipater and Polysperchon, Macedonia and Greece. INTRODUCTION 51 Eumenes 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 Eumenes, 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 Demetrios, surnamed Poliorketes, 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 Mediter- ranean. 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. 5 2 INTRODUCTION 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 Fig. 5. — Diodotos. governor of Baktra, revolted from his grandson Antiochos II. and made Baktra an independent kingom. Not long afterwards As'6ka, the grandson of Chandragupta, as we learn from one of his own inscriptions, 1 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 Kyrene). About the year 2 1 2 B.C. Antiochos III., surnamed the Great, marched eastward to Fig. 6. — Antiochos the Great. 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 subju- gation of these kingdoms, and according!}' concluded a treaty with them in which he recognised their independence. 1 See Note L/ in Appendix. INTRODUCTION 53 With the assistance of the Baktrian sovereign Euthydemos, 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 !> IK'* ^s. Fig. 7. — Euthydemos. days of Sandrokottos. From Sophagasenos, 1 the chief of the Indian kings, he obtained a large supply of elephants, and then returned to Syria by the route through Arachdsia in the year 205 B.C. 1 This name, transliterates the a personal name but an official title. Sanskrit Subhagasena, which was not See Lassen, Ind. Alt. II. p. 273. ARRIAN tf S O U A g/r ENE ($ a fr 4Pa/as Qho^€- ftmar JV -* -*(M c5 i Massaga / P^ ^SK^ fOUARSW Ejnbtylirna, I Bazdna VPeutMiiotlP W _ Abisanes K &ttocjt TAX I LA? /•; p opiniiiiai ManikycJa^ Edwarde a abud (BaimuJ Ghakwal Bukel ^ Oronenut Soft Mi/tes JMLam.9 '/ftyaoriO mber yj^—^Bh^a POPOS . %$$& oGnjT-aly •.w A R /rt\ S H /oJla ^y ■a M 0""-^ /for TTulawba / 'AJVIl' L QS""\ Ajudh»n ^01* J ! ...-' I'M nMn't „i.;]i;ii,.1 ' MottELn fi s-4 +Aa&! \f" ' T R) A ' KroTpjr 0/^'Y D R\A/k A I BaimwoJlp-ur Alexandria lUclih) S A B a'g R f Milium km ALEXANDER'S ROUTE IN THE PAJSTJAB Scale h +.+35.200. Note-.- Lints of /tout/ shewn tjius .. : ." ARRIAN'S ANABASIS Fourth Book Chapter XXII. — Alexander crosses the Indian Kaukasos to invade India and advances to the river Kophen After capturing the Rock of Chorienes, Alexander went himself to Baktra, but despatched Krateros with 600 of the Companion Cavalry J and a force of infantry, consisting of his own brigade with that of Polysperchon and Attalos and that of Alketas, against Katanes and Austanes the only chiefs now left in the country of the Paraitakenai 2 who still held out against him. In the battle which ensued Krateros after a severe struggle proved victorious. Katanes fell in the action, while Austanes 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 1 The Companiqn Cavalry, called Taxila (i.e. Takkasila, the Rock of sometimes simply the Companions, the Takkas), situated between the were the Royal Horse Guards, a body Indus and Upper Hydaspes. The which at the beginningoffhecampaign first part of their name Parai repre- consisted of 1500 men, all scions of sents perhaps the Sanskrit parvata, a the noblest families of Macedonia and hill, or pah&r (a hill) of the common Thessaly. In the course of the war dialect. A tribe of the same name their numbers were augmented per- occupied a mountainous part of Media haps to 5000, as Mutzell conjectures. (Herod, i. 161), and another is located 2 The Parai-tak-enai possessed part by Isidoros of Charax between Dran- of the mountainous country between giana and Arachosia. Another form the upper courses of the Oxus and the of the name is Paraitakai (Arrian, iii. Jaxartes. They were perhaps one in 19 ; Strabo, xvi. 736 ; Stephanos race with the Takkas of India, who Byz.) had a great and flourishing capital, 5S THE INVASION OF INDIA the victory led his troops also to Baktra. While Alex- ander was here the tragic incident in his history, the affair of Kallisthenes and the pages, occurred. When spring was now past, 1 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 2 and arrived at the city of Alexandreia 3 which he had founded in the land of the Parapamisadai 4 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 Alex- andreia with fresh settlers from the surrounding district, and also with such of his soldiers as were unfit for further service. 6 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 1 The spring of 327 B.C. 2 Kaukasos here denotes the lofty mountain range, now called the Central Hindu Kush, which forms the northern frontier of Kabul. Its native designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly trans- literates it, Paropanisos. Till Alex- ander'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 some- times of the Kaukasos. Arrian, who regarded them as an extension of the former range, says that the Mace- donian 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 Tass. 3 See Note' A, Alexandreia under Kaukasos. 4 The tribes collectively designated Parapamisadai were, according to Ptolemy (who calls them Paropan- isadai), the five following : — The Bolitai, Aristophyloi, Parsioi, Pars- yetai, and Ambautai. They lived along the spurs of the Hindu Kush, chiefly along its southern and eastern sides. They thus occupied the whole of Kabulistan , and part of Afghanistan. The Bolitai were probably the people of Kabul, a city which, no doubt, represents that which Ptolemy calls Karoura (Kaboura?) or Ortospana. 6 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 con- quests. 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 liaktra and attempted to return to Greece. The)' were treated as de- serters, and were all put to death. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 59 Parapamisadai and the rest of the country as far as the river Kophen. 1 Having reached the city of Nikaia 2 and sacrificed to the goddess Athena, he despatched a herald to Taxil£s 3 and the chiefs on this side of the river Indus, directing them to meet him where it was most convenient for each. Taxiles 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 Hephais- ti6n and Perdikkas with the brigades of Gorgias, Kleitos, 4 and Meleager, half of the companion cavalry, and the whole of the mercenary cavalry, to the land of Peukela6tis 6 and the river Indus. 6 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 neces- sary for the transport of the army across that river. 1 This is the Kabul river, called otherwise by the classical writers the Kdphes, except by Ptolemy, who calls it the KSa. Its name in Sanskrit is the KubhA. 2 See Note B. 3 Taxiles. His distinctive name, as we learn from Curtius (viii. 14), was Omphis. Diodoros (xvii. 86) less accurately calls him Mophis, 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 pre- parations to invade India. 4 Kleitos had been killed before the army left Baktra, but his brigade continued to bear his name even after his death. 6 Peukelaotis designated both a dis- trict and its capital city. The name is a transliteration of Pukkalaoti, which is the Pali form of the Sanskrit Push- kalavati.the name by which the ancient capital of Gandhara was known. General Cunningham has fixed its position at the two large towns of Parang and Charsada, which form part of Hashtnagar, or eight cities, that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the Landa'i or lower Swat river. The position thus indicated is nearly seventeen miles to the north- west of Peshawar. The city was in early times a great emporium of com- merce. Ptolemy, who with the author of the Periplus of the Erythraian sea, calls it Proklai's, has correctly located it on the eastern bank of the river of Souaste"ne, i.e. the river of Swat. Wilson, however, and Abbott take Pekhely (or Pakholi) in the neigh- bourhood of Peshawar to be the modern representative of the old Gandharian capital {v. Cunningham's Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 49-51). 6 The route assigned to this division lay along the course of the Kabul river and through the Khaiber Pass to Peukelaotis, which was situated where, or near where, Hasht-nagar on the river Landai now stands. 60 THE INVASION OF INDIA They were accompanied on their march by TaxilSs 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, Astes, a prince of the land of Peukeladtis, revolted, but perished in the attempt, besides involving in ruin the city to which he had fled for refuge, which the troops under H£phaisti6n captured in thirty days. Astes himself fell, and Sang- gaios, 1 who had some time before fled from Astes and deserted to Taxiles, 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, 2 all the companion cavalry except what was with Hephaisti6n, 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 Gour- aians and Assakenians. 3 The route which he followed 4 1 This name is perhaps a trans- 3 Aspasioi and Assakenoi. See literation of the Sanskrit Sanjaya, Note C. which means victor. A Shinwari 4 Strabo (xv. 697) states the reasons tribe called Sangu is found inhabiting which led Alexander to select the a part of the Nangrihar district west northern route to the Indus in prefer- of the Khaiber Pass. ence to the southern. "Alexander 2 The hypaspists, so called because was informed," he says, "that the they carried the round shield called mountainous and northern parts were aspis, while the hoplites carried the the most habitable and fertile, but oblong shield called hoplon, formed a that the southern part was either body of about 3000 men at the outset without water or liable to be over- of the war, but were perhaps aug- flowed by rivers at one time, or entirely mented to double that number during burnt up at another, more fit to be the its progress. They were not so haunts of wild beasts than the dwell- heavily armed as the hoplites, and ings of men. He resolved therefore were therefore more rapid in their to master first that part of India which movements. The foot companions had been well spoken of, considering were another distinguished corps of at the same time that the rivers guards. The Agrianians, who made which it was necessary to pass, and excellent light-armed troops, were a which flowed transversely through the Paioman people whose country ad- country which he proposed to attack, joined the sources of the river Strym6n. would be crossed with more facility BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 61 was hilly and rugged, and lay along the course of the river called the Khdes, 1 which he had difficulty in cross- ing. 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 Mace- donian 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 towards their sources. " The districts ' Kh6es. This is the first river through which he passed are now Alexander would reach after he had called Kafiristan, Chittral, Swat, and left his encampment near the junction the Yusufzai country. It is more of the Panjshir with the Kophen, difficult to trace in this than in any which appears to have been the place other of his campaigns the course of where he divided his army. It cannot his movements, and to identify with have been, as Lassen thought, the certainty the various strongholds which Kamah or Kunar, but is rather the he attacked. The country through stream formed by the junction of the which he passed is but little known Alishang and the Alinghar, which even at the present day, and, as Bun- joins the Kophen on the left in the bury remarks, a glance at the labyrinth neighbourhood of Mandrour above of mountains and valleys, which occupy Jalalabad. The Alinghar river, as the whole space in question in the we learn from Masson, is called also best modern maps, will sufficiently the Kow. The Koa of Ptolemy show how utterly bewildering they must not be confounded with the must have been to the officers of Khoes of the text, for that author Alexander, who neither used maps in describing the Koa says that it nor the compass, and were incapable receives a tributary from the Paro- of the simplest geographical observa- panisadai, and that after being joined tions. The time occupied by Alex- by the Souastos (the river of Swat) ander in marching from the foot of it falls into the Indus. The Koa is Kaukasos to the Indus was about a therefore probably the Kophen after year. Like Napoleon, he kept the its reception of the Kamah or Kunar field even in winter, though in these river, parts the cold at that season is intense. 62 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 ap- plied, 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, 1 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 1 Euaspla R. This name, which, so waters and the length of its course, far as I know, occurs only in Arrian, It rises at the foot of the plateau of has not been satisfactorily explained. Pamtr, not far from the sources of the It designated, no doubt, the river Oxus, and joins the Kophen at some which Aristotle, Strabo, and Curtius distance below TaUlabad. Strabo call the Choaspes, ami which the best says that the Choaspes traverses authorities identify with the Kamah Bandobcne (Badakshan) and Gand- ?L V'™-' a nVcr whlch rivals the arttis aftel " having passed near the Kophen itself in the volume of its towns of l'legerion and Gorydale. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 63 the second day, the city of the Aspasian chief. 1 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 bar- barians 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 1 The capital of this chief was probably Gorys on the Choaspes. 64 THE INVASION OF INDIA city at their base, named Arigaion. 1 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 con- vinced 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, 1 Arigaion. This place, which calls Daedali, whereto he says Alex- was situated to the east of the ander led his troops after the Bac- Choaspes, is perhaps now represented chanalian revelry with which they had by Naoghi, a village in the province been indulged at Nysa. There is no of Bajore. Ritter identified it with mention elsewhere of Arigaion, unless Bajore or Bagawar, the capital of this it be the ." Argacum urbem" of the province. _ The mountains to which Itin.r. Alex. 105. It is taken by the inhabitants fled for refuge may Schneider to be the Acadira of perhaps, as V. de Saint-Martin sug- Curlius. gests, be those which Justin (xii. 7) BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 65 together with the brigade of Philippos and Phil6tas, two companies of archers, each a thousand strong, the Agri- anians, 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 small- ness 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 cap- tured 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 F 66 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Gour- aians, where he had to cross the Gouraios, 1 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 Alex- ander 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, 2 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 en- camp. Alexander thus saw that the battle would be 1 The Gouraios is the river Panj- and wide-spread tribe, branches of kora, which unites with the river of which are still to be found on the Swat to form the Landai, a large Panjlcora, and also on both sides of affluent of the Kabul river. It appears the K&bul River where it is joined by under the name of the GauH in the the Landa'i. It formed the boundary sixth book of the MalMhArata, where between the Gouraians and the Assa- il is mentioned along with the Suvastu kcnians. (the Swat river) and the Kampanl 2 Mazaga. See Note D. It owes its name to the Gliori, a great BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 67 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 in- volved 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 68 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 com- batants. 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 them- selves 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 69 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 Assakenos. 1 Alexander lost in the siege from first to last five-and-twenty of his men in all. He then despatched Koinos to Bazira, 2 convinced that the inhabitants would capitulate on learning that Massaga had been captured. He, moreover, sent Attalos, Alketas, and D£metrios, 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 3 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 1 Alexander seems to have treated that region of mountain-girt valleys, these mercenaries with less than his now called Hazara, which lies between usual generosity towards brave ene- the Indus and the upper Hydaspes. mies. Plutarch reprobates his slaugh- In Hazdra the ancient name of the ter of them as a foul blot on his country seems to be preserved. It military fame. The attack upon the has been supposed, but less reason- city after it had capitulated on terms ably, that the district was so called admits of no justification. from the great number of its petty 2 See Note E. chiefs, hazdra being the numeral for 3 Abisares. Arrian in a subsequent a thousand (in Persian). Abisares passage calls this chief King of the was a very powerful prince, and it is Mountaineer Indians. His name supposed with reason that Kashmir shows that he ruled over Abhisara, was subject to his sway. 70 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 antago- nists, and sallied out into the plain to attack them. A sharp conflict ensued in which 5 00 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 XX VIII. — 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; 1 for this is a mighty mass of rock in that part of the country, and a report is current concerning it that even Herakles, the son of Zeus, had found it to be impregnable Now whether the Theban, or the Tyrian, or the Egyptian Herakles penetrated so far as to the Indians 2 I can neither 2 ^u n ° S ; r S ?, e Note TI F - , dedicated to Herakles." The name „» ,.\«-' ?T H< ? odotos (»• °f the Egyptian Herakles was Dsona the" FWio „° ne °^ fu° lent S °, ds ° f or Ch6n ' or ' ^cording to Pausanias, elves^fwn, U^' aS they , S % y th£ f ■ Makeris > and thilt ° f *e Tyrian was etn ' a! ?7 'T ye £* bef °r the MclkBrt - Th «e were more ancient [hel Lt w ' W ll \ e ™»*er of than the Theban Herakles, the son of o twflv Zf '.""^ffro" eight Zeus and Alkmene. The Indian accoZL'on A") , • lalc, , CS ■ was ""raW**, called Dorsanes, who, ac- ofobta nirT, , — ^ . de81 , rous COldin g t0 A "' ian > W the father of whoever £'"7 lnf ™°!| *°» ^™> has been identified with TvreTn PWnV ^ '' * ^ t0 S ' iva - bl,t nls ° with Balarama, the bin infnn,? ? ?' ***"■'• " S * lmd ci B ,rth avatar of Vishnu. Diodte been informed, there was a temple (ii. J9 ) ascribes to him the building of BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 71 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 Fig. 8. — The Tyeian Herakles. baffle even Herakles himself. And in the case of this rock my own conviction is that Herakles 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. 1 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. Alexander on learning these particulars was seized with an ardent desire to capture this mountain also, the story current about Herakles not being the least of the incentives. I 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 Hephaistion and Perdikkas fortified for him the walls and of the palace of Pali- bothra (now Patna). Arrian in the second book of this work (c. 16) distinguishes the Tyrian Herakles from the Egyptian and Argive or Theban. The latter, he says, lived about the time of Oidipous, son of Laios. 1 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. 72 THE INVASION OF INDIA another city called Orobatis 1 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 com- panions, satrap of the country on this side of the Indus, 2 and then first marched himself towards that river and received the submission of the city of Peukelaotis 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. 3 He was accompanied on this occasion by Kdphaios and Assager.es the local chiefs. 4 On reaching Embolima, 6 a city close 1 The site of Orobatis must be sought for in the district west of Peu- kelaotis, through which Hephaistion 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 situ- ated on the left bank of the Landa'i, and is near Naoshera. It is probably the Oroppa of the Ravenna geo- grapher. * Nikanor was succeeded in this office by Philippos, who was placed in command of the garrison of Peu- kelaotis. s Peukelaotis, as has been stated, stood on the Landa'i at a distance of seventeen miles north-west from Pesha- war. Alexander after the fall of Bazira moved westwards toward that river, judging it expedient before attacking the Rock to reduce all the yet un- conquered region west of the Indus. He took Peukelaotis, and then directed his march eastward till he approached the -embouchure of the K6phen, whence turning northwards he ad- vanced 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. 4 Kophaios, to judge from his name and from what is here stated, must have been the ruler of the valley of the lower Kophen or Kabul river. Hence it is unlikely, as some have supposed, that the dominions of Taxilfe lay partly in the country west of the Indus. I find nothing any- where in the classical writers lending countenance to such a supposition. The name of Assagetes is probably a transliteration into Greek of the Sans- krit As'vajit, ' ' gaining horses by conquest. " 6 Ritter taking Embolima to be a word of Greek origin, equivalent in meaning to x<>!<;Tos, i. e. deposited by the rivers ; for the rivers first create the river. land, then fertilize it, and finally dis- 2 See Odyssey, iv. 477, 581. tribute its produce. The plains were s Modern science confirms this in many parts upheaved by volcanic theory. Thus Sir W. Hunter in his action, or deposited in an aqueous Brief History of the Indian People, aera long before man appeared on says: "In order to understand the the earth. " 90 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 com- pared. 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, 1 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, 2 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, 3 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, 4 1 Arrian has named these in his 3 Diodoros says the passage was Indika, c. 4. made by a bridge of boats. 2 See Herod, vii. 33-36 ; iv. S3, 97, i There is a Rhenos in Italy— the 1 33' 1 ^- Reno, a tributary of the Po, from BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 91 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 down- ward, 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 com- mensurate 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 exhorta- tions of the overseers and their rebukes of negligence neither prevent orders from being heard nor the work from being quickly executed. which the great Rhine is distinguished described in his De Bello Gallico, as the Keltic. The famous bridge iv. 17. made by Caesar over the latter river is g 2 THE INVASION OF INDIA Chapter VIII. — Alexander arrives at Taxila — Receives an embassy from Abisarcs and advances to the Hydaspfe 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, 1 a great and flourishing city, the greatest indeed of all the cities which lay between the river Indus and the Hydas- pes. Taxiles, 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 Abisares, 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 Doxares, 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 Hydaspes — for he had learned that P6ros 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. 2 2 ?i? e N ° te l ' Taxila - that in compliance with the second We learn from Curtius that request he would meet Alexander at Alexander, before taking hostile the place appointed, but would attend action against Puros, demanded from in arms. Alexander was perhaps him through an envoy called Cleo- justified by the laws of war in exact- chares that he should pay tribute and ing submission from the tribes west come to meet him on the frontiers of of the Indus, since these had been his dominions. To this Puros replied subject to Darius, whom he had over- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 93 Upon learning this Alexander sent back Koinos, the son of Polemokrat£s, 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 Hydaspes. 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 Hydaspes. 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 Taxiles and the chiefs of that country advanced towards the Hydaspes. 1 thrown, and to whose rights he had succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjab, those at least that lay to the east of the Hydaspes, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian domina- tion, and hence his invasion, accord- ing 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 superi- ority 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 never- theless by Aristotle, who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illus- trious pupil. Hence Alexander, in attacking Poros, 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. 1 The Hydaspes, now the Jhilam, is called by the natives of Kas'mlr, where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of its Sanskrit name, the Vitasta, which means ' ' wide-spread. " In Ptolemy's geography it appears as the Bidaspes — a form nearer the original than Hydasph. It is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig - Veda, along with other great Indian rivers : " Receive favourably this my hymn, O Ganga, Yamuna, Sara'svati, S'utudrl, Parashni ; hear O Marudvridha, with the Asikni and Vitastd, and thou Arjiklya with the Sushoma." In advancing from the Indus at Attak to the Hydaspes, Alexander followed the Rajapatha, that is, the king's highway, called by Megasthenes the bhbs $a,(rihi)i% It is the route which has been taken by all foreign con- querors who have penetrated into India by the valley of the Kophes. Elphinstone, who followed this route in returning from Kfibul, describes it thus: "The whole of our journey across the track between the Indus and Hydaspes 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 Kdbul, 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 94 THE INVASION OF INDIA Chapter IX. — Alexander on reaching the Hydaspis finds Pdros prepared to dispute its passage Alexander encamped on the banks of the river, 1 and Pdros was seen on the opposite side, with all his army and his array of elephants around him. 2 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 Pdros 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 P6ros 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 Chesney, in the lecture already cited, cate ravines of the upper part of the thus remarks on the advance of Alex- Salt range, and leaving Tilla and ander to the Hydaspes: "What is Rhotas on his left, penetrated that remarkable about this part of the range by the gorge through which advance is that it was not made direct runs the Bhundar river, and struck on Jhelum, as would appear natural. the river Jhelum at Jalalpfir, about True, that line is over what would be thirty miles below Jhelum. ' a very difficult country, as any traveller ' See Note I, Site of Alexander's by the existing road knows. Still it camp on the Hydaspes. would be the easiest line ; neverlhe- a The Greeks, for the first time, less it appears certain that Alexander saw elephants used in war at the took a more southerly line, and battle of Arbela. threading his way through the intri- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 95 skins were being filled with hay, while all the bank was lined, here with horse and there with foot, all this prevented P6ros 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. 1 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 Hydaspes at all events does become fordable. Chapter X. — Alexanders devices to deceive Poros 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 P6ros himself had encamped near the bank of the HydaspSs, 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 1 Arrian, in the nineteenth chapter solstice of June 21st, nera rpoircis. of this book, states that the battle Editors remove the difficulty by sub- with Poros was fought in the Archon- stituting ko.t& for nerd, and I have ship of Hegemon at Athens, in the translated accordingly. As the rainy month of Mounychion, i.e. between season, however, does not set in till the 1 8th of April and 18th of May, near the end of June, and it had set 326 B.C. Here, however, according in, as Strabo informs us, during the to the reading of all the MSS., he march to the Hydaspes, the later date makes the battle take place after the has probability in its favour. 9 6 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, 1 and fill the shores with every kind of noise, as if they were really preparing to attempt the passage. P6ros 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, Poros 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 Poros about his nocturnal attempts, he devised the following stratagem. Chapter XI — Arrangements made by Alexander for crossing the Hydaspes unobserved There was a bluff ascending from the bank of the Hydaspes 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 1 Enyalios, an epithet of the war-god. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 97 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. 1 But along the whole of the bank he had posted running sentries 2 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 horse- men, 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 P6ros moved off against them, or before learning that he was flying from the field, and that they were victorious. " If, however,'' said he, " P6ros with one part of his army advances against me while he 1 Curtius mentions that near the seventeen miles." These seventeen bluff there was a deep hollow or miles are about the equivalent of the ravine which sufficed to screen both 150 stadia given by Arrian as the the infantry and the cavalry, and on this distance from the great camp to the Cunningham remarks: "There is a bluff. ravine to the north of Jalalpur which 2 "Arrian," says Cunningham, exactly suits the descriptions of the " records that Alexander placed run- historians. This ravine is the bed of ning sentries along the bank of the the Kandar Nala, which has a course river at such distances that they could of six miles from its source down to see each other and communicate his Jalalpur, where it is lost in a waste orders. Now, I believe that this opera- of sand. Up this ravine there has tion could not be carried out in the always been a passable, but difficult face of an observant enemy along any road towards Jhelum. From the part of the river bank, excepting only head of the Kandar this road proceeds that one part which lies between for three miles in a northerly direc- Jalalpur and Dilawar. In all other tion down another ravine called the parts the west bank is open and ex- Kasi, which then turns suddenly to posed, but in this part alone the the east for six and a half miles, and wooded and rocky hills slope down then again one and a half mile to the to the river and offer sufficient cover south, where it joins the river Jhelum for the concealment of single sentries." immediately below Dilawar, the whole — Geog. of Anc. India, pp. 170, 171. distance from Jalalpur being exactly H 98 THE INVASION OF INDIA leaves the other part and his elephants in his camp, then please to remain where you are ; but if P6ros 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 Hydaspes 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 detach- ments, 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 Hephaistion, Perdikkas and Demetrios, 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 99 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 em- barked in them. They so proceeded, that they were not seen by the sentries posted by Pdros 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 P6ros. Mean- while 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 ioo THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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 Poros 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. Taur6n, 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 P6ros 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 1 With Alexander's passage of the no doubt familiar with the history of Hydaspes may be compared Hanni- Alexander's wars, and from knowing bal s passage of the Rhone made how the Hydasp&s was crossed may upwards of a century later. The have laid his plans for crossing the Carthaginian general, whose education Rhone, v. Livy, xxi. 26-28 ; Polyb. included a knowledge of Greek, was iii. 45, 46. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT iol the action, or that if the Indians, terrified by the mar- vellous 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 P6ros arrived with about 60 chariots before Alexander made the final pas- sage 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 P6ros and Alexander at the head of his cavalry, and that as the son of P6ros 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 Pdros. But Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, with whom I agree, gives a different account, for he states, like the others, that Poros sent off his son, but not in command of merely 60 chariots ; and indeed it is not at all likely that Poros, on learning from the scouts that either Alex- ander himself, or, at all events, a part of his army, had made the passage of the Hydaspes, would have sent his own son with no more than 60 chariots, which, con- sidered 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 P6ros arrived at the head of 2000 men and 120 chariots, 102 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Poros for the conflict Ptolemy states further that Alexander at first de- spatched against the prince the horse archers, and led the cavalry himself, under the belief that Poros was advancing against him with the whole of his army, and that this was a body of advanced cavalry thrown for- ward by P6ros. 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 squad- rons, their ranks gave way, and 400 of their horsemen fell, and among them the son of P6ros. 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 Poros 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 Alex- ander 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 Alex- ander. When he found a place where he saw there was BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 103 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, 1 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 P6ros 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 1 Here, or in the immediate neigh- sion the inferiority of the British com- bourhood, was fought, in 1849, tne mander as a strategist to Alexander battle of Chilianwala. On this occa- was signally manifested. i 04 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 P6ros should reap the advantage which he had cal- culated 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. 1 Koinos he sent at the head of his own regiment of horse and that of D£metrios 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. 2 The command of the phalanx of infantry he committed to Seleukos, Antigenes, and Taurdn, 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 iooo 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 for- 1 The left wing of the Indian army the rear as soon as, in advancing to was flanked by the river. meet Alexander, they had got some 2 This passage, as interpreted by little distance from their supports. Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as ... Distance can be got over quickly generally understood, intimates that by cavalry." Kochly and Riistow, Alexander ordered Koinos to station however, in their History of the Greek himself opposite the enemy's right, Military System, advocate a different and not on the Macedonian extreme view. " Alexander, " they say, "must right. Thus Moberly, who holds the have sent Koinos to the extreme right general view, remarks {Alexander in wing with the order, that if the cavalry the Punjaub, -p. 61) : — "Coenus was broke from the line against himself ordered to station himself opposite the (Alexander) he was to fall upon their enemy's right ; then, in case of Porus rear. Had he been detached to oppose withdrawing all his cavalry from the the right wing of Foros he would have right, in order to meet Alexander's been too far off to support Alexander's attack on the left, Coenus was to pass front attack by an attack on the from one wing to the other, appar- enemy's rear." This seems the pre- ently in front of the Macedonian line, ferable view. and to attack the Indian cavalry in BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 105 ward 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 X VII. — Description of the battle of the Hydaspes — Defeat of Pdros 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. See- ing 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. 1 Upon this the drivers of the elephants urged these animals for- ward 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 1 " To meet the double assault (of phants, and (as it would seem in the Alexander and Coenus) they resorted absence, from Arrian's account, of the to one of those changes of front in full details) passed as soon as possible which Indian cavalry are often so through the intervals of the foot surprisingly rapid — facing partly to regiments, so as to be for the moment the front and partly to the rear. Yet quite outside the battle. As soon as Alexander was beforehand with them ; they were out of the way the Indian and his renewed charge threw them elephants were sent on, supported by into utter confusion before they could the infantry, but were at once met fully assume their new formation. face to face by the Macedonian Flying along the front of their own phalanx." — -v. Moberly's Alexander infantry, they took refuge in the in the Punjaub, Introd. p. 12. spaces left between every two ele- 106 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 wher- ever 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 wher- ever 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 ex- haustion 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 indiscrim- inately, 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 ex- hausted, 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 107 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 X VIII. — Sequel of the battle and surrender ■ of Poros Meanwhile Krateros and all the other officers of Alex- ander's army, who had been left behind on the opposite bank of the Hydaspeis, crossed the river when they per- ceived 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. 1 Two sons of P6ros fell in the battle, and also Spitakes, 2 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 Poros all . . . 3 The elephants, moreover, that escaped destruction in the field were all captured. On Alexander's side there fell about 80 of the 6000 in- fantry who had taken part in the first attack, 1 o of the 1 Diodoros gives the number of Alexander during the march of the Indians killed at upwards of 12,000, latter from Taxila to the Hydaspes, and of the captured at more than as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in 9000, besides 80 elephants. thinking. 2 The Spitakes here mentioned as 3 The hiatus is supposed to have one of the slain is probably the same contained the number of officers as Pittacus, who is recorded by Poly- killed. ainos to have had an encounter with io 8 THE INVASION OF INDIA horse archers who first began the action, 20 of the com- panion cavalry, and 200 of the other cavalry. 1 When Pdros, 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 ex- ample 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, perceiv- ing 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 Taxiles the Indian. Taxiles, who was on horseback, approached as near the elephant which carried P6ros 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 P6ros, on finding that the speaker was his old enemy Taxiles, turned round and prepared to smite him with his javelin ; and he would probably have killed him had not Taxiles instantly put his horse to the gallop and got beyond the reach of P6ros. But not even for this act did Alexander feel any resentment against P6ros, but sent to him messenger after messenger, and last of all Mero£s, an Indian, as he had learned that P6ros and this 1 This death-roll evidently greatly the Macedonians 280 cavalry and more under-estimatesthelossonAlexander's than 700 infantry, side. Diodoros says that there fell of BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 109 Meroes were old friends. As soon as P6ros heard the message which Meroes 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 Meroes to conduct him without delay to Alexander. 1 Chapter XIX. — Alexander makes Poros his firm friend and ally — Founds two cities — Death of his famous horse Boukephalas He was then conducted to Alexander, who, on learn- ing that Meroes 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 admira- tion the handsome person and majestic stature of Pqjros, 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 P6ros to say how he wished to be treated. The report goes that P6ros 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 Poros ! thou shalt be so treated, but do thou, in thine own behalf, ask for whatever boon thou pleasest," to which P6ros replied that in what he had asked everything was included. Alexander was more delighted than ever with this re- joinder, and not only appointed Pdros to govern his own Indians, but added to his original territory another of still greater extent. Alexander thus treated this brave man 1 Poros was the first sovereign that the story of his capture, representing Alexander had captured on the field him to have been protected to the last of battle. Curtius and Diod6ros re- by his faithful elephant, late somewhat differently from Arrian no THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Poros 1 and the Indians of the other side of the Hydaspes in the month of Mounychion of the year when Hegemdn was archon in Athens. 2 Alexander founded two cities, one on the battlefield, and the other at the point whence he had started to cross the river Hydaspes. The former he called Nikaia in honour of his victory over the Indians, and the other Boukephala 3 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, 4 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 fore- head 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 1 See Note R, Battle with Poros. the great camp at JalalpGr. It be- 5 Diodoros says the battle occurred came a great emporium of commerce, while Chremes was archon at Athens. as we find from the Periplih of the 3 Nikaia most probably occupied the Erythraian Sea, c 47. In the Peii- site of the modern town of Mong, near tinger Tables it is called Alexandria the left bank. Nothing is known of Btccefalos. its history. With respect to its sister 4 " Schmieder says that Alexander city Boukephala, the ancient writers could not have broken in the horse are not in agreement. Plutarch before he was sixteen years old. But places it on the left or eastern bank since at this time he was in his twenty- of the Hydaspes, for he says that ninth year he would have had him Boukephalas was killed in the battle, thirteen years. Consequently the and that the city was built where he horse must have been at least seven- fell and was buried. According, how- teen years old when he acquired ever, to Strabo, Arrian, and Diodoros, him. Can any ope believe this? Yet it stood on the west bank ; but while Tlutarch also states that trie horse Strabo places it at the point where was thirty years old at his death."— the troops embarked, Arrian places it Chinnock's Anabasis of Alexander, farther down the stream on the site of p. 296, note 4. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT in they did not bring him his horse, and brought back he was immediately after the proclamation had been issued * — 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 A bisares and other chiefs, and crosses the Akesines 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 Hydaspes, 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 Pdros. Aristoboulos says that the name of the nation was the Glaukanikoi, but Ptolemy calls them the Glausai. 2 By which of the names it was called I take to be a matter of no consequence. Alex- ander 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 capitula- 1 This incident is referred by Plu- Chenab. The name of the inhabit- tarch to Hyrkania, and by Curtius to ants, Glausai or Glaukantkoi, has the land of the Mardians. The been identified by V. de Saint-Martin Ouxioi lived on the borders of Persis, with that of the Kalaka, a tribe men- between that province and Sousiana. tioned in the Vardha Sanhita, a work 2 Alexander, according to Dio- of the sixth century of our aera. In dfiros, halted to recruit his army for the Mahdbhdrata the name is written thirty days in the dominions of Poros. Kalaja, and in the Rajput Chronicles He then advanced northwards with a Kalacha, a form which justifies the part of his army to the fertile and Greek Glausai. The second part of populous regions that lay in the south the longer name, anika, means a of Kas'mir (the Bhimber and Bajaur troop or army in Sanskrit. — v. Saint- districts) between the upper courses Martin's Etude, pp. 102, 103. of the Hydaspes and the Akesines and i,2 THE INVASION OF INDIA tion. In this manner he took seven-and-thirty cities, the smallest of which contained not fewer than 5000 in- habitants, while many contained upwards of io,ooo. He took also a great many villages which were not less populous than the towns ; and this country he gave to Poros to rule, 1 and between him and Taxiles he effected a reconciliation. He then sent Taxiles home to his capital. At this time envoys came from Abisares to say that their king surrendered himself and his whole realm to Alexander. 2 Yet before the battle in which Alexander had defeated P6ros, Abisares was ready with his army to fight on the side of P6ros. 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 Poros. 3 Alexander ordered Abisares to come to him as quickly as possible, threaten- ing 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 Assakenians, reporting that these people had slain their governor and revolted from Alexander. Against these he sent Philip- pos and Tyriaspes to quell the insurrection and restore tranquillity and order to the province. Alexander himself advanced towards the river Ake- sines. 4 This is the only Indian river of which Ptolemy, 1 Conf. Strabo, XV. i. 3. " Other 3 Strabo (XV. i. p. 699) says this writers affirm that the Macedonians Toros was a nephew of the Poros conquered nine nations situated be- whom Alexander had defeated, and tween the Hydaspes and the Hypanis that his country was called Gandaris. (Beas), and obtained possession of The Gandarai were a widely extended 500 cities, not one of which was less people, occupying a district stretching than Kos Meropis, and that Alex- from theupperpartofthePanjabtothe ander, after having conquered all west of the Indus as far as Qandahar. this country, delivered it up to Thev are the Gandhara of Sanskrit. Kirns." 4" The Akesines, now the ChenSb, - This was a second embassy. An is called in the Yedic Hymns the earlier is mentioned in Chapter VIII. Mihii, i.e. "dark-coloured." It was of this book. called also, and more commonly, BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 113 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 1 5 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 per- ished in the waters, as many of the boats were dashed to pieces by striking against the rocks. From this descrip- tion 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 1 5 stadia, which I take to be its actual breadth in many parts of its course, for I con- clude that Alexander selected a part of the Akesines where the passage was widest, and where the current would consequently be slower than elsewhere. Chapter XXI. — Pursuit after PSros, nephew of the great PSros — Conquest of the country between the Akesines and the Hydrastis — Passage of the latter river After crossing the river he left Koinos there upon the bank with his own brigade, and ordered him to superin- tend 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. P6ros he sent home to his capital with orders to select the best fighting men of the Indians, and to muster all Chandrabhag&, which, being trans- the Macedonian fleet at the turbulent literated into Greek, becomes Sandro- junction of this river with the Hydas- phagos. This word suggested to the pes. In Ptolemy's Geography it is soldiers of Alexander another of bad called Sandabala by an obvious error omen, Ale-xandrophagos, which means for Sandabaga. The Akesines, though devourer of Alexander, and hence joined by the other great Panjab they adopted its other name, perhaps rivers, retained its name until it fell on account of the disaster which befell into the Indus. „ 4 THE INVASION OF INDIA the elephants he possessed, and to rejoin him with these. He resolved to pursue in person the other P6ros — 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 sub- sisted between Alexander and the other Poros, this P6ros 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 Poros than friend- liness to Alexander. On learning therefore that Poros 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 P6ros, 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 Hydra6tes— another Indian river, not less in breadth than the Akesines, but not so rapid. 1 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 Hephaistidn with a force comprising two divisions of infantry, his own regiment of cavalry and that of Demetrios, and one -half of the archers, into the country of that P6ros who had revolted. He received orders to hand over the country to the other P6ros, and when he had reduced all the independent Indian tribes bordering on the banks 1 The Hydraotes is called by Strabo pes, or, as Ptolemy calls it, the ■(XV. i. 21) the Hyarotis, and in Bidaspes. Arrian in his Indika (c. Ptolemy's Geography the Adds or 4) describes the Hydraotes as rising Rhouadis. It is now the R&vf, which in the country of the Kambistholoi, is an abridged form of its Sanskrit and after receiving the Hyphasis name, the Airavatf. It passes the among the Astrybai, and the Saranges city of Lahore, and joins the Chenab from the Kekeans (the Sekaya of about 30 miles above Mult.ln. In Sanskrit), and the Neudros from the former times, however, the junction Attakenoi, falling into the Akesines. occurred 15 miles below that city. In The Hyphasis does not, however, join Ptolemy's Geography the Rhouadis is the Hydraotes. -erroneously made to join the Ilydas- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 115 of the Hydraotes, to place these also under the rule of P6ros. He himself then crossed the river Hydra6t£s, where he met with none of the difficulties which had attended the passage of the Akesines. When he was advancing into the country beyond the Hydradtes he found most of the natives willing to surrender on capitu- lation, 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 1 and other tribes of independent Indians 2 were preparing to meet him in battle if he invaded their country, and were inviting the neighbouring tribes, which were independent like themselves, to cooperate with them. He learned also that the city near which they meant to engage him was strongly fortified, and was called Sangala. 3 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 Poros and Abisares 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 accom- plishing 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 Hydradtes arrived at a city 1 v. Note L, Kathaians. rural units they took to be an inde- 2 The expression independent shows pendent republic. that the Greeks were cognisant of the 3 v. Note M, Sangala. Indian village system. Each of its n6 THE INVASION OF INDIA named Pimprama, belonging to an Indian race called the Adraistai, 1 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 mus- tered 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 occu- pied, 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 dis- tance, 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 bat- talions 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 1 The Adraistai appear to be the fied with certainty, but V. de Saint- people called in the Poiflfts of the Martin suggests that it may be repre- Erythraean Sea, the Aratrioi. Lassen sented by Bhh-anah, a place eight identifies them with the Aratta of the leagues distant from Lahore towards MalMh&rata. Diod6ros calls them the south-east. The same author theAdr2stai,andOrosiusinhisM'.r/»r)' thinks that the Adrastae are very (iii. 19) the Adrestae. Their capital, probably the A'irdvatd or Raivdtakt Pimprama, has not as yet been idonti- of Sanskrit. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 117 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'} k 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. 1 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 them- selves 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 com- pletely 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 1 Chinnock notes that Caesar's manner by the Helvetians. — v. troops were assailed in a similar Caesar's De Bella Gallico, i. 26. n8 THE INVASION OF INDIA the city during the night. The event showed he had con- jectured 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, how- ever, 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 iooo 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 S angola, 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 119 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 P6ros 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. 1 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. Alexander having buried the dead according to custom, sent Eumen6s, his secretary, in command of 300 1 Curtius gives the loss of the numbers here seem to be greatly Kathaians at 8000 killed. Arrian's exaggerated. 120 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Fig. 9. — Eumenes. 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 Alex- ander, 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 volun- tarily submitted to him. He then sent P6ros 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 * to conquer the Indians 1 The Hyphasis, now the Betis or Beias, is variously called by the classical writers the Bibasis, the Hypasis, and the Hypanis. Its Sans- krit name is the (">>lW, 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 Hydra6tes, as Anian says in his Indika), and the united stream is called in Sanskrit the S'atadru, i.e. " flowing in a hundred channels." It marked the limit of Alexander's advance eastward. In his time it flowed in a different BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 121 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 be- wailed their condition, while others positively asserted that they would follow no farther though Alexander him- self 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 channel, one by which it reached the elsewhere, and he then proceeded to Chenab about 40 miles above Uchh. the bank of the river. The country ) Curtius and Diodoros inform us that beyond it Arrian represents as exceed- Alexander before reaching this river ingly fertile, whereas in Curtius and had entered the dominions of King Diodoros we read how Alexander was Sophites, who submitted without re- informed that a desert lay beyond it sistance, and was therefore left in which would occupy a journey of possession of his sovereignty. Another eleven days. Arrian's statement holds chief (called Phegeus by Diodoros, true of the northern districts beyond but more correctly Phegelas by Cur- the river, and the other statement of tius), whose dominions adjoined the the southern districts. Thirlwall, Hyphasis, entertained Alexander and following the latter statement, takes his army for two days. By this time it that Alexander reached the Satlej he had been rejoined by Hephaistion, after it had received the Hyphasis, who had been conducting operations but this is a very questionable view. 122 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, 1 and the Hellespont with the two Phrygias, Kappadokia, Paphla- gonia, 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 2 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, Hydaspes, Akesines, and Hydra6tes 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 jet 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." 1 The name of Ion, the eponymous - The Tanais is properly the Don, ancestor of the Ionians, had origin- but Alexander meant by it the Jax- ally the digamma, and hence was artes, which formed the eastern written as Ivon. The Hebrew trans- boundary of the Persian empire, and caption of this digammated form is which he had crossed to attack the favan, the name by which Greece is nomadic Skythians, who had made designated in the Bible. The Sans- threatening demonstrations against knt transcription is Yavana, the name him on the right or northern bank [v. applied in Indian works to Ionians or the 16th and 17th chapters of the Greeks and foreigners generally. fourth book). BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 123 Chapter XXVI. — Continuation of Alexanders 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 under- stand 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. 1 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 Herakles. 2 From these pillars all the interior of Lybia becomes ours, and thus all Asia shall belong to us, 8 and the boundaries of our empire in that direction will coincide with those which the deity has made the boundaries of the earth. 1 It was a prevalent belief in ranean by the Pillars of Hercules." antiquity that the Kaspian or Hyr- Herodotos (iv. 42) says that Neko, kanian Sea was a gulf of the great king of the Egyptians, sent certain ocean which encircles the earth, and Phoenicians in ships with orders to not an inland sea. sail back through the Pillars of 2 Arrian (vii. 1) says: "When Hercules into the Northern Sea (the Alexander reached Pasargadai and Mediterranean that is), and so to Persepolis he conceived an ardent return to Egypt. The pillars de- desire to sail down the Euphrates and signated the twin rocks which guard Tigres to "the Persian sea, and survey the entrance to the Mediterranean at their mouths. . . . Some writers have the eastern extremity of the Straits of stated that he had in contemplation a Gibraltar, the one on the European voyage round the greater portion of side being called Kalpe, and that on Arabia, the land of the Aethiopians, the African side, where now stands Lybia, and Numidia beyond Mount the citadel of Ceuta, Abila or Abyla. Atlas to Gadeira (Cadiz) inward into u. Pliny (iii. prooem.) : " Proximis the Mediterranean." One of the autem faucibus utrimque impositi writers referred to is Plutarch, who montes coercent claustra, Abyla says {Alexander, c. 68) : " Nearchos Africae, Europae Calpe, laborum joined him (Alexander) here (at the Herculis metae, quam ob causam in- capital of Gedrosia), and he was so digenae columnas ejus dei vocant." much delighted with the account of 3 Arrian (iii. 30) informs us that his voyage that he formed a design to in the opinion of some the Nile formed sail in person from the Euphrates with the boundary of Asia, but he writes a great fleet, circle the coast of Arabia here as if Lybia or Northern Africa and Africa, and enter the Mediter- were part of Asia. 124 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 delight- ful, 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 1 or Argos, or even in Peloponnesos 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 Herakles. But we have advanced beyond Nysa, and the rock Aornos, which proved impreg- nable to Herakles, 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 1 The Macedonian Icings claimed of the most ancient cities in Greece, to be descended from 1 Uialdes, who situated near Argos, and, like Argos, resided for some time at Tiryns, one famous for its Cyclopean walls. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 125 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 Polemokrates, 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 I2 6 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 magni- tude 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 1 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. 2 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. 1 " Alexander," says Arrian (iii. - The drenching rains to which 19), "on reaching Ekbatana, sent the Macedonian soldiers were con- back to the sea the Thessalian cavalry tinually exposed during their march and the other Grecian allies, paying from Taxila to the Hyphasis must them the full amount of the stipulated have had a considerable effect in ex- hire, and giving them besides a dona- hausting their strength and depressing tive of 2000 talents." Was Baktra a their spirits, slip of memory on the part of Koinos ? BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 127 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 Karchedon, 1 and the parts of Lybia beyond the Karche- donians. 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 XX VIII. — 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 1 Karchedon is Carthage. The to Utica, which either signifies in name is said to be a corruption of Phoenician " old city," or is derived, Kereth-Hadeshoth or Carth-hadtha, as Olshausen, thinks, from a root i.e. "new city," in contra-distinction signifying "a colony." 128 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 him- self, 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 every- thing 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 tlie banks oft/ie Hyphasis to mark the limits of his advance, recrosses the Hydraoth and Akesines and regains the Hydasph 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 129 divided the army into brigades, which he ordered to prepare twelve altars 1 to equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in point of breadth, to serve as thankofferings 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 cele- brated a gymnastic and equestrian contest. Having thereafter committed all the country west of the river Hyphasis to the government of Pdros, he marched back to the Hydradtes. After crossing this river, he retraced his steps to the Akesinels, and on arriving there found the city which he had ordered Hephaisti6n to fortify completely built. 2 Herein he settled as many of the in- habitants 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 Arsak6s, 3 ruler of the country adjoining the dominions of Abisares, together with the brother of Abisares and his other relatives, came to him, bringing presents such as the Indians consider the most valuable, and some thirty elephants sent by Abisares. They re- presented that Abisares was prevented from coming in person by illness — a statement which the ambassadors sent by Alexander to Abisares corroborated. Alexander, readily believing that such was the case, made Abisares satrap of his own dominions, and moreover placed Arsakels under his jurisdiction. Having then fixed the amount which was to be paid as tribute, he again offered sacrifice near 1 See Note N, Alexander's altars here has a width of about a mile and on the Hyphasis. a half. 2 "This city," says Lassen, "lay 3 Arsakes, to judge from his name probably where Wazirabad now and what is here said of him, was stands. Here the great road to the probably the king of Uras'a. This Hydaspes parts into two, one leading district, the Arsa of Ptolemy, the to Jalalpur, and the other to Jhelam. W-la-shi of Hwen Thsiang, and now It is the sixth of the Alexandreias Rash in Dantawar, included all the mentioned in Stephanos Byz." v. hill country between the Indus and Ind. Alt. ii. 165, u. The Chenab Kas'mir as far south as Attak. i 3 o THE INVASION OF INDIA the river Akesin£s. He then recrossed that river, and reached the Hydasp&s 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 Hydaspes 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 Hydaspes 1 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 2 growing near the banks of the Akesines, and as he had heard that this river falls into the Indus, he was led to think that he had dis- covered 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 1 v. Strabo (XV. i. 29). Between the Indian Caucasus, which most the Hydaspes and Akesines ... is satisfactorily explains the selection of the forest in the neighbourhood of the its banks by Alexander in preference Emodoi mountains, in which Alex- to the other rivers. " Bunbury, citing ander cut down a large quantity of this passage, adds: " The navigation fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other of the Indus itself for a considerable trees fit for shipbuilding, and brought part of its course below Attock is so the timber down the Hydaspes. With dangerous on account of rapids as to this he constructed a fleet on the render it wholly unsuitable for the Hydaspes near the cities which he descent of a flotilla such as that of built on each side of the river where Alexander." he had crossed it and conquered 2 This is the nelumbum speciosum, Poros. "The timber," says Sir A. or Cyathus Smithii, the sacred Burnes, "of which the boats of the Egyptian or Pythagorean bean. The Panjab are constructed is chiefly use of its fruit was forbidden to the floated down by the Hydaspes from Egyptian priests {v. Herod, ii. 37). , 32 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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 dis- covered the sources of the Nile, actually basing on such slight and comtemptible evidence his judgements respect- ing 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 Hydaspes unites with the Akesines, and the Akesines 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 ac- companied the army. 1 " It is remarkable to see how in of the Indus from the time it has this respect the geographical informa- received the waters of the Panjab tion of the Greeks seems to have with Egypt is dwelt upon by modem retrograded since the time of Hero- travellers. One description (says dotus. No allusion is found to the Mr. Elphinstone) might serve for voyage of Scylax related by that both. A smooth and fertile plain is historian, while the just conclusions bounded on one side by mountains, derived from it by Herodotus had and on the other by a desert. It is fallen into the same oblivion. But divided by a large river, which forms absurd as was this identification (of a Delta as it approaches the sea, and the Indus with the Nile), the general annually inundates and enriches the resemblance between these rivers, country near its banks. The climate which are constantly brought into of both is hot and dry, and rain is of comparison by the Greek geographers rare occurrence in either country. — (Strabo, XV. p. 692, etc.), is certainly v. Bunbury's Hist, of Anc. Geo. V- such as to justify their observations. 510. The resemblance of the lower valley BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 133 Chapter II. — Description of the voyage down the Hydaspis 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 Poros 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. 1 Krateros commanding a division of the infantry and cavalry, conducted it along the right bank of the Hydaspes, while Hephaistidn 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 Sopeithes 2 was situated. Philippos, the 1 Arrian in the 19th chapter of was unable to decide where they lay. the Indika states that the number of ' ' Some writers (he says) place Kathaia men conveyed in the fleet was 8000, and the country of Sopeithes, one of and that the whole strength of his the monarchs, in the tract between army was 120,000 soldiers, including the rivers (Hydaspes and Akesines) ; those whom he brought from the some on the other side of the Akes- shores of the Mediterranean, as well ines and of the Hyarotis, on the con- as recruits drawn from various bar- fines of the territory of the other barous tribes armed in their own P6ros, the nephew of P6ros who was fashion. In the preceding chapter taken prisoner by Alexander, and he gives a list of the great officers call the country subject to him Gan- whom Alexander appointed to be daris. ... It is said that in the in temporary command of the triremes. territory of Sopeithes there is a moun- Of these, thirty-three in number, tain composed of fossil salt sufficient twenty-four were Macedonians, eight for the whole of India. Valuable were Greeks, and one a Persian. mines, also, both of gold and silver, Seleukos is the only officer of note are situated, it is said, not far off whose name does not appear in this among other mountains, according to list. the testimony of Gorgos the miner." 2 Diodoros and Curtius, as has Strabo then describes (as do also been pointed out (in Note M), place DiodSros and Curtius) the fight be- the dominions of Sopeithes between tween a lion and four dogs which theupperHydraotesandtheHyphasis, Sopeithes exhibited to Alexander, but here we find them transferred To account for the discrepancy in to a more western position. Strabo these statements one is almost tempted i 3 4 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Onesikritos, 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. 1 Chapter III. — Description of tJie voyage down the Hydasph continued When all the preparations had been completed, the army at break of day began to embark. Alexander him- to believe that as there were two 1 Arrian in his Indika, where he princes of the name of Poros, each apparently follows Nearchos instead ruling dominions of his own, so there of Ptolemy as here, gives the whole were also two chiefs of the name of number of ships at only 800, includ- Sopeithes or (as Curtius more correctly ing both ships of war and transports, transcribes it) Sophytes. General Schmieder and some other editors Cunningham would identify Gandaris would correct this to 1800, but it with the present district of Gundul- seems more probable, Bunbury thinks, b&r or Gundurb&r, and fixes the that the basis of the two calculations capital of Sophytes on the western was different. Ptolemy, he says, dis- bank of the Hydaspes at Old Bhira, tinctly includes the ordinary river a place near Ahmedabad, with a very boats which would doubtless have extensive mound of ruins, and distant been collected in large numbers to from Nikaia (now Mong) three days assist in transporting so great an army by water. His rule must have ex- and its supplies ; while the terms of tended westward to the Indus, since Nearchos would seem to imply only the mountain of rock-saltwhichStrabo ships of war or regular transports, includes in his territory can only refer Krilger would correct the 2000 of to the salt range (the Mount Oromenus the text to loco, whichis the number or Pliny, xxxi. 39) which extends of the vessels as given by Diodoros from the Indus to the Hydaspes. and Curtius. The fleet began the 1 he transcription of the name Sdphyth downward voyage at the end of will be found discussed elsewhere. October 326 B.C. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 135 self sacrificed according to custom both to the gods and to the river Akesines 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 Hydaspes, but also the Akesines, as he had learned that the Akesines was the greatest of all the confluents of the Hydaspes, and that their point of junction was not far off. He invoked likewise the Indus, into which the Akesines falls after receiving the Hydaspes. He further poured out libations to his ancestor Herakles, and to Ammon 1 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 dis- tances 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 compres- sing 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 1 Alexander deduced his pedigree oracle for the purpose of more certainly from Amm6n, just as the legend learning his origin. His mother, traced the pedigree of Herakles and Olympias, according to Plutarch, Perseus to Zeus. He accordingly used to complain that Alexander was made an expedition to the oasis in the for ever embroiling her with Juno. Libyan desert where Amm6n had his 136 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 Chapter I V. — Alexander accelerates Jus voyage to frustrate the plans of the Malloi and Oxydrakai, and reaches the turbulent confluence of the Hydaspes and Akesines Alexander sailing thus, 2 halted on the third day at the place where he had ordered Hephaistion and Krateros to pitch their camps right opposite each other, each on his own side of the river. 8 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 Akesines, with orders to continue his march along the banks of that river. He also sent Krateros and Hephaistidn off again with instructions how they were to conduct the march. He himself continued 1 '"The Indians (says Arrian in ' J See Note O, Voyage down the his Indika, c. 7) worship the other Hydaspes and Akesines to the Indus, gods, and especially Dionysos, with s This halting-place was at Bhira cymbals and drums, which he had or Bheda, if Cunningham is right in taught them to use. He taught them fixing the capital of Sophytes in its also the Satyric dance, called by the neighbourhood. Greeks Kordax. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 137 his voyage down the river Hydaspes, 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 Hydaspes 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 pre- parations 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 H£phaisti6n, he reached the junc- tion of the Hydaspes and Akesines. 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. 1 1 Diodoros carelessly represents by the ancient writers, though their these rapids as occurring at the con- accounts have some foundation in fluence of the two rivers with the fact. Sir A. Burnes, the first Euro- Indus. The dangers of their naviga- pean known to have visited the spot, tion seem to have been exaggerated says there are no eddies and no rocks, 1 38 THE INVASION OF INDIA Chapter V. — Dangers encountered by the fleet at the con- fluence — Plan of the operations which followed^- Voyage down the Akesines 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 there- fore 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 col- lecting the wrecks and whatever living freight they brought. nor is the channel confined, while season when the river is swollen (v. the ancient character is only sup- Travels, i. p. 109). Thirlwall thinks ported by the noise of the confluence, the principal obstructions have been which is greater than that of any of worn away. According to Curtius, the other rivers. The boatmen of Alexander's own ship was here in the locality, however, still regard the imminent danger of being wrecked, passage as a perilous one during the BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 139 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 bar- barians who refused their submission, 1 and prevented them sending succours to the Malloi. He then rejoined the fleet. Hephaistion, Krateros, and Philippos had there already united their forces. He then transported to the other side of the river Hydaspes the elephants, the brigade of Poly- sperchon, 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. Hephaistidn 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 Hephaistion'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. 2 The detachment that marched in advance he ordered to wait until he himself should come up at the confluence of the Akesines and Hydraotes, 3 where Krateros and Ptolemy had orders to join him with their divisions. 1 These barbarians were probably 3 The Hydaspes loses its name as the Sibi {v. Diodoros, xvii. 96). well as its waters to the Akesines. 2 Hephaistion by this arrangement The junction of the latter with the would beset the banks of the Hydra- Hydraotes (Ravi) occurs at present otes, Ptolemy those of the Akesines. at a. point more than thirty miles The former probably marched to the above Multan, but in Alexander's Hydraotes by way of Shorkote, time it occurred some miles below which Cunningham thinks may be that city. the Soriane of Stephanos Byz. i 4 o THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Peith6n, all the horse-archers, and the half of the com- panion cavalry, and led them through a waterless tract of country against the Malloi, 1 a race of independent Indians. On the first day he encamped near a small stream which was twenty stadia distant from the river Akesines. 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 1 See Note P, The Malloi and Oxydrakai. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 141 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 dis- abled 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. 1 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. 2 1 General Cunningham has identi- fied this place with Kot-Kamalia, u small but ancient town situated on an isolated mound on the right or northern bank of the Ravi, marking the extreme limit of the river's fluctua- tions 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 Syalkot towards Sakala, 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 Khadar, or low-lying lands in the valley of the Chenab. A march of forty-six miles in a southerly direction would have carried him also right up to the bank of the Hydraot£s or Ravi, 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 Ravi opposite Tulamba from Kot-Kamalia. 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-bar, that is the bar, 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-Kamalia. — Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 208-210. 2 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 Ravi, and, as Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander, it must also have been beyond Kot- I42 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Hydraotes 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. 1 But when the infantry came up with him, Alexander sent Peithon with his own brigade and two squadrons of cavalry against the fugitives. This detach- ment 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. Kamalia, that is to the east or south- narrative leads us to suppose that east of it. Now this is exactly the they both lay to the west of that river, position of Harapa, which is situated No mention is made of Perdikkas sixteen miles to the east-south-east of crossing it, and had the fortress he Kot - Kamalia, and on the opposite attacked lain beyond it, he could high bank of the Ravi. There are easily have intercepted the inhabi- also several marshes in the low ground tants in their flight to the marshes of in its immediate vicinity." Cunning- the river. ham then gives a description of 1 Cunningham identifies this well- Harapa as it now exists. He had fortified position with Tulamba. "A encamped at the place on three whole night's march (he says) of eight different occasions. It had been or nine hours could not have been visited previously and described both less than twenty-five miles, which is by Burnes and Masson. Its ruined the exact distance of the Ravi oppo- mound forms an irregular square of site Tulamba from Kot - Kamalia." half a mile on each side, or two miles It was defended by brick walls and in circuit (Anc. Gcog. of India, pp. enormous mounds of earthen ram- 210,211). It seems to me a serious parts. Tulamba lies on the high objection to this identification that road to Multan, to which, as the Kol-Kamalia and Harapa (Harup, in capital of the Malloi, Alexander was Ainsworth's large map) lie on opposite marching, sides of the Ravi, while Arrian's BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 143 Then Peithdn -and his men, their task fulfilled, returned to the camp. Alexander himself next led his army against a certain city of the Brachmans, 1 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 under- mined, 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 pur- suers, 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 under- mined 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 1 The Brachmans, as is well known, Curtius states that Alexander went formed a religious caste, and were not completely round the citadel in a a distinct race or tribe. Their city boat, and Cunningham thinks this is Cunningham has identified with the probable enough, as its ditch could old ruined town and fort of Atari, be filled at pleasure with water from which is situated twenty miles to the the Ravi. Curtius must, however, west-south-west of Tulamba and on be romancing when he says that the the high road to Multan, from which three greatest rivers in India except it is thirty-four miles distant. The the Ganges (Indus, Hydaspes, and remains consist of a strong citadel Akesines) joined their waters to form 75° feet square and 35 feet a ditch round the castle (v. Atic. high. On two of its sides are to be Geog. of India, pp. 228-230). The found the remains of the old town. mention of a special city of the Of its history there is not even a Brachmans, Lassen observes, shows tradition, but the large size of its that but few priests lived in this part bricks shows that it must be a place of the country, and that they had of considerable antiquity. The name established themselves in particular of^the old city is quite unknown, cities to protect themselves against Atari being merely that of the adja- those people by whom they were held cent village, which is of recent origin. in but small esteem. i 4 4 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Hydradtes 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 ascer- tained that the inhabitants had fled into the desert There he again allowed the army a day's rest, and next day sent Peithon and Demetrios, 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 Alex- ander was approaching. They then crossed the Hydra6tes, 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 Hydradtes 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 145 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 com- pact, 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. 1 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 pur- suit, 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 tJiough 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 1 See Note Q, The capital of the Malloi. L 146 THE INVASION OF INDIA others. But Perdikkas and the troops under his com- mand 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 practic- able. 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 Athena, and which he used to keep with him and have carried before him in all his battles. 1 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 2 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 1 Arrian (i. n) relates that Alex- exchange some of the consecrated ander, after crossing the Hellespont, arms which had been preserved from proceeded to llion, where, after sacri- the time of the Trojan war. fiang to the Trojan Athene, he a Called in Greek a dimoirith in placed his own armour in the temple Latin a duplicarius. of that goddess, and took away in BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 147 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 1 and the aston- ishing 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 quartefs, 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 1 Alexander's dress and arms on present from a Cyprian king, and not the day of Arbela are thus described to be excelled for lightness or temper ; by Plutarch : ' ' He wore a short tunic but his belt, deeply embossed with of the Sicilian fashion, girt close massive figures, was the most superb round him, over a linen breastplate part of his armour ; it was a gift from strongly quilted ; his helmet, sur- the Rhodians, on which old HelikSn mounted by the white plume, was of had exerted all his skill. If we add polished steel, the work of Theophilos; to these the shield, lance, and light the gorget was of the same metal, and greaves, we may form a fair idea of set with precious stones ; the sword, his appearance in battle." his favourite weapon in battle, was a I4 8 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, hold- ing 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 swing- ing 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 149 shoulders under it, and having then pushed it into the space within the wall, opened an entrance into the citadel in that quarter. Chapter XL — Dangerous nature of Alexander's wound — Arrian refutes some current fictions relating to this accidetit 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 Kritodemos, a physician of Kos, an Asklepiad by birth, 1 extracted the weapon from the wound by making an incision where the blow had struck. Other writers, how- ever, 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 1 The descendants of Asklepios others as a caste of priests who prac- (Aesculapius) were called by the tised the art of medicine, combined patronymic name AsklGpiadai. They with religion. Their principal seats were regarded by some as the real were Kos and Knidos. descendants of Asklepios, but by 150 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 water- less 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 Bessos and murdered at Alexander's approach) took place at Arbela, 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 Arbela 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 Gaugamela near the river Boumodos. Gauga- mela, 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 Arbela, which was a city, has carried off the glory of the great battle. 1 But if we must perforce consider that this battle took place near Arbela, though fought at so great a distance off, then we may as well say that the sea fight at Salamis came oft near the Isthmus of Corinth, and the sea-fight at Arte- mision 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 1 Plutarch writes to the same effect : because one of the ancient kings, "The great battle with Darius was having escaped his enemies by the not fought at Arbela, as most historians swiftness of his camel, placed her will have it, but at GaugamSla, which, there, and appointed the revenues of in the Persian tongue, is said to certain villages for her maintenance." signify the house of the camel, so called — Life of Alexander, c. 31. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 151 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 sur- name of Sdter. 1 And yet Ptolemy himself has recorded that he was not present at this conflict, but was fight- ing elsewhere against other bar- barians, 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. Fig. 10. — Ptolemy Soter. 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 lamenta- tion 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 1 Kleitarchos, who accompanied Alexander to Asia, and wrote a history of the expedition, and Tima- genes, 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 Soter (saviour) from the Rhodians, whom he had relieved from the attacks of Demetrios Polior- ketes {v. Pausanias, I. viii. 6). i 5 2 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 oj 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 Hydraotes, and embarking there, he sailed down the river to reach the camp, at the junction of the Hydra6t& and the Akesines, where Hephaisti6n 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 153 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 tempta- tion, lacking sufficient force of will to hold aloof from dangers. Nearchos also says that a certain elderly Boi6tian (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 Boidtian 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. 1 The man, it is said, not only found favour with Alexander, but was admitted afterwards to closer intimacy. 1 Thirlwall has noted that this line Aeschylus, SpAaavn ydp ti ko\ iratieiv is found in Stobaeus. It is a fragment 6f a massive wave fell foul of each other, while others jere dashed upon the strand and shattered in pieces. 1 ' 1 Caesar's fleet, it is well known, Indus are not felt more than sixty >iffered a similar disaster on the miles from the sea, whence Cunning- iiores of Britain. The tides in the ham concludes that Alexander must 1 64 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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, Ammfin had enjoined him to sacrifice. On the following day he sailed down to the other island which la}' 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 Amnion. 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 P6seid6n, 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 then have reached as far as Bambhra others Tsiltoukis. It was from this on the Ghara, which is about fifty island Nearchos started on his manor- miles by water from the sea. The able voyage early in October, before breaking up of the monsoon, which the monsoon had subsided. On his occurs in October, is attended with reaching the port now called Karachi, high wind'., intervals of calm, and the great emporium of the trade of the violent hurricanes. Indus, he remained therefor twenty- 1 Plutarch says that Alexander four days, and renewed the voyage as called this island Skillouslis, but soon as the weather permitted. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 165 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 Peithon arrived with his troops after completing the objects of his expedition. Hephaistidn 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 consider- - able naval squadron. He himself sailed down again to the Great Sea by the : other mouth of the Indus, 1 to ascertain by which of the - mouths it was easier to reach the ocean. The mouths of : - the river Indus are about 1 800 stadia distant from each '■-'- other. 2 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 ; 3 1 The eastern branch of the Indus distance was 1000 stadia. The truth is that now called the Phuleli. It is here pretty accurately hit. ■.."- separates from the main channel at 3 " This great lake (says Saint- Muttari, twelve miles above Haidara- Martin) might have been the western - bad, and enters the sea by the Kori extremity of the Ran of Kachh, a ■j estuary, named by Ptolemy the Loni- vast depression which abuts on the _ ' bari mouth. Its bed is now almost point where the estuary begins, and "■■■ - dry except at the time of the inunda- which for some months of the year tions, when it assumes the appear- (from July to October) is inundated ance of a great river. At the lower by the waters of several rivers. By > part of its course it is known as the a singular coincidence the terrible ; - Guni. On its east side it receives the earthquake of 1819 has formed a large j'- branch of the Indus, which in ancient hollow and created a spacious lake ; > times passed Aror, and is now called traversed by the Kori, and occupying :•'. '-' the Purana darya or Old river. probably the same site as the lake ;' 2 This exaggerated estimate Arrian mentioned by Arrian. Brahmanic ; p has taken from the Journal of Near- tradition, moreover, preserves the • S'chos. Aristoboulos said that the memory of a lake formerly existing 166 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 prepara- tions for the voyage along the coast. Chapter XXL — Alexander crosses the river Arabios and invades the Orcitai The season of the year was impracticable for naviga- tion 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 near the Kort, not far from its em- ... A local tradition picked up by bouchure. In the Bhagavata Pimina M'Murdo refers to the disappear- translated by Bournouf, we read that ance of this lake of old times, and ' in the west at the confluence of the explains the event by a conflagration Sindhu and the ocean is the vast tank of the country " (v. Etude, pp. I? 8 . of Nfuayana Saras, which is frequented 179). by the Recluses and the Siddhas.' BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 167 setting of the Pleiades, 1 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. 2 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 Hephaistion. There was settled near the river Arabios another 3 independent tribe called the Arabitai, and, as 1 In Italy the Pleiades set in the in nine days from Patala, and their beginning of November. The south- western boundary formed by the west monsoon prevails from April to Arabius in five days more. The dis- October. It sets in on the Sindh tance from Haidarabad to Karachi is coast with strong west-south-westerly 1 14 miles, and from Karachi to Son- winds, which cause a heavy swell on miyani fifty miles. The average of the sea. The north-east monsoon, a day's march' was therefore about which is favourable for navigation, twelve miles, the same as now in begins in the Arabian Sea about the these parts. middle of October. 3 The Arabitai are called in the 2 The name of this river has various Indika, Arabics ; in Strabo, Arbies ; forms, Arabis, Arbis, Artabis, and in Diodoros, Ambritai; in Marcian Artabius. It is now called the Purali the geographer, Arbitoi; and in Dion, and is the river which, rising in the Perieg. Aribes. Their territories ex- mountain range called by Ptolemy tended from the western mouth of the the Baitian, flows through the present Indus to the river Purali. This people district of Las into the Bay of Sonmi- and their neighbours, the Orttai, yani. It gave its name to the Arabioi, Cunningham would include within whose territory it divided from that the geographical limits of India, of the Oritai, who were farther west. although they have always been be- Curtius states that Alexander reached yond its political boundaries during the eastern boundary of the Arabioi the historical period. They were (which may be placed about Karachi) tributary to Darius Hystaspes, and 168 THE INVASION OF INDIA these neither thought themselves a match for Alex- ander, 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. 1 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 Hephaistion still continued his progress, and arrived at the village called Rambakia, 2 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 Hephaisti6n behind him to carry this scheme into effect. were still subject to the Persians poisoned arrows Ptolemy was all but when the Chinese pilgrim Hwen mortally wounded. Thsiang visited their country in the - This name is probably a trail- seventh century of our aera. scription of the Indian In the country of the Oreitai is a which designated the place where river called the Aghor, from which, it pilgrims assemble before starting for has been supposed, the people take the Aghor Valley, in which the prin- their name, as thus : Aghoritai, cipal sacred places are connected Aoritai, Oritai, or Horatae, as they with the history of Rama, the great are called by Curtius. They are the hero of the Rarnayana. Cunningham Neoritai of Diodoros. The length of accordingly identifies Rambagh with their coast Arrian gives in his Indika Arrian's Rambakia, and remarks that at 1600 stadia, while Strabo extends the occurrence of the name of Ram- it to 1800. The actual length is 100 high at so great a distance to the English miles, somewhere about half west of the Indus, and at so early a of Arrian's estimate taken from Near- period as the time of Alexander, shows chos. The western boundary of the not only the wide extension of Hindu Oritai was marked by Cape Malan influence in ancient times, but also (the Malana of Arrian), which is the groat antiquity of the story of twenty miles distant from the river Rama (v. his Anc. Geog. of India, Aghor. According to Strabo the pp. 307-310). Oritai were the people by whose BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 169 Chapter XXII. — Submission of the Oreitai — Description of the Gadrosian 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 Gadrdsoi 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 Gadrdsoi were lying encamped, resolved to prevent his passage. They were in fact drawn up there, but when they were apprised of Alex- ander'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 Apollophanes as satrap. Along with him he left Leonnatos, an officer of the body- guard in Ora, 1 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 Hdphaistion had now rejoined him with his detachment) advanced to the country of the Gadrdsoi 2 by a route mostly desert. 1 D'Anville and Vincent have as- coast, probably near Cape Katchari, to sumed that Ora is the Haur mentioned the east of the Hingul river, where the by Edrisi as lying on the route from fleet was supplied with a fresh stock Dibal, near the mouth of the Indus, of provisions. Perhaps it may have to FiruzaMd in Mekran. Its situa- here denoted the country of the tion is uncertain, however, as its name Oreitai. does not occur in any recently pub- 2 Gadrosia in Arrian denotes the lished account of the country. Ora inland region which extends from the may perhaps have been in the neigh- Oreitai to Karmania. The maritime bourhood of K6kala, mentioned in region between the same limits he the Indika as situated on the Oreitian calls the country of the Ichthyophagoi. I7 o THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 un- cropped), 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 Phoeni- cians 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. 1 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, 2 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 The Gedrosian desert since the days at 7000 only. The actual length is of Alexander has protected Lower 4S0 English miles, and the time taken Sindh from any attack by the mari- by Nearchos in its navigation was time route. The Persian invader has twenty days. preferred to encounter the dangers l A description of this unguent is and difficulties of the mountain passes given by Pliny (JV. H. xii. c. 26). of Afghanistan rather than to expose He there mentions that a special kind himself to such horrible sufferings in of it was produced in the Gangetic the burning desert as were experienced regions. In the 33d chapter of the by the soldiers of Semiramis, Cyrus, same book will be found a description and Alexander. The length of the of the myrrh-tree and its produce. MakrSn or Beluchistan coast between '- 1 Chinnock notes that this was the Oreitai and Karmania is given by probably the snow-flake. Arrian at 10,000 stadia and by Strabo BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 171 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. 1 Chapter XXIII. — Alexander marching through GadrSsia endeavours to collect supplies for the fleet Thence he marched through the country of the Gadrosoi 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 pre- parations 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 Gadrosia were, how- ever, entirely desert. Nevertheless he sent Thoas, the son of Mandraddros, 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 1 This, says Sintenis, can be nothing Bombay and Bengal presidencies, pro- else than a kind of acacia. He points ducing a gum employed both as a out that Dioscorides (i. 33) applies to colouring matter and a medicinal this thorn the expression &Ka.da, which astringent, and known in commerce Willdenow identifies with the acacia by the name of cutch. catechu. It grows abundantly in the 172 THE INVASION OF INDIA digging through the shingle, and that what they got was far from sweet. 1 When Alexander came to a district of the Gadr6sian 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 resent- ment. Alexander, however, forgave the offenders when made aware of the necessity which had prompted their act. He himself scoured the country in search of pro- visions, and sent Kretheus the Kallatian 2 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 tlie march through Gadrdsia He then advanced towards the capital of the Gadr6soi, called Poura, 3 and arrived there in sixty days after he had 1 These people were the Ichthy- "- Kallatis or Kallatia was a large ophagoi of whom Arrian makes city of Thrace on the coast of tie frequent mention in his Indika when Euxine, colonised from Miletos. describing the voyage of Nearchos Tliny says its former name was along their coast. His description of Cerbatis. their appearance and habits closely s v. Note V, Alexander's march agrees with that given by Strabo in through Gediosia, Poura. his chapter on Ariana. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 173 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 ex- perienced. Nearchos is the only author who says that Alexander did not take that route in ignorance of its diffi- culty, 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 de- stroyed 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. i 74 THE INVASION OF INDIA Chapter XX V. — Sufferings of the army in the Gadr&sian 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 them- selves 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. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 175 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 Gadrdsians, like that of the Indians, is supplied with rains by the Etesian winds ; but these rains do not fall on the Gadrosian plains, but on the mountains to which the clouds are carried by the wind, where they dissolve in rain with- out 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 XX VI. — Incidents of the march through Gadrosia 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 i 7 6 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 the)' 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 obser- vation 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 177 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 misgovernea When he arrived at the capital of the Gadrosians he then gave his army a rest. Apollophanes 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 Gadrdsians was committed to him, and Tlepolemos, the son of Pythophanes, 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 body- guards 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 Eud£mos and Taxiles 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, N i 7 8 THE INVASION OF INDIA bringing the rest of the army and the elephants. He brought also Ordanes, whom he had made prisoner for revolting and attempting to make a revolution. Thither came also Stasan6r, the satrap of the Areians and Zarangians, accompanied by Pharismanes, the son of Phrataphernes, the satrap of the Parthyaians and Hyr- kanians. There came besides the generals who had been left with Parmenion over the army in Media, Kleander and Sitalkes and Herakon, who brought with them the greater part of their army. Against Kleander and Sitalkes 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, nume- rous 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. Herakon on this occasion was acquitted of the charge, but was soon after- wards punished, because he was convicted by the men of Sousa of having plundered the temple of their city. Stasanor and Phrataphernes in setting out to join Alexander, took with them a multitude of beasts of burden and many camels, because the}- learned that he was taking the route through the Gadrdsians, and con- jectured 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. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 179 Chapter XX VIII. — 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} 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 Gadrosia. He cele- brated 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, 1 In Latin triumphi. 180 THE INVASION OF INDIA the son of Anteas ; H£phasti6n, the son of Amynt6r ; Lysimachos, the son of Agathokles ; Aristonous, the son of Peisaios, who were all Pellaians ; Perdikkas, the son of Orontes from Orestis ; Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, and Peithdn, 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 Gadrdsia, 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, 1 and it is of less extent in breadth than in length. 2 The southern parts rise in hills of considerable elevation. 3 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. 4 The Indus wears away its banks, absorbing 1 That is, to one who, like Alex- 3 These are the mountains of the ander, approached it from Central peninsular part of India. Asia. 4 By the Red or Erythraean Sea is 2 Eratosthenes and other ancient meant the Indian Ocean, which in- writers describe India as of a rhom- eluded both the Red Sea proper and boidal figure with the Indus on the the Persian Gulf. Curtius here makes west, the mountains on the north, and the two great Indian rivers flow into the sea on the east and the south. the same sea. His conception of the Curtius follows them here in reckon- configuration of India perhaps re- ing its length from west to east. sembled that of Ptolemy, in whose 1 84 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 run- ning downward to the sea, intercepts the Iomanes, 1 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. 2 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. 3 The country is every- 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. 1 " 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 Dia- mouna — that is the Yamuna or Jamna, the great river which, after passing Delhi, Mathura, Agra, and ■other places, joins the Ganges at Allahiibid. 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 Sour- asenoi, who possess two great cities, Methora (Mathura) and Kleisobara (Krishnapura ?). Pliny (vi. 19) slates that it passes through the Palibothri to join the Ganges. At its junction with the Jamna, and a third, but imaginary river, the Sarasvatl, tie Ganges is called the Trivin", ie. " triple plait," from the intermingling of the three streams. 2 This river is most probably that which is called the Doanas in Ptolemy's Geography, where it de- signates the Brahmaputra. The Doanas was probably also the Oidanes of Artemidoros, 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 Artemidoros, and we get it again, though not so closely, if we discard r from the Dyardanes of Curtius. That these I wo writers had the same river in view is confirmed by their mentioning the very same animals as bred in its waters. 3 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 Etymon- divs, and by Polybios the Etymon- thus, and now known as the Helmund, BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 185 where intersected with many rivers besides these, but they are obscure, their course being too short to bring them into prominent notice. The maritime tracts, how- ever, 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. 1 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 in- verted her order is not apparent ; the sea, at anyrate, 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. 2 The soil produces flax from which the dress ordinarily 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. 1 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 ab- surdity. 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. 2 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 sum- mary of this passage, and Pliny (JV. 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 Oarakta (now Kishm), where the natives showed him the tomb of the first king of the island. They said that his name was Erythres, and that the sea in those parts was called after him the Ery- thraean. 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, accord- ing to others from the red colour sometimes given to the waters by the sea-weed called Suph. Fresnel, how- ever, rejecting such views, interprets the name as meaning the sea of the Homeritai, i.e. Himyar or Hhoviayr, 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 1 86 THE INVASION OF INDIA worn by the natives is made. 1 The tender side of the barks of trees receives written characters like paper. 2 The birds can be readily trained to imitate the sounds of human speech. 3 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. 4 The elephants are more powerful than those 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 sub- ject will be found in Mela (III. viii. I), Solinus (c. 36), Dio Cassius (lxvili. 28), and Stephanos Byz. s.v. 'EpvSpa. 1 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 (Gossy- pium herbaceum, the Karp&sa 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 care- fully represented in the frescoes on the caves of Ajanta. We learn from the Peripl&s 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. 2 Strabo (XV. i. 67) states on the authority of Nearchos that the In- dians 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 cen- turies 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 papa 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. s Nearchos, as we learn from Arrian's Indika, u. 15, was taken with surprise when he heard in India parrots talking like human beings. Pliny says (x. 5S) that India produces this bird, which is called the Septa- gen, 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. An- other 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 KerkiSn. 1 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. Kt6sias de- scribes 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 sup- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 187 tamed in Africa, and their size corresponds to their strength. 1 Gold is carried down by several rivers, whose loitering waters glide with slow and gentle currents. 2 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 posed to have been copied from the lost Indika of Megasthenes. It is there called the Kartazon. The fables about the unicorn had their source most probably in the fanciful account Ktesias 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. Kos- mas 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. 1 Pliny (Nat. Hist. viii. 11) notes, like Curtius here, that India produced the largest elephants. He had, how- ever, stated previously (vi. 22) that, according to Onesikritos, the ele- phants of Taprobane (Ceylon) were larger and more warlike than those of India. Many references to the Indian elphants occur in the classics. Arrian, in the thirteenth and four- teenth chapters of his Indika, de- scribes the mode in which they were hunted, and other particulars regard- ing them. Polybios (v. 84) says that the African elephants could neither endure the smell nor the trumpeting of their Indian congeners. 2 Herodotos (iii. 106) says that gold was produced in great abund- ance 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 surrepti- tiously procured. The heavy tribute levied by Darius on the Indian pro- vinces (chiefly west of the Indus) was paid in gold-dust. We learn, not- withstanding, 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 Panjab. 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 (Sandro- kottos), at whose court Megasthenes for some years resided. As the river S6n, which in his time entered the Ganges at Palibothra (now Patna), was called poetically the Hi?'anya- vdha — i.e. " bearing gold, " — we may assume that gold was found in the sands of that river. The grandson of Chandragupta, As'oka, as is stated in the Mahavansd, sent missionaries to preach Buddhism into the gold district of Suvarnabhiimi, a region which Tumour identified with Burma, but which Lassen took to be a mari- time 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 So- peithis there were valuable mines both of gold and silver among the mountains. 1 88 THE INVASION OF INDIA boiling sea are valued at the price which fashion sets on coveted luxuries. 1 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, 2 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. 3 The luxury of their kings, or as they call it, their magnifi- cence, 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. 1 Pliny, in the latter part of his sapphire as precious stones of India. 37th book, treats of the various kinds They mention also various pearl of precious stones found in India, fisheries existing in and near India, and of the uses to which they are Arrian states in his Indika (c. 8) that there applied. In some of the other the pearl in India is worth thrice its books incidental notices of them are weight in refined gold, and that it also to be met with, while his 9th was called in the Indian tongue book is full of details about the pearl. Margarita. This, which is also its From Strabo (II. iii. 4) we learn that classical name, may represent either an adventurer, Eudoxos of Kyzikos, the Sanskrit manjari, or the Persian who had been sent by Ptolemy Phys- manoartd. kon, king of Egypt, to India, re- - Arrian, on the authority of Xear- turned thence, bringing back with chos, states in his Indika (c. 16) that him precious stones, some of which the Indianswearshoesofwhiteleather the Indians collect from among the elaborately trimmed, and having thick pebbles of the river, and others of soles (or heels) to make them look which they dig out of the earth. In taller. his 15th book he stales that India s Strabo notes from Kleitarchos produces precious stones, as crystals, similar statements regarding the treat- carbuncles of all kinds, and pearls. ment of their hair by the Indians (XV In Ptolemy's Geography of India, i. 71), and Arrian has noted the and in the Prriphh of the Eythracan Indian practice (which is still in Sea mention is made of the diamond, vogue) of dying the beard of a variety beryl, onyx, cornelian, hyacinth, and of colours. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 189 Behind his palanquin follow men-at-arms and his body- guards, of whom some carry boughs of trees, on which birds are perched trained to interrupt business with their cries. 1 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 light- ness 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 ap- pointed. 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 1 "In the processions at Indian the splendour of its plumage. The festivals (says Strabo, XV. i. 69) are luxurious mode of life in which the to be seen wild beasts, as buffaloes, Indian king (Chandragupta) indulged panthers, tame lions, and a multitude is described by Strabo (XV. i. 55) of birds of variegated plumage and of much in the same terms as by Curtius fine song." Aelian, in a passage copied here. The native writings called most probably from Megasthenes, says sutras describe in like manner how that the favourite bird of the king of the kings at festivals march out on the Indians (Chandragupta no doubt) elephants to the sound of all kinds was the hoopoe. He carried it on of instruments, amid the scent of his wrist, and amused himself with perfumes and clouds of frankin- lt, and never tired gazing with ad- cense, miration on its exquisite beauty, and 1 9 o THE INVASION OF INDIA courtesans carry him away to his bedchamber, invoking the gods of the night in their native hymns. 1 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. 2 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 scien- tific principles. These believe that no one accelerates the day of his death who can without fear await its coming.® 1 Strabo adds the significant state- sions, and a final rupture between ment that the king at night is obliged them and their brethren of Iran, from time to time to change his couch The wine used at sacrifices was the from dread of treachery. The fre- fermented juice of the plant called quency of changes in the succession soma. When required for drinking shows that such a precaution was not it was mixed with milk. unnecessary. If a woman put to = The diversity of views which pre- death a king when he was drunk, vailed in India regarding suicide was she was rewarded by becoming the noticed by Megasthenes. The book wife of his successor. From Athen- of the law, in case of incapacity, aios we learn that among the Indians regards it as meritorious, but the the king might not get drunk. The Buddhists altogether condemned it. assertion made by Curtius that the Pliny (vi. 19) says that the Indian Indians all use much wine is contrary sages always ended their life by a to the testimony of Megasthenes, who voluntary death on the funeral pile, said that they use it only on sacrificial a This is a very vague and meagre occasions. Wine was no doubt im- account of the opinions and practices ported into the marts of the Malabar of the Indian philosophers and asce- coast, but the quantity must have tics. Other writers are more copious been limited, and could onlv have on the subject, as Strabo (XV.), Arrian been purchased by the rich. The {Anak vii. 2, ?; Ituiita, 11), DiodSros Brahmans of the Ganges, from whom (ii. 40I, Plutarch {Life of Alexander, Megasthenes obtained much infor- 64,65). References are made to it by mation, punished indulgence in in- Mela, Suidas, Orosius, Philo, Am- toxicating drinks with groat severity. brosius, Aelian, Porphyrius, and The Aryans of the Panjab were less others (;'. Notes W and Uh). abstemious, and this led to dissen- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 191 They regard as gods whatever objects they value, especially trees, to violate which is a capital offence. 1 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. 2 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 ser- vice. 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 wag- gons, and be again pieced together. He himself, leaving Craterus to follow with the infantry, pressed forward with 1 Certain trees are still held sacred thought to be frequented by bhuts, in India. The pipal, for instance, is i.e. demons. 2 See Note X. 193 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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 tk 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 1 Arrian says, however, that most fortified by a double wall, escaped to of the inhabitants of this city, which the mountains, belonged to the Aspasians, and was BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 193 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. 1 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, 2 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 1 Philostratos (ii. 4) says that and have their love of wine revived Alexander did not ascend the moun- after being accustomed to do without tain, but, though anxious to do so, con- it. tented himself with offering prayers 2 The Elzevir editor aptly quotes and sacrifices at its base. He was here Tacit. H. i. 55 : Insita mortali- afraid that the Macedonians on seeing bus natura, propere sequi, quae piget the vines would be reminded of home, inchoare. 1 94 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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, 2 he left Coenus to besiege an opulent city — the inhabitants called it Beira 3 — 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 1 Justin (xii. 7) speaks of mountains mirians), who in Ptolemy's days had which he calls Daedali, and these extended their rule as far eastward as Cunningham (p. 52) takes to be the regions of the Jamna. Abbot in Mount Dantalok, which is about three his Grains adAorrwn seems to identify miles distant from Palo-dheri (or Daedala with Doodial, and Acadira, Pelley, as General Court calls it), a which is mentioned immediately after, place forty miles distant from Pash- with Kaldura. kalavati (Hasht - nagar). In the 2 Arrian calls this river IheEuaspla. spoken dialect, he adds, Dantalok becomes Dattalok, which the Greel< Daidalos may fairly be taken to re present. I think, however, Alex ander had not penetrated so far east ward as this identification implies It is most probably the Kamah or Kunar river. Its name, Cho-asp-ts, has one of the elements of the name of the people in its neighbourhood, the Asp-asioi. The prefix eio may, like cu or ,r», mean river, and Aspa It has been taken by Miiller to be means a horse, in Zend. Arrian's Andaka or AndCIa, which ■' Beira, it has been supposed, is he would therefore alter to Daidala. the Bazira of Arrian ; but as this has An Indian city called Daidala is been on adequate grounds identified mentioned by Stephanos Byz., ami in with Bazar of the present day, the Ptolemy's Geography another city of supposition is untenable. Bazar lies the same name is mentioned as be- too far east to suit the requirements, longing to the Kaspeiraioi (or Kash- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT i 95 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 3 5 stadia in circumference which had a basis of stonework supporting a super- structure 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. 1 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 pro- secute 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. 2 He did not, however, return to the camp till he 1 " How this arrangement was to 2 Seneca {Epistle 59) puts almost prevent the upper part of the wall the same words into his mouth : "All from settling down is a mystery as the swear that I am the son of Jupiter, text stands ; and we can only suppose but this wound proclaims me to be a that (a) Curtius has not understood man. " This is perhaps the occasion his authorities, or (b) has left out some to which Plutarch refers when he important steps in the description, or states (Alex. 28) that Alexander when (c) that the text is mutilated so as to shot with an arrow turned in his pain conceal his real meaning." — Alex, in to his attendants, and said: "This India, p. 107. blood, my friends, is not the ichor 196 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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 there- fore 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. 2 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 which _ blest immortals shed " — a mander killed. We read in Caesai quotation from Homer. that his engines produced a similar 1 Pratt (ii. 276, n.) notices from effect on the minds of the Gauls. Athenaios that these movable towers They said that they could not believe were invented by Dyadcs, pupil of the Romans were warring without the 1'olyeldes, who accompanied Alex- help of the gods since they were able ander. to move forward engines of so great a » According to Arrian, the besieged height and with such celerity [Dt Bill. lost heart not from terror of the Gall. ii. 31). engines, but on seeing their com- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 197 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 XL — 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 (Eumenes ?), 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. 1 The river Indus, here very deep and enclosed 1 Curtius had no doubt here in centre of the Roman circus ran length- his eye a passage from Livy, whose ways down the course a low wall, at picturesque style was his exemplar : each extremity of which were placed, "Ipse collis est in modum metae in upon a base, three wooden cylinders acutum cacumen a fundo satis lato of a conical shape which were called fastigatus " (B. xxxvii. 27). In the metae — the goals. 198 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 1 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. 2 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 dansrer. 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. Ex sua cohorts— that is, from the 2 Perhaps passed by a countil of retinue of pages in immediate attend- war or a general assembly of the ance on the king. From this body troops. Philotas, the son of Par- officers were selected to fill the highest memon, was condemned to death by civil and military posts in the Mace- the Macedonian army, donian state. , J BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 199 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 pro- mise, 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. 1 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 tbey retreated leisurely, preserving their coolness, and that the bar- barians, satisfied with having driven them down hill, did not close on them when they withdrew. But, though Alexander had resolved to abandon the enterprise, deem- ing 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 1 The readers of Virgil will be account of the death-scene from that reminded by this episode of that of poet rather than from any historical Euryalus and Nisus. Curtius indeed authority, seems to me to have borrowed his 200 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 dis- order. 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 perform- ance had fallen short of their promises. The defence of the rock and the country surrounding was entrusted to Sisocostus. Chapter XII. — Alexander marches to tlie 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, 1 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 1 lie is called Aphrikes by Diodoros. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 201 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 six- teenth 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, 1 who had urged his father to surrender his king- dom 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 per- mitted 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 reluct- ance 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 Diodoros less accurately calls mar (v. Journal Asiatique, Series him Mophis. His name Ambhi (in VIII. tome xv. p. 235). For remarks Sanskrit) is found in the Gana-patha, on the coined money which he gave to a genuine appendix to Pacini's Gram- Alexander, see Note Ki. 2 02 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Alex- ander 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 Hephaes- tion'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, capari- soned as when ridden by himself. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 203 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 Alex- ander 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 204 THE INVASION OF INDIA Hydaspes, where on the further bank Poms had encamped to prevent the enemy from landing. In the van of his army he had posted 8 5 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, hold- ing their weapons above their heads. Here they would engage in skirmishes, while each king endeavoured from BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 205 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 sur- rounded 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. 1 For several days Ptolemy repeated this feint, and thus obliged Porus to concentrate his troops at the point which he pretended to threaten. 1 It was Krateros, however, and faced the camp of Pdros. Curtius not Ptolemy, who was left in charge has therefore here made a mistake, of the division of the army which 20 6 THE INVASION OF INDIA The island was now beyond view of the enemy. 1 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 re- quested 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 1 That is, Turos had been enticed other island on which the Mace- down the bank so far that the island donians landed under the erroneous which lay where the passage was impression that they had gained the really to be made was no longer bank of the river, and Diodoros is visible. Curtius says nothing of the equally silent. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 207 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 detach- ment he gave to his brother Hages. 1 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 1 According to Arrian this force was commanded by the son of Poros. 2 o8 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 Poms, who was making most energetic preparations for the contest. As soon as he saw his chariots scattered amid his ranks, and wan- dering 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 famili- arity, 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 209 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 sur- passed 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 propor- tions, for it towered over all the other elephants even as Porus himself stood taller than other men. Hence Alex- ander, 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 con- test 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, 1 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 1 See Note Y, Battle with Poros. P 2io THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. Fig. ii. — Indian Bowman. The king's authority was in these circumstances un- heeded, and, as usually happens when the ranks are broken, and fear begins to dictate orders more peremp- torily than the general himself, as many took the com- mand 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 BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 211 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 Agri- anians and the Thracians, troops more serviceable in skirmishing than in close combat. They assailed the elephants and their drivers with a furious storm of mis- siles, 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 pur- suing 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 mad- dened 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 2i2 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, per- ceiving 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. 1 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 hold- ing out to the last extremity, but to surrender himself to the conqueror. 2 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. 8 1 Boukephalos was no doubt the himself amid a battalion of the enemy, horse to which Curtius here refers, where he was on all sides assailed but according to some accounts that with darts, his horse was stabbed with famous steed was not in the battle. deep wounds in the neck and sides. Curtius here follows Chares, as the Ready to expire, and drained of nearly following passage quoted from this all his blood, he nevertheless bore writer by Aulus Gellius (A'oct. Attic. back the king from the midst of his v. 2) will show : " The horse of King foes at a most rapid pace ; and when Alexander was both by his head and he had conveyed him beyond reach of by his name Bucephalus {i.e. ox-head). spears, he straightway dropped down, Cares has stated that he was bought and having no further fear for his for thirteen talents, and presented to master's safety, he breathed his last King Philip. . . . Regarding this as if w ith the consolation of human horse it seems worth recording that sensibility. Then King Alexander when caparisoned and armed for battle having gained the victory in this war, he would not suffer himself to be built a town on this spot, and in mounted by any one but the king. honour of his horse called it Buce- It is also told of this horse that in phalon." the Indian war when Alexander, - Arrian says that the first messen- mounted upon him, and performing ger sent was Taxiles himself. > noble deeds of bravery, had with too 3 According to Arrian, Taxiles little heed for his own safety entangled escaped by a hasty flight. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 213 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. 1 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. Alex- ander, supposing that he was dead, ordered his body to be stripped, 2 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 1 Diodfiros states, on the con- 2 This is scarcely probable. The trary, that Alexander checked the incident is mentioned by no other slaughter. writer. 2i 4 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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. 2 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. 1 Curtius has here marred with his both in his Life of Alexander and in rhetoric and moral reflections the his De Ira Cohibeiida (c 9)1 nas simple and dignified answer of Poros, stated the reply of Poros in the same that he wished to be treated like a terms as Arrian. king. Lucan similarly has dilated - Cicero (fro Marcello) extols into some twenty lines of rhetoric Alexander in the highest terms for Caesar's famous words to the boatmen acting thus towards his vanquished in the storm : ' ' Fear not, you carry enemy ; and Seneca in his De Clt- Caesar and his fortunes." Plutarch, mcntia follows in a similar strain. 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, 1 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 1 Philostratos, in his life of Apol- altars which he reared on the banks lonios of Tyana, states that Alexander of the Hyphasis to mark the limits of dedicated likewise to the sun one of his advance. As the same author the elephants of Poros, the first of states that Apollonios saw Ajax still them that deserted to his side, and alive at Taxila some 370 years later, which he called Ajax, and also the his veracity may be suspected. 216 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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. 1 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. 2 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 Sangcda, and enters the kingdom of Sopithes, who receives him with great hospitality and shozes him a dog ami Hon 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, 1 See Note Z, Indian Serpents. occros is Ganda, also Gandaka and • The Sanskrit name of the rhin- Gana'din-a. BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 217 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. 1 The climate is salubrious, for the dense shade mitigates the violence of the heat, and copious springs supply the land with abund- ance 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. 2 From thence they passed through deserts to the river Hyardtis, the banks of which were covered with a dense forest, abounding with trees not elsewhere seen, and filled with wild peacocks. 3 Decamp- ing 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. 4 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. 5 The barbarians nevertheless sallied out to give battle, 1 This is the funs Indica, commonly " Where as to shame the temples decked called the banyan-tree, because of the ?/ skm ° f «"'¥? architect, _ r „ , J , I . t , w . Nature herself, it seems, would raise frequent use made of its shelter by A minster t0 her Maker's praise." traders who dealt in grain, called in India Banyans. Strabo (XV. i. 21) 2 Ailianos (H. A. xii. 32) says that describes this tree from Onesikritos, while the Indians knew the proper who saw it growing in the country of antidote against the bites of each kind Mousikanos. Pliny also (N. H. xii. of serpent, none of the Greek physi- 11) describes the tree and its fruit, cians had discovered any such anti- adding that it grows chiefly in dote. See Note Z, Indian Serpents, the neighbourhood of the Acesines 3 See Note Aa, Indian Peacocks. (Chendb); see also Theophrastos, De " This must be the town which Plantis, iv. 5, and Arrian's Indika, Arrian calls Pimprama, distant a c 11. Several English poets have day's march from Sangala. The made it the subject of their verse — accounts of the two historians are at Ben Jonson, Milton, Tickell, and variance, however, since Arrian says Southey. Its stately stems rise in that the place surrendered without solemn grandeur like the basaltic resistance. pillars of Fingal's Cave, and with the 5 This place was Sangala, for over-arching boughs form a vast and which see Note M. wondrous dome — 2I 8 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, 1 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 2 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. 3 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 detach- ment 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 pre- 1 Caesar's men were similarly ring in the fashion of a camp, and thus alarmed on seeing for the first time keep themselves safe from surprise the war chariots of the Britons : per- during the night." turbatis nostris novitate pugnae {Bell. 3 " It is impossible to compare the Gall. iv. 34). See also Livy, a. 2S. numbers given by Curtius and Arrian, 2 Arrian mentions gaps between as neither gives the total of killed, the waggons, but does not state that and the details of the numbers who they were fastened together. Vege- fell in the separate operations of the tius (De re Militari, iii. 10), how- siege are not so stated as to admit ever, observes : " All barbarians of comparison " {Alex, in India, p. fasten their chariots together in a 130). BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 219 ferring to submit to the last extremities rather than sur- render, 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, 1 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. 2 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. a 1 The better form of the name is 2 According to Strabo the inspec- SSphytes, which properly transliter- tion was made when the child was two ates the Sanskrit original Saubhutu, months old. He notices that the prac- but see Biographical Appendix, s.v. tice of widow-burning was known here. Sophytes. 220 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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, 1 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. 2 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 con- tinued 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 1 "The Indians," says Solinus tion, slates (xxxvii. 5) that beryls (c- 55)> "rub down the beryl into wore seldom found elsewhere than in hexagonal forms in order to impart India, and that the Indians had dis- vigour to the dull tameness of the covered how to make counterfeit colour by the reflection from the «nns and especially beryls by stain- angles. Of the beryl the varieties ing crystal, arc manifold." Pliny, from whom '■> See Note B*, Indian Dogs. Solinus no doubt drew this informa- BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT 221 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, 1 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. 2 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, 3 whose king Agrammes * kept in the field for 1 The ordinary and correct read- places it is altogether uninhabited ; ing is not Phegeus, as in the text from in others villages and patches of culti- which I translate, but Phegelas, which vation are found thinly scattered, transliterates the Sanskrit Bhagala. On the east it gradually gives way to See Biog. Appendix, s.v. Phegelas. the fertile parts of India. 2 A sandy desert stretches from 3 For Gangaridae see Note Cc, the southern borders of the Panjab and for Prasii, Note T>d. The almost to the Gulf of Kachh. The common reading of this name in the breadth of this desert from east to editions of Curtius is Pharasii. west is about 400 miles. In some 4 The name as given here seems 222 THE INVASION OF INDIA 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 sover- eign ; 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 less correct than the form in Diod. ing «