did. These men arrived therefore very opportunely, as did also their

camels and their beasts of burden. For Alexander distributed all these animals to the officers one by one, to the squadrons and centuries of the cavalry, and to the companies of the infantry as far as their number sufficed.

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

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

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

Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, BY Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

EIGHTH BOOK

_Chapter IX.—Description of India_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Chapter XI.—Siege and capture of the Rock Aornis_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NINTH BOOK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DIODÔROS SICULUS

BIBLIOTHECA HISTORICA OF DIODÔROS SICULUS

SEVENTEENTH BOOK

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

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

_Chapter LXXXV.—Alexander captures the rock Aornos_

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Chapter LXXXVIII.—The defeat of Pôros_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLUTARCH

PLUTARCH’S LIFE OF ALEXANDER

_Chapter LVIII.—Alexander at Nysa_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JUSTIN

HISTORIAE PHILIPPICAE OF JUSTINUS

TWELFTH BOOK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIFTEENTH BOOK

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

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

APPENDICES

NOTES A-L_l_

NOTE A.—ALEXANDREIA UNDER KAUKASOS

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

NOTE B.—NIKAIA

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

NOTE C.—ASPASIOI ASSAKÊNOI

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

NOTE D.—MAZAGA

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

NOTE E.—BAZIRA

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

NOTE F.—AORNOS

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

NOTE G.—NYSA

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

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

NOTE H.—GOLD-DIGGING ANTS

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

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

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

NOTE I.—TAXILA

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

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

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

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

NOTE K.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS

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

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

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

NOTE L.—THE KATHAIANS

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

NOTE M.—SANGALA

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

NOTE N.—ALEXANDER’S ALTARS ON THE HYPHASIS

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

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

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

NOTE P.—THE MALLOI AND OXYDRAKAI

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

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

NOTE Q.—THE CAPITAL OF THE MALLOI

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

NOTE R.—ALEXANDER IN SINDH

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

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

NOTE S.—SINDIMANA

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

NOTE T.—CITY OF THE BRACHMANS—HARMATELIA

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

NOTE U.—PATALA

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

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

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

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

NOTE W.—INDIAN SAGES

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

NOTE X.—THE INDIAN MONTH

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

NOTE Y.—BATTLE WITH PÔROS

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

NOTE Z.—INDIAN SERPENTS

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

NOTE A_A_.—INDIAN PEACOCKS

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

NOTE B_B_.—INDIAN DOGS

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

NOTE C_C_.—THE GANGARIDAI

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

NOTE D_D_.—THE PRASIOI

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

NOTE E_E_.—THE SIBI

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

NOTE F_F_.—THE AGALASSIANS

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

NOTE G_G_.—TIDES IN INDIAN RIVERS

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

NOTE H_H_.—INDIAN PHILOSOPHERS

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

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

NOTE I_I_.—SUTTEE (Diod. Note 12).

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

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

NOTE K_K_.—ANCIENT INDIAN COINS

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

NOTE L_L_.—AN AŚÔKA INSCRIPTION

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

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

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

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

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

Adha-Puladeshu shavatâ Devânaṁ Piyashâ dhaṁṁamânushathi anuvataṁti.

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

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

BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX

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

AGGRAMMES.—_See_ Xandrames.

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

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

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

ANDROKOTTOS.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHANDRAGUPTA.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EMBISAROS.—_See_ Abisares.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a subsequent chapter (xviii.) Arrian records the following story of Kalânos: When he was going to the funeral pyre to die, he embraced all his other companions, but did not wish to draw near to Alexander to give him a parting embrace, saying he would meet him at Babylon and would there embrace him. This remark attracted no notice at the time; but afterwards, when Alexander died in Babylon, it came back to the memory of those who heard it, who then naturally took it to have been a prophecy of his death. Plutarch, in his _Life of Alexander_, has another notice of Kalânos besides that which the reader will find translated in