They would also seem
to have brought back to Alexander his envoy Nicocles, whom the rāja had
retained by him, so long as the issue of the conflict with Porus was
doubtfult.
to have brought back to Alexander his envoy Nicocles, whom the rāja had
retained by him, so long as the issue of the conflict with Porus was
doubtfult.
Cambridge History of India - v1
Some indi-
1 The exact route of Alexander from Takshaçilā to the Hydaspes is unknown.
See Vincent Smith, p. 63, note.
2 Polyaen IV, 3, 21.
3 Dr Vincent Smith's disquisition on the date of the battle (p. 85 f. ) suffers from
one important datum having been left out-Strabo's statement, on the authority of
Nearchus, that the Macedonian army was on the Acesines at the time of the summer
solstice (XV, C. 692). This would support Arrian's statement that the battle was in
the month of Munychion, i. e. probably about the middle of May, not in July as Dr.
Vincent Smith computes. (See Anspach, note 124. )
4 According to Mr. Pearson (see Bibliography) the regular rain do not begin in
this part till July.
## p. 325 (#361) ############################################
xv]
THE CROSSING OF THE HYDASPES
325
cations seemed to show that this state of suspense might be protracted for
months, that the Yavanas had given up the thought of attempting to cross
in the present state of the river, and were going to wait for the winter
when it would become fordable. It was certain from the reports of spies
that great stores of provisions were being brought up, as if for a long halt? .
Then alarms at night began. In the intervals of the rain the noise of
cavalry mustering could be heard on the further bank, the shoutings of
words of command, the songs which the Yavanas sang in battle to their
own gods ; and at the sound of it, on the left bank the great elephants
would swing through the darkness to their stations, and the lines of Indians
stand ready with sword and bow. And still nothing happened. The night
alarm became almost a piece of routine.
One daybreak, after a night of storm and violent rain, outposts came
galloping in with the tiding that boats crowded with horses and armed
men had been sighted rounding the end of a wooded island some twenty
miles away from the Indian camp. A body of Yavanas had succeeded
in reaching an undefended part of the left bank! The first outposts who
reported sighting the boats were soon followed by others who had seen
the enemy getting firm foot upon the land.
From the Greek books we know more than the Paurava could know
of the movements which had taken place in the European army on that
terrific night. While the rain poured in torrents and the lightnings struck
men down here and there in the European columns, the king with a strong
division? - Macedonian horse and foot, horsemen from Balkh and Bukhāra,
light-armed Balkan mountaineers and archers-moved to a point about
seventeen miles from the European camp, where the fleet of river- boats
was in readiness. As it drew near day, the storm abated, and in the first
light the laden boats pushed off. In any cirsumstances, to embark upon
an unknown river, swollen in flood, would have been sufficiently venture-
some. A single bark carried the king and several of his great captains,
.
men who in after days were destined themselves to rule great tracts of the
earth and to plot against each other's lives Perdiccas, the future Regent,
Ptolemy, one day to be king of Egypt, Lysimachus, to be king of Thrace
and
carry the Macedonian arms into what is now Roumania, Seleucus, who
would inherit Alexander's Asiatic empire. With so much history was one
boat big, which in the early light of that gray morning swayed upon
1 Schubert points out that if Alexander was trying to keep the Indians in expec.
tation of an immediate attack he can hardly have tried at the same time to persuade
them that he was going to remain stationary for a long time. If they got this impres.
sion from the arrival of provisions, it was not therefore due to design on his part.
2 Some 31,000 men, if Arrian's figure are accepted, Of course, if Delbrück's
estimate of 30,000 for the whole of Alexander's army is right, Arrian's number must be
very much exaggerated.
## p. 326 (#362) ############################################
326
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the blind eddies of an Indian river. It was one of the moments when
Alexander threw himself upon luck, as represented by the chance play of
natural forces. The point from which the boats put out hod the
advantage- it was chosen for that reason- of being hidden from the
watchers on the opposite bank by a wooded island in mid stream. It was not
till the boats approached land that they came in sight, an'l sent the outposts
galloping back to the Paurava. It was instantly clear that everything was
a question of time : could the Indians reach the place where the Europeans
had landed before the Europeans were ready to receive them? And here
the luck of natural accidents came in. The Europeans soon discovered
that the recent rain had cut off the place where they were from the proper
shore by a swollen channel ; they had landed on what was now fractically
an island. All depended on whether the channel was fordable. If it was
not, the Europeans were caught in a trap. The question remained doubt-
ful, as at point after point attempts were made, and the water proved too
deep. Then a point was found where it was just possible for a man to
cross, going into the strong current above his breast, and there men and
horses struggled through. Onesicritus recorded words, which, he said,
burst from the king in the stress of that moment. They show a curious
point of contact between the European then and the European now. For
to-day India sees in the European some one living and moving and acting
in its midst, whilst the public opinion which governs him, for which he
really cares, is the opinion of a society thousands of miles away. At that
moment, Onesicritus said, Alexander suddenly exclaimed, as the thought
struck him that he was going through all this for the sake of a fame, which
meant that people would talk and write about him at Athens !
When the Paurava received tidings of the landing of the Yavanas, he
could not yet tell from which direction the main attack would come. For
the enemy's camp could be described as usual just opposite - the royal tent,
bodies of European soldiery, of horsemen from the Kandahār highlands and
the Hindu Kush, and the Indian troops of the hostile rājas. The Paurava
must not relax his guard on the adjacent landing-places, whatever
force he might detach to deal with the body of Yavanas who had got across.
As a matter of fact, Alexander had left a force including two Macedonian
phalanxes, in the camp under Craterus, with orders to attempt the passage
as soon as they should see the Indians thrown into confusion by his own
attack, and another body of troops with Meleager at a point half way
between the camp and the place of embarkation”. The division which
1 Plutarch, Alex. 60.
2 If Arrian's figures are right, the force left in ramp would have numbered about
17,000 foot and 1800 horse, and the division with Meleager about 30,000 foot and 2000
horse. Delbrück considers that the number given for Alexander's division, 11,000, is
correct åld makes it the basis of his calculation.
## p. 327 (#363) ############################################
Xv]
THE BATTLE OF THE HYDASPES
327
crossed the river with Alexander numbered about 11,000 men. The
Paurava remained stationary with the bulk of his army, but in order to
meet with all possible speed the Europeans who had landed, he detached a
force of 2000 mounted men and 120 chariots under the command of his
son. The young prince found a body of Europeans already drawn up on
the shore. As he came nearer, detachments of horse broke from the enemy's
lines and swept towards him. But instead of the shock of the encounter,
a hail of arrows descended upon the Indian cavalry ; for the men who
came against them carried bows and could shoot in full career. They were
not Yavanas, but the men from the steppes of Central Asia, who by custom
fought in this elusive fashion. Behind them, however, Alexander was keep-
ing his European squadrons in reserve, till he knew whether he had the
main force of the Paurava before him or only a detachment. Then the
Indians received the charge of the Macedonian horse, squadron after squa-
dron, and at their head flashed the person of the terrible king. The Indian
horsemen were overpowered, and could only throw their lives away in the
unequal battle. Four hundred are said to have fallen ; the young prince
was among the slain. All the 120 chariots, running headlong into the mud,
were captured!
The return of the shattered squadrons to camp told the Paurava that
no river separated Alexander and himself any more, that the hour of
supreme crisis was come. He determined to move practically the whole of
his force against the division with the king. Only a small body of troops
(four or five hundred foot soldiers and thirty-five elephants) were left to hold
the river-bank against the division with Craterus. The Indian army arrived
in time to draw up in battle order before the Europeans engaged them.
Some of the pictorial features of the battle which followed we can
gather from our Greek texts. But their account is too confused, in part
perhaps through the mistakes of copyists, to allow us to reconstruct it as a
military operation. Not knowing whether it was above or below the Indian
camp that Alexander had landed, we do not know whether the right or the
left of the Indian line rested upon the river ; and yet that would be an
essential point in understanding what happened. We know at any rate that
the strength of the Indians was in the two hundred elephants -an
to which the Europeans had no parallel and which was apt to terrify the
foreign borses – whilst the superiority of the Europeans was in cavalry.
A picture of the Indian line of battle is given us. The elephants were
drawn up along the front like bastions in a wall. They enemy would be
1 Anspach supposes that the son of Porus was already near the spot with 60
chariots and 1000 horse when Alexander landed, and that, finding a larger body had
crossed than he could cope with, he sent for help to his cousin Spitaces, who was hold.
ing a post lower down opposite Meleager ; Spitaces brought up 60 more chariots and
another 1000 horse.
arm
## p. 328 (#364) ############################################
328
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
obliged, either to attack the unfamiliar monsters directly, or go in between
them to get at the masses of Indian foot behind. The line of foot projected
on each side beyond the elephants, and, beyond the foot cavalry was
stationed to guard either flank, with chariots in front of them. An image
of some god, Krishna or Indra, was held aloft before the ranks! In the
midst of his army the Indian prince had his seat upon an elephant of
exceptional size, his own magnificent frame encased in a hauberk of cunning
workmanship, which left nothing but his right shoulder bare - visible to
all and surveying all. The Indian army waited, a great stationary mass,
whilst the monotonous yet exciting rhythm of the drums and the trumpet-
ing of the elephants filled the air, to see how the more mobile European
force opposed to it would develop the attack. As in the former fight
that morning, it was a cloud of 1000 mounted archers from Central Asia,
which first rolled out upon the Indian left and covered the cavalry there
with flights of arrows. Their arrows might bave been answered more
effectually from the Indian ranks, were it not that the rain. rotten slush
underfoot made it impossible for the Indian archers to get a firm rest for
their long bows. To repel this attack the Indian cavalry on the left wing
began to execute some wheeling movement, but while it was still incomplete
the Macedonian horse-guards, led by Alexander himself bore down upon
them. The battle, so much we can say, was decided by the cavalry.
Alexander's onset was supported by another body of European horse under
the Macedonian Coenus. What exactly the manoeuvre of Coenus was is
obscure ; the phrases in our authorities are of doubtful interpretation, and
what is offered in printed texts is sometimes the conjectural emendation of
a modern editor". The Indian cavalry was unable to hold its own against
the Macedonian horse, practised in a hundred fights over half Asia. The
irretrievable defeat of the Indian cavalry threw the infantry into confusion,
and the crush in the centre made the elephants a terror to their own side.
When the European infantry came into action, all resistance had become
hopeless, and what followed was not fighting, but butchery. Between the
broken squadrons of horse plunging amongst them and the rushes of the
maddened elephants, the Indian army was reduced to a bewildered mob3.
1 Curt. VIII, 14, 11.
2 E. g. in the Teubner text of Curtius by Hedicke 'Ccenus ingenti vi in laevum
cornu invehitur,' VIII, 14, 17, is emended into ‘a laevo cornu invehitur.
3 For the battle see especially Schubert, Die Porus-Schlacht in Rhein. Mus. , Neue
Folge, LVI (1901), p. 543 f. He attempts to disentangle the parts of Ptolemy and
- Aristobulus in Arrian's account. One critical question bearing on a reconstruction of
the battle is the value to be attached to the 'Letter of Alexander'cited by Plutarch.
Schubert holds it to be a later fabrication based on Clitarchus Delbrück (Gesch. der
Kriegskunst, 1, p. 189) maintains that although not the work Alexander himself, it
was an official bulletin given out in his name. G. Veith in Klio, VIII (1908), pp. 131 ff.
defends against Schubert the general consistency of Arrian's narrative.
## p. 329 (#365) ############################################
XV]
ALEXANDER MEETS PORUS
329
a
A part of the mob surged backwards in a wild attempt to regain the camp
from which they had set out, and a certain number succeeded in getting
through the cruel ring of the enemy's cavalry. But by now the division of
Craterus had crossed the river, and these exhausted fugitives therefore only
found new bodies of Macedonians, fresh and unbreathed, barring their way.
They were mown down with a possibility of escape or resistance. Among
the thousands who, the Greek books affirm, perished on that day-'were
the two sons of Porus, Spitaces the “monarch" of that district all the great
captains of Porus. '
The prince himself from the back of his huge elephant had seen his
army turned to confusion around him. The Greek historians, to whom
India must owe it, if she knows anything to day about this her heroic son,
observe that, unlike the Persian monarch in a similar case, he did not turn
to flight. So long as any body of men in that seething mass preserved any
appearance of order, the Paurava kept his elephant where the darts were
flying. One gashed his bare right shoulder. When all hope was
over, the royal elephant turned and made its way from the place of carnage.
The Paurava had not gone far when man came galloping after him.
Coming within earshot, he shouted to the prince to have his elephant halted :
he brought a message from the Yavana king. The Paurava recognised the
hated face of the rāja of Takshaçilā. Then he turned round in his seat, and,
with what strength his wounded arm could gather, threw a jevelin? . Āmbhi
evaded it and galloped back to his overlord. Presently the Paurava was
overtaken again by other horsemen, calling to him to stop and receive
Alexander's message. Among them he saw a certain 'Meroes,' whom he
believed to be still his friend. Loss of blood had brought on intolerable
thirst. It came to the Paurava that he had done all that honour required,
that he might yield to destiny. The elephant was halted and he alighted.
The envoys of Alexander gave him to drink. Then he bade them conduct
him to the king.
As the little party neared the Macedonian lines, the Paurava saw the
conqueror of the world come galloping out to meet him. It was an instance
of two strong men, from diverse ends of the earth, coming face to face.
Alexander, whose romantic vein was easily touched, was all admiration, the
Greek books, say, for an antagonist so splendid in person, so brave and
proud. There is no Indian historian to tell us what the Paurava felt, when
he looked on Alexander. But we gather that from their meeting the Paurava
gave this unparalleled man his full loyalty, as vassal and friend. Their con-
versation at this their first meeting is recorded. The Paurava was made to
1 Head, Historia Numorum (2nd ed. ), p. 833 suggests that the coin figured in Pl.
1, 16, may give an actual representation of this encounter (v. inf. pp. 349. 50).
## p. 330 (#366) ############################################
330
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
"
understand that Alexander desired him to indicate himself the treatment he
would wish to receive. 'Act as a king,' the Indian said. But the interpreter
explained that Alexander was not satisfied ; he wanted something more
precise. "When I said "As a king,"l the Paurava replied, 'everything was
contained in that. '
The principality of the Paurava was now in the hands of Alexander to
order as seemed good to him. The Paurava was reinstated in his former
dignity. He was only required to regard himself as the member of a world-
realm under Alexander. In all groupings of mankind, - in the family, the
nation, the empire, the constituent units have to sacrifice something of
their independence in order to share in the greatness and strength of the
group. And in such a realm as Alexander now conceived, a realm including
already so many races and nations, in which European and Asiatic should
stand on one footing, it might well seem to a proud Indian prince that he
and his people could accept their place without shame. He entered
it as
the peer of the Macedonian chiefs, he might claim to be the
conquerors, and of the princes and nobles of Irān, who had given their
allegiance to the new King of Kings. That his new position meant amity
with the rāja of Takshaçilā was probably the thing which the Paurava
found most bitter. But that Alexander sweetened, so far as he could, by
giving him a great enlargement of dominion towards the east.
Here too Alexander, pursuing his fixed policy, was determined
to strengthen the bonds which knit his empire together by planting cities of
European men. On what had been the field of battle, they began to trace
out the walls of a Nicaea, a 'City of Victory', and on the opposite bank of
the river, whence Alexander had put out in the gray of that eventful
morning, the site of a city was marked, to be called Bucephala, after
the king's stalwart old horse Bucephalus, who had come so far to lay his
bones.
Here again the Indians saw the Yavanas honour their gods in their own
peculiar fashion - the sacrifices of thanksgiving for victory, the obsequies of
the slain, the horse-racing and the running, wrestling and boxing of
naked men. To the Sun especially Alexander made offerings on this
occasion, whose grace, he deemed, had opened for him the way to the
Orient? . Then the army turned once more to the business of war. The
state of things, as we saw, which the Europeans found in the Punjab was
one of extreme division, free tribes everywhere maintaining their separate
independence against princes like Āmbhi and the Paurava. The first
effect of the Macedonian conquest, as it has been of other conquests,
was internal unification. It seemed good policy to recognise a certain
number of native princes, and make their authority really effective over
1 Diod. XVII, 89 ; Curt. IX, 1, 1.
## p. 331 (#367) ############################################
Xv]
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN THE PUNJAB
331
large spheres. Even to the west of the Acesines (Chenāb), the next river
after the Hydaspes (Jhelum), there was a people with thirty-seven towns
of over 5000 inhabitants- the Greeks give their name as Giausai or
Glauganikai - which had held their independence against the Paurava.
But it was a different matter, when the summons was brought by the
conquerors of the Paurara, when they saw the wave of European and
Central-Asian cavalry sweeping over their fields, columns of Macedonian
footmen and Ihracian archers marching against them. They surrendered,
and the principality of the Paurava was extended over their land.
There was
no power in the north-west of India, after the battle
on the Hydaspes, which could meet the Europeans in the open field, as
the Paurava had done. The only chance lay in the fact that the intrusive
power, although a far-reaching one-a camp on the move - could not
be everywhere at once, and, if it could not be met, it could often be
defied at a distance. The rapid conquest had been anything but secure.
Even Lefore Alexander had left Takshaçilā a rebellion in the Kandahār
region, which had been joined by the chief of a neighbouring part of India-,
had been suppressed, and now, whilst Alexander was encamped among the
rivers of the Punjab, the hill tribes of the Swāt Valley threw off fear
and renounced allegiance. We may perhaps gather from a sentence in
a Greek textº that the satrap Nicanor was killed. The Indian Çaçigupta,
who held the fortress of Aornus for Alexander, sent urgent messages to the
Punjab. Macedonian forces came up in time to beat down the revolt,
from the neighbouring satrapy on the west under the Irānian Tyriespes, and
from the realm of Āmbhi under Philip? But even if this revolt was
suppressed, it was an indication of disruptive forces below the surface.
The rāja of Abhisāra, who had been too late to help the Paurava,
thought well to renew his assurances of loyalty to Alexander. A body of
envoys from Kashmir, headed by the rāja's brother, arrived in camp
with presents which included forty elephants.
They would also seem
to have brought back to Alexander his envoy Nicocles, whom the rāja had
retained by him, so long as the issue of the conflict with Porus was
doubtfult. Alexander, however, could now be satisfied with nothing short
of the rāja's own presence, and gave the envoys to understand that it
would be as well for him to come, or Alexander might come to look for
him.
When the satrap of Parthia, a Persian, had brought down a body of
Thracian reinforcements from Irān, Alexander moved across the Acesines
1 Cursius VIII, 13, 4. The Indian chief's name is Samaxus in the MS. : Hedicke
emends conjecturally Damaraxus.
2 Arrian V, 20, 7.
3 Acc. to Anspach, note 200, Philip, the governor of Pushkala, not=Philip the
satrap.
4 Au anon. Epit. Alex. M. rer. Çest. II, $ 55 f (Fleckeisen's Jahrbücher für klass,
Philol. XXVI, Supp. 1901, p. 105).
## p. 332 (#368) ############################################
332
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
(Chenāb), probably in the neighbourhood of Siālkot, having now nothing
but physical difficulties to contend with'. The passage of the river brought
him near the frontiers of the other Paurava. This chieftain's envoy had
been for some time past carrying Alexander his homage ; but his calcula-
tions had been completely upset when he saw the hated kinsman, whom he
had pictured humbled before him by the power of the foreigners, retained
at Alexander's side as an honoured friend. It made his own position
a dangerous one and he fled before the approach of the European". The
king pressed onwards to the next river, the Hydraātes (Rāvi), leaving,
of course, strong posts at various points behind him, to secure his com-
munications. From the banks of the Hydraõtes he detached a body
of troops under Hephaestion to occupy the territory of the fugitive Pau-
rava, and annex all the land between the Acesines and the Hydraõtes to the
realm of Porus his friend. Any free tribes within that region were to
be taught to recognise their new prince's authority. Hephaestion was also
to begin the walls of a city upon the Acesines - possibly: an older native
town commanding the road over the river, now to be rebuilt and fortified
on Hellenic principlest. Alexander himself passed on eastwards over the
Hydraūtes.
The European army kept near the foothills of the Himālayas,
marching through the country north of Amritsar. The region was one of
those held by free tribes, one which the Paurava, in the days before the
coming of the Europeans, had vainly tried to subdue. The first tribe
to whom the Europeans came, east of the Hydraõtes, the Adhộishtas”,
submitted ; but the powerful Kshatriyas, who had repelled the Paurava and
the rāja of Abhisāra combined, were not disposed to bow to the Yavanas
without a struggle. The fortified town called by the Greeks Sangala? was
chosen as the centre of resistance. The Kshatriyas who held it soon
1 The river would be in flood at this time, late June, Strabo XV, C. 692 ; Ans-
pach, p. 66.
2 To the Gandaridae, says Diod. XVII, 91. The people of the Ganges region are
probably meant. The statement which Strabo (XV, C. 699) gives as made by ‘some
people' (tives) that the principality of this Ponus was itself called Gandaris seems to
set upon a confusion.
3 As Anspach supposes (note 215).
4 Arr, v, 29, 3.
5 So Tomaschek interprets their Greek name 'AS palcal. 8. v. 'Adraistai' in
Pauly-Wissowa.
6 In most English books, we are told that the Cathaei (Kshatriyas) were allied
with the Malli and Oxydracae. (This is assumed by Dr Vincent Smith, The autonomous
tribes conquered by Alerānder, in the J. R. A. S. for 1903, p. 685 f. ). As a matter of
fact the phrase in Arrian V, 22, 2, και τονται κατα τα αντα Οξνδραkαι κτλ. does not
mean. The Cathae were allied with the Oxydracae etc. ,' but (as Mr. M'Crindle
correctly translates) 'The Catheans enjoyed the highest reputation for courage. . . and
the same war-like spirit characterised the Oxydracae etc. ' There is no evidence for
a confederation.
7 The site is uncertain. Anspach conjectures Jandiāla.
## p. 333 (#369) ############################################
Xv]
RĀJA SAUBHŪTI
333
found that the invaders drew the siege tight around it in deadly fashion.
But it was eventually not foreigners only whom they saw from their
walls. Their old Paurava enemy arrived in the Macedonian camp with a
force of elephants and five thousand Indian soldiers. He arrived in
time to see the Macedonian storm the city. Seventeen thousand of
the defenders, we are told, fell by the sword, whilst the captives surpassed
the enormous figure of 70,000. The inhabitants of other towns of the
Kshatriyas fed in a mass, althovgh Alexander sent his clever Greek
secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, to assure them of his clemency if they
submitted. Many succeeded in getting out of the country, but some
500 were overtaken by the Europeans and killed. Sangala was razed to
the ground, and the country made over to the Paurava.
Somewhere near the Kshatriya country, it would seem, lay the
principality, of the rāja Saubhūti, worthy to be set beside the Paurava, as
he is described to us, for goodliness of person and stature and for the
vigour of his administration'. In later days he struck coins with his name
in Greek as Sophytes? . It was now apparently that he first saw the
Yavanas as the invaders of his territory and had the prudence to make
friends with them. He entertained the Macedonian king with a splendour;
the strength and tenacity of his great hunting dogs, of which he gave
an exhibition, was what impressed the Europeans more than anything
else.
Still eastwards the European host marched and came to the fifth
river, the Hyphasis (modern Beās). The Sutlej remained (some 80 miles by
the road from Gurdāspur to Rūpar) as the only considerable river of the
Indus system after that to cross ; and then another river-system would be
reached, that which empties itself through the Ganges into the Eastern Sea.
Already the ears of Alexander were filled with accounts of the great
kingdom of Magadha on the Ganges, of its populousness and splendour and
power. His chief informant apparently was a rāja of the neighbourhood,
Bhagala, who had submitted to the invadert. Was it an enterprise which a
man in his senses could undertake, to attempt the subjugation of such
a country with an army already nearly three thousand miles from its home?
Some modern historians maintain that Alexander had too sound a sense of
1 The site of the domain of Saubhùti cannot be determined more precisely from
the contradictory statements of the Greek authorities. Dr. Vincent Smith uses the
statement of Strabo as to the mountain of salt (Strabo XV, C. 700) to fix the principality
to the Salt Range between the. Jhelum and the Indus. Against this identification is
the difficuty that the contradictory statements in sources all agree at any rate
in placing the principality east of the Jhelum. Even in Arrian VI, 2, 2 the royal
seat of Sopeithes is on the left bank of the river. The salt mines of Mandi, on the othe:
hand, to which Droysen refers, lie, one would think, much too far to the east.
2 V. inf. p. 348 and Pl. I, 17.
3 Diod. XVII, 91, 92.
4 Phegelis in MSS. of Curtius IX, 2, 2 ; Phegeus in Diod. XVII, 93. See Sylvain
Levi, Journ. Asiat. Sme ser, vol. XV (1890), p. 239.
our
## p. 334 (#370) ############################################
334
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
possibilities to have thought of it. But the ancient historians affirm
that he saw himself in anticipation arriving victorious at the utmost
bound of the earth on the Eastern Sea. We may believe that his astounding
success had indeed made nothing seem impossible to him, that his
judgment of things was no longer completely sane : we may also believe
that, although he knew some great and powerful nations stiil remained to
be subdued, before he could round off his conquest of the eastern world, he
did not know the full extent of the East - that further India, for instance,
and China lay together outside his knowledged. It is not unlikely that he
may seriously have thought it practicable to make himself king of the whole
inhabited earth. But on the banks of the Hyphasis (Beās), somewhere near
the modern Gurdāspur, an imperious check awaited him. The army,
which had followed him thus far, suddenly struck : all the personal
magnetism, all the stirring and indignant appeals of the king could
not induce the stout Macedonian countrymen to go a step further. For
three days he shut himself in his tent, and the battle of wills remained
in grim deadlock. At last the king recognised the bitter necessity of giving
up his ambitions half-fulfilled. To save his face probably, he offered
sacrifice again to the Greek gods, as preliminary to crossing the river
and then discovered that the omens were unfavourable. After that he
gave the word for the retreat. But first, in his romantic imaginative
vein, he made the army build twelve gigantic altars, like towers, upon the
banks of the Hyphasis, to show to future times how far into the East
Alexander had come. One account says that later on the Mauryan kings
used to offer sacrifice in the Yavana manner upon those altars. All trace
of them has long since disappeared.
So India, about the end of July 326 B c. ), saw the wave of European
invasion, which had washed thus far, begin to ebb, back to the Hydraõtes,
back to the Acesines, where a certain number of the Greek veterans were
ordered to fix themselves for good in the city which Hephaestion had been
building, back to the Hydaspes. The thoughts of Alexander were now
turning in another direction. If the most easterly waters of the Indus river-
system were for the time being to bound his empire, he would at any rate
pass along his frontier, pursue the course of the Indus to the Ocean and
return by the sea-board to Babylon. He had to organise the conquered
1 How hazy Alexander's geographical notions were at this time is shown by the
statement of Nearchus (who was in a position to know) that Alexander, on first
coming to the Acesines and seeing Egyptian beans there, supposed that this was the
same river which ultimately turned into the Nile. Strabo XV, C. 696.
2 Plut. Alex. 62. It is doubtful whether these altars were on the right or left
bank of the river. Pliny, VI, $ 62, puts them on the eastern bank, but the historians
say nothing of Alexander's crossing the Hyphasis. Plutarch's phrase about the
Mauryan kings, daßalvoutes(not daß UTES) ospouta: is ambiguous.
3 Anspach, note 269.
## p. 335 (#371) ############################################
Xv ]
THE RETURN
335
portion of India on a basis that would endure when the European army had
departed. And he forecast a different Punjab from the one he had found.
Instead of a multiplicity of rival princes and independent tribes, all the
country from the Hydaspes to the Hyphasis was to form one kingdom
under the Paurava. Another large principality was created for Āmbhi west
of the Hydaspes. Similarly in Kashmir, the rāja of Abhisāra, whose
embassies and presents had at last convinced Alexander of his loyalty, was
given extended authority, and his neighbouring rāja of Uraçā (Hazāra),
called by the Greeks Arsaces, was ordered to regard him as overlord. But
if the free tribes, as independent powers, were suppressed, Alexander would
leave a new element in the country, which might to some extent counter-
poise the power of the kings—the new cities of European men, or
Europeans and Indians mingled, plants of Hellenism in a strange soil. The
rudimentary walls of Bucephala and Nicaea on the Hydaspes Alexander
found on his return damaged by the rains, and the army had to build them
stronger before it moved in the new direction down the river.
The autumn at the new cities was spent in preparing a fleet? to trans-
port a part of the army and the horses by water. The conduct of this was
entrusted to the Cretun Nearchus. The rest of the army, now swelled by
reinforcements from the West? , was to accompany them on either bank.
Philip, the satrap of the province between the Hydaspes and the Hindu
Kush, was ordered to follow three days' journey behind with the force
under his command. The scene at setting out is described to us in some
detail. It was probably a day in November 326 B. C. At day break the king,
standing in the sight of all on the prow of his vessel, poured from a golden
bowl libations to the Rivers – the Hydaspes, the Acesines, and the Indus-
to Heracles his ancestor, to the Egyptain god Amun, and the deities, Greek
or foreign, whom he was wont to invoke. Then a trumpet sounded for the
start. The fleet presented a picture of impressive order, the grouping and
intervals being precisely regulated. But the extraordinary mixture of nation-
alities and garb must have satisfied the eye with variety and colour, while to
the ear the noise of the rowing and the shouts in a hundred different
tongues made a bewildering volume of sound. Amongst the crews of the
boats the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Cypriots were prominent.
Besides the Macedonian and greek troops, the Indians ran in crowds along
the banks, speeding the fleet with songs, 'in their barbaric way,' says the
Greek author. 'No nation,' he explains, ‘is fonder of singing and dancing
than the Indian3. '
This novel armada glided down the Hydaspes, past jungles and
villages, and in ten days from the start reached the confluence of the
1 On the varying statements as to the numbers of ships, see Anspach, note 278.
Anspach supposes that about a thousand is the most probable estimate.
2 Diod. XVII, 95, 4, Curt. IX, 3, 21. 3 Arr. VI, 3, 5,
## p. 336 (#372) ############################################
336
[CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Hydaspes and the Acesines. Two divisions under Hephaestion and Craterus
respectively marched along the two banks, and the satrap Philip, whc had
overtaken the fleet at its first balting, had been sent across to the Acesines
to march down this river to the confluence. Some of the peoples along the
banks - such as the Sibae, whose garb of shaggy skins and clubs made the
Europeans take them for descendants of the companions of their own
Heracles - offered submission. The resistance of others was easily
suppressed. But further down stream a strong confederation of free
tribes was awaiting the Europeans with a high courage. These were a
tribe, called Mālavas (in Greek Malloi)', between the lower Hydraõtes
and the Acesines, and the Kshudrakas (in Greek Oxydrakai) higher up the
Hydraõtes, between that river and the Hyphasis. The rapids at the
meeting of the Hydaspas and the Acesines gave some trouble to the fleet,
and two boats foundered. On the frontiers of the Mālavas the whole
European force - the fleet and the three divisions of Craterus, Hephaestion,
and Philip re-assembled. The fleet was now sent on under Nearchus three
days in advance with orders to wait for the land-force at the next
confluence, that of the Acesines and the Hydraõtes. The land-force was
broken up anew into different divisions for the attack on the Mālavas.
With a suddenness which disconcerted their plans the Indian tribesmen
found Alexander in their midst. The first of their cities to be attacked
was on the edge of a tract of sandy desert, from which one morning early
a force of mounted Macedonians, with the king as its head, broke
upon it, having ridden all night across the waste. And here first was
enacted what was repeated in city after city of the confederacy-the
attack, the capture, the massacre. Many of the inhabitants of these places
escaped to the jungles or across the Hydraõtes : many were captured by
the Macedonians in their flight and slaughtered. It was at the storming of
one of these towns that the king exposed his person in a way which
nearly cost his life. We may probably infer that the morale of the
European army, fighting across the interminable spaces of this strange
land, had begur ') decline, that such desperate expedients on the part
of the great leader were necessary. Alexander, reaching the top of the
1 The Mālavas of the Punjab and the Kshudrakas are associated in Sanskrit
literature.
2 Anspaca, note 316.
3 The place of the confluence in 326 B. C. has not been ascertained; see Vincent
Smith, pp. 92, 93. It would seem that so far geographical researches such as those of
Major G. H. Raverty (J. A. S. B. for 1892, pt. i) have a mainly negative value in showing
the rashness of the older identifications rather than a positive value in establishing new
ones. If either the statements in our texts had been loss vague or the river beds less
changeable the case would not have been so hopeless.
1 The exact route of Alexander from Takshaçilā to the Hydaspes is unknown.
See Vincent Smith, p. 63, note.
2 Polyaen IV, 3, 21.
3 Dr Vincent Smith's disquisition on the date of the battle (p. 85 f. ) suffers from
one important datum having been left out-Strabo's statement, on the authority of
Nearchus, that the Macedonian army was on the Acesines at the time of the summer
solstice (XV, C. 692). This would support Arrian's statement that the battle was in
the month of Munychion, i. e. probably about the middle of May, not in July as Dr.
Vincent Smith computes. (See Anspach, note 124. )
4 According to Mr. Pearson (see Bibliography) the regular rain do not begin in
this part till July.
## p. 325 (#361) ############################################
xv]
THE CROSSING OF THE HYDASPES
325
cations seemed to show that this state of suspense might be protracted for
months, that the Yavanas had given up the thought of attempting to cross
in the present state of the river, and were going to wait for the winter
when it would become fordable. It was certain from the reports of spies
that great stores of provisions were being brought up, as if for a long halt? .
Then alarms at night began. In the intervals of the rain the noise of
cavalry mustering could be heard on the further bank, the shoutings of
words of command, the songs which the Yavanas sang in battle to their
own gods ; and at the sound of it, on the left bank the great elephants
would swing through the darkness to their stations, and the lines of Indians
stand ready with sword and bow. And still nothing happened. The night
alarm became almost a piece of routine.
One daybreak, after a night of storm and violent rain, outposts came
galloping in with the tiding that boats crowded with horses and armed
men had been sighted rounding the end of a wooded island some twenty
miles away from the Indian camp. A body of Yavanas had succeeded
in reaching an undefended part of the left bank! The first outposts who
reported sighting the boats were soon followed by others who had seen
the enemy getting firm foot upon the land.
From the Greek books we know more than the Paurava could know
of the movements which had taken place in the European army on that
terrific night. While the rain poured in torrents and the lightnings struck
men down here and there in the European columns, the king with a strong
division? - Macedonian horse and foot, horsemen from Balkh and Bukhāra,
light-armed Balkan mountaineers and archers-moved to a point about
seventeen miles from the European camp, where the fleet of river- boats
was in readiness. As it drew near day, the storm abated, and in the first
light the laden boats pushed off. In any cirsumstances, to embark upon
an unknown river, swollen in flood, would have been sufficiently venture-
some. A single bark carried the king and several of his great captains,
.
men who in after days were destined themselves to rule great tracts of the
earth and to plot against each other's lives Perdiccas, the future Regent,
Ptolemy, one day to be king of Egypt, Lysimachus, to be king of Thrace
and
carry the Macedonian arms into what is now Roumania, Seleucus, who
would inherit Alexander's Asiatic empire. With so much history was one
boat big, which in the early light of that gray morning swayed upon
1 Schubert points out that if Alexander was trying to keep the Indians in expec.
tation of an immediate attack he can hardly have tried at the same time to persuade
them that he was going to remain stationary for a long time. If they got this impres.
sion from the arrival of provisions, it was not therefore due to design on his part.
2 Some 31,000 men, if Arrian's figure are accepted, Of course, if Delbrück's
estimate of 30,000 for the whole of Alexander's army is right, Arrian's number must be
very much exaggerated.
## p. 326 (#362) ############################################
326
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the blind eddies of an Indian river. It was one of the moments when
Alexander threw himself upon luck, as represented by the chance play of
natural forces. The point from which the boats put out hod the
advantage- it was chosen for that reason- of being hidden from the
watchers on the opposite bank by a wooded island in mid stream. It was not
till the boats approached land that they came in sight, an'l sent the outposts
galloping back to the Paurava. It was instantly clear that everything was
a question of time : could the Indians reach the place where the Europeans
had landed before the Europeans were ready to receive them? And here
the luck of natural accidents came in. The Europeans soon discovered
that the recent rain had cut off the place where they were from the proper
shore by a swollen channel ; they had landed on what was now fractically
an island. All depended on whether the channel was fordable. If it was
not, the Europeans were caught in a trap. The question remained doubt-
ful, as at point after point attempts were made, and the water proved too
deep. Then a point was found where it was just possible for a man to
cross, going into the strong current above his breast, and there men and
horses struggled through. Onesicritus recorded words, which, he said,
burst from the king in the stress of that moment. They show a curious
point of contact between the European then and the European now. For
to-day India sees in the European some one living and moving and acting
in its midst, whilst the public opinion which governs him, for which he
really cares, is the opinion of a society thousands of miles away. At that
moment, Onesicritus said, Alexander suddenly exclaimed, as the thought
struck him that he was going through all this for the sake of a fame, which
meant that people would talk and write about him at Athens !
When the Paurava received tidings of the landing of the Yavanas, he
could not yet tell from which direction the main attack would come. For
the enemy's camp could be described as usual just opposite - the royal tent,
bodies of European soldiery, of horsemen from the Kandahār highlands and
the Hindu Kush, and the Indian troops of the hostile rājas. The Paurava
must not relax his guard on the adjacent landing-places, whatever
force he might detach to deal with the body of Yavanas who had got across.
As a matter of fact, Alexander had left a force including two Macedonian
phalanxes, in the camp under Craterus, with orders to attempt the passage
as soon as they should see the Indians thrown into confusion by his own
attack, and another body of troops with Meleager at a point half way
between the camp and the place of embarkation”. The division which
1 Plutarch, Alex. 60.
2 If Arrian's figures are right, the force left in ramp would have numbered about
17,000 foot and 1800 horse, and the division with Meleager about 30,000 foot and 2000
horse. Delbrück considers that the number given for Alexander's division, 11,000, is
correct åld makes it the basis of his calculation.
## p. 327 (#363) ############################################
Xv]
THE BATTLE OF THE HYDASPES
327
crossed the river with Alexander numbered about 11,000 men. The
Paurava remained stationary with the bulk of his army, but in order to
meet with all possible speed the Europeans who had landed, he detached a
force of 2000 mounted men and 120 chariots under the command of his
son. The young prince found a body of Europeans already drawn up on
the shore. As he came nearer, detachments of horse broke from the enemy's
lines and swept towards him. But instead of the shock of the encounter,
a hail of arrows descended upon the Indian cavalry ; for the men who
came against them carried bows and could shoot in full career. They were
not Yavanas, but the men from the steppes of Central Asia, who by custom
fought in this elusive fashion. Behind them, however, Alexander was keep-
ing his European squadrons in reserve, till he knew whether he had the
main force of the Paurava before him or only a detachment. Then the
Indians received the charge of the Macedonian horse, squadron after squa-
dron, and at their head flashed the person of the terrible king. The Indian
horsemen were overpowered, and could only throw their lives away in the
unequal battle. Four hundred are said to have fallen ; the young prince
was among the slain. All the 120 chariots, running headlong into the mud,
were captured!
The return of the shattered squadrons to camp told the Paurava that
no river separated Alexander and himself any more, that the hour of
supreme crisis was come. He determined to move practically the whole of
his force against the division with the king. Only a small body of troops
(four or five hundred foot soldiers and thirty-five elephants) were left to hold
the river-bank against the division with Craterus. The Indian army arrived
in time to draw up in battle order before the Europeans engaged them.
Some of the pictorial features of the battle which followed we can
gather from our Greek texts. But their account is too confused, in part
perhaps through the mistakes of copyists, to allow us to reconstruct it as a
military operation. Not knowing whether it was above or below the Indian
camp that Alexander had landed, we do not know whether the right or the
left of the Indian line rested upon the river ; and yet that would be an
essential point in understanding what happened. We know at any rate that
the strength of the Indians was in the two hundred elephants -an
to which the Europeans had no parallel and which was apt to terrify the
foreign borses – whilst the superiority of the Europeans was in cavalry.
A picture of the Indian line of battle is given us. The elephants were
drawn up along the front like bastions in a wall. They enemy would be
1 Anspach supposes that the son of Porus was already near the spot with 60
chariots and 1000 horse when Alexander landed, and that, finding a larger body had
crossed than he could cope with, he sent for help to his cousin Spitaces, who was hold.
ing a post lower down opposite Meleager ; Spitaces brought up 60 more chariots and
another 1000 horse.
arm
## p. 328 (#364) ############################################
328
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
obliged, either to attack the unfamiliar monsters directly, or go in between
them to get at the masses of Indian foot behind. The line of foot projected
on each side beyond the elephants, and, beyond the foot cavalry was
stationed to guard either flank, with chariots in front of them. An image
of some god, Krishna or Indra, was held aloft before the ranks! In the
midst of his army the Indian prince had his seat upon an elephant of
exceptional size, his own magnificent frame encased in a hauberk of cunning
workmanship, which left nothing but his right shoulder bare - visible to
all and surveying all. The Indian army waited, a great stationary mass,
whilst the monotonous yet exciting rhythm of the drums and the trumpet-
ing of the elephants filled the air, to see how the more mobile European
force opposed to it would develop the attack. As in the former fight
that morning, it was a cloud of 1000 mounted archers from Central Asia,
which first rolled out upon the Indian left and covered the cavalry there
with flights of arrows. Their arrows might bave been answered more
effectually from the Indian ranks, were it not that the rain. rotten slush
underfoot made it impossible for the Indian archers to get a firm rest for
their long bows. To repel this attack the Indian cavalry on the left wing
began to execute some wheeling movement, but while it was still incomplete
the Macedonian horse-guards, led by Alexander himself bore down upon
them. The battle, so much we can say, was decided by the cavalry.
Alexander's onset was supported by another body of European horse under
the Macedonian Coenus. What exactly the manoeuvre of Coenus was is
obscure ; the phrases in our authorities are of doubtful interpretation, and
what is offered in printed texts is sometimes the conjectural emendation of
a modern editor". The Indian cavalry was unable to hold its own against
the Macedonian horse, practised in a hundred fights over half Asia. The
irretrievable defeat of the Indian cavalry threw the infantry into confusion,
and the crush in the centre made the elephants a terror to their own side.
When the European infantry came into action, all resistance had become
hopeless, and what followed was not fighting, but butchery. Between the
broken squadrons of horse plunging amongst them and the rushes of the
maddened elephants, the Indian army was reduced to a bewildered mob3.
1 Curt. VIII, 14, 11.
2 E. g. in the Teubner text of Curtius by Hedicke 'Ccenus ingenti vi in laevum
cornu invehitur,' VIII, 14, 17, is emended into ‘a laevo cornu invehitur.
3 For the battle see especially Schubert, Die Porus-Schlacht in Rhein. Mus. , Neue
Folge, LVI (1901), p. 543 f. He attempts to disentangle the parts of Ptolemy and
- Aristobulus in Arrian's account. One critical question bearing on a reconstruction of
the battle is the value to be attached to the 'Letter of Alexander'cited by Plutarch.
Schubert holds it to be a later fabrication based on Clitarchus Delbrück (Gesch. der
Kriegskunst, 1, p. 189) maintains that although not the work Alexander himself, it
was an official bulletin given out in his name. G. Veith in Klio, VIII (1908), pp. 131 ff.
defends against Schubert the general consistency of Arrian's narrative.
## p. 329 (#365) ############################################
XV]
ALEXANDER MEETS PORUS
329
a
A part of the mob surged backwards in a wild attempt to regain the camp
from which they had set out, and a certain number succeeded in getting
through the cruel ring of the enemy's cavalry. But by now the division of
Craterus had crossed the river, and these exhausted fugitives therefore only
found new bodies of Macedonians, fresh and unbreathed, barring their way.
They were mown down with a possibility of escape or resistance. Among
the thousands who, the Greek books affirm, perished on that day-'were
the two sons of Porus, Spitaces the “monarch" of that district all the great
captains of Porus. '
The prince himself from the back of his huge elephant had seen his
army turned to confusion around him. The Greek historians, to whom
India must owe it, if she knows anything to day about this her heroic son,
observe that, unlike the Persian monarch in a similar case, he did not turn
to flight. So long as any body of men in that seething mass preserved any
appearance of order, the Paurava kept his elephant where the darts were
flying. One gashed his bare right shoulder. When all hope was
over, the royal elephant turned and made its way from the place of carnage.
The Paurava had not gone far when man came galloping after him.
Coming within earshot, he shouted to the prince to have his elephant halted :
he brought a message from the Yavana king. The Paurava recognised the
hated face of the rāja of Takshaçilā. Then he turned round in his seat, and,
with what strength his wounded arm could gather, threw a jevelin? . Āmbhi
evaded it and galloped back to his overlord. Presently the Paurava was
overtaken again by other horsemen, calling to him to stop and receive
Alexander's message. Among them he saw a certain 'Meroes,' whom he
believed to be still his friend. Loss of blood had brought on intolerable
thirst. It came to the Paurava that he had done all that honour required,
that he might yield to destiny. The elephant was halted and he alighted.
The envoys of Alexander gave him to drink. Then he bade them conduct
him to the king.
As the little party neared the Macedonian lines, the Paurava saw the
conqueror of the world come galloping out to meet him. It was an instance
of two strong men, from diverse ends of the earth, coming face to face.
Alexander, whose romantic vein was easily touched, was all admiration, the
Greek books, say, for an antagonist so splendid in person, so brave and
proud. There is no Indian historian to tell us what the Paurava felt, when
he looked on Alexander. But we gather that from their meeting the Paurava
gave this unparalleled man his full loyalty, as vassal and friend. Their con-
versation at this their first meeting is recorded. The Paurava was made to
1 Head, Historia Numorum (2nd ed. ), p. 833 suggests that the coin figured in Pl.
1, 16, may give an actual representation of this encounter (v. inf. pp. 349. 50).
## p. 330 (#366) ############################################
330
(CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
"
understand that Alexander desired him to indicate himself the treatment he
would wish to receive. 'Act as a king,' the Indian said. But the interpreter
explained that Alexander was not satisfied ; he wanted something more
precise. "When I said "As a king,"l the Paurava replied, 'everything was
contained in that. '
The principality of the Paurava was now in the hands of Alexander to
order as seemed good to him. The Paurava was reinstated in his former
dignity. He was only required to regard himself as the member of a world-
realm under Alexander. In all groupings of mankind, - in the family, the
nation, the empire, the constituent units have to sacrifice something of
their independence in order to share in the greatness and strength of the
group. And in such a realm as Alexander now conceived, a realm including
already so many races and nations, in which European and Asiatic should
stand on one footing, it might well seem to a proud Indian prince that he
and his people could accept their place without shame. He entered
it as
the peer of the Macedonian chiefs, he might claim to be the
conquerors, and of the princes and nobles of Irān, who had given their
allegiance to the new King of Kings. That his new position meant amity
with the rāja of Takshaçilā was probably the thing which the Paurava
found most bitter. But that Alexander sweetened, so far as he could, by
giving him a great enlargement of dominion towards the east.
Here too Alexander, pursuing his fixed policy, was determined
to strengthen the bonds which knit his empire together by planting cities of
European men. On what had been the field of battle, they began to trace
out the walls of a Nicaea, a 'City of Victory', and on the opposite bank of
the river, whence Alexander had put out in the gray of that eventful
morning, the site of a city was marked, to be called Bucephala, after
the king's stalwart old horse Bucephalus, who had come so far to lay his
bones.
Here again the Indians saw the Yavanas honour their gods in their own
peculiar fashion - the sacrifices of thanksgiving for victory, the obsequies of
the slain, the horse-racing and the running, wrestling and boxing of
naked men. To the Sun especially Alexander made offerings on this
occasion, whose grace, he deemed, had opened for him the way to the
Orient? . Then the army turned once more to the business of war. The
state of things, as we saw, which the Europeans found in the Punjab was
one of extreme division, free tribes everywhere maintaining their separate
independence against princes like Āmbhi and the Paurava. The first
effect of the Macedonian conquest, as it has been of other conquests,
was internal unification. It seemed good policy to recognise a certain
number of native princes, and make their authority really effective over
1 Diod. XVII, 89 ; Curt. IX, 1, 1.
## p. 331 (#367) ############################################
Xv]
POLITICAL CONDITIONS IN THE PUNJAB
331
large spheres. Even to the west of the Acesines (Chenāb), the next river
after the Hydaspes (Jhelum), there was a people with thirty-seven towns
of over 5000 inhabitants- the Greeks give their name as Giausai or
Glauganikai - which had held their independence against the Paurava.
But it was a different matter, when the summons was brought by the
conquerors of the Paurara, when they saw the wave of European and
Central-Asian cavalry sweeping over their fields, columns of Macedonian
footmen and Ihracian archers marching against them. They surrendered,
and the principality of the Paurava was extended over their land.
There was
no power in the north-west of India, after the battle
on the Hydaspes, which could meet the Europeans in the open field, as
the Paurava had done. The only chance lay in the fact that the intrusive
power, although a far-reaching one-a camp on the move - could not
be everywhere at once, and, if it could not be met, it could often be
defied at a distance. The rapid conquest had been anything but secure.
Even Lefore Alexander had left Takshaçilā a rebellion in the Kandahār
region, which had been joined by the chief of a neighbouring part of India-,
had been suppressed, and now, whilst Alexander was encamped among the
rivers of the Punjab, the hill tribes of the Swāt Valley threw off fear
and renounced allegiance. We may perhaps gather from a sentence in
a Greek textº that the satrap Nicanor was killed. The Indian Çaçigupta,
who held the fortress of Aornus for Alexander, sent urgent messages to the
Punjab. Macedonian forces came up in time to beat down the revolt,
from the neighbouring satrapy on the west under the Irānian Tyriespes, and
from the realm of Āmbhi under Philip? But even if this revolt was
suppressed, it was an indication of disruptive forces below the surface.
The rāja of Abhisāra, who had been too late to help the Paurava,
thought well to renew his assurances of loyalty to Alexander. A body of
envoys from Kashmir, headed by the rāja's brother, arrived in camp
with presents which included forty elephants.
They would also seem
to have brought back to Alexander his envoy Nicocles, whom the rāja had
retained by him, so long as the issue of the conflict with Porus was
doubtfult. Alexander, however, could now be satisfied with nothing short
of the rāja's own presence, and gave the envoys to understand that it
would be as well for him to come, or Alexander might come to look for
him.
When the satrap of Parthia, a Persian, had brought down a body of
Thracian reinforcements from Irān, Alexander moved across the Acesines
1 Cursius VIII, 13, 4. The Indian chief's name is Samaxus in the MS. : Hedicke
emends conjecturally Damaraxus.
2 Arrian V, 20, 7.
3 Acc. to Anspach, note 200, Philip, the governor of Pushkala, not=Philip the
satrap.
4 Au anon. Epit. Alex. M. rer. Çest. II, $ 55 f (Fleckeisen's Jahrbücher für klass,
Philol. XXVI, Supp. 1901, p. 105).
## p. 332 (#368) ############################################
332
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
(Chenāb), probably in the neighbourhood of Siālkot, having now nothing
but physical difficulties to contend with'. The passage of the river brought
him near the frontiers of the other Paurava. This chieftain's envoy had
been for some time past carrying Alexander his homage ; but his calcula-
tions had been completely upset when he saw the hated kinsman, whom he
had pictured humbled before him by the power of the foreigners, retained
at Alexander's side as an honoured friend. It made his own position
a dangerous one and he fled before the approach of the European". The
king pressed onwards to the next river, the Hydraātes (Rāvi), leaving,
of course, strong posts at various points behind him, to secure his com-
munications. From the banks of the Hydraõtes he detached a body
of troops under Hephaestion to occupy the territory of the fugitive Pau-
rava, and annex all the land between the Acesines and the Hydraõtes to the
realm of Porus his friend. Any free tribes within that region were to
be taught to recognise their new prince's authority. Hephaestion was also
to begin the walls of a city upon the Acesines - possibly: an older native
town commanding the road over the river, now to be rebuilt and fortified
on Hellenic principlest. Alexander himself passed on eastwards over the
Hydraūtes.
The European army kept near the foothills of the Himālayas,
marching through the country north of Amritsar. The region was one of
those held by free tribes, one which the Paurava, in the days before the
coming of the Europeans, had vainly tried to subdue. The first tribe
to whom the Europeans came, east of the Hydraõtes, the Adhộishtas”,
submitted ; but the powerful Kshatriyas, who had repelled the Paurava and
the rāja of Abhisāra combined, were not disposed to bow to the Yavanas
without a struggle. The fortified town called by the Greeks Sangala? was
chosen as the centre of resistance. The Kshatriyas who held it soon
1 The river would be in flood at this time, late June, Strabo XV, C. 692 ; Ans-
pach, p. 66.
2 To the Gandaridae, says Diod. XVII, 91. The people of the Ganges region are
probably meant. The statement which Strabo (XV, C. 699) gives as made by ‘some
people' (tives) that the principality of this Ponus was itself called Gandaris seems to
set upon a confusion.
3 As Anspach supposes (note 215).
4 Arr, v, 29, 3.
5 So Tomaschek interprets their Greek name 'AS palcal. 8. v. 'Adraistai' in
Pauly-Wissowa.
6 In most English books, we are told that the Cathaei (Kshatriyas) were allied
with the Malli and Oxydracae. (This is assumed by Dr Vincent Smith, The autonomous
tribes conquered by Alerānder, in the J. R. A. S. for 1903, p. 685 f. ). As a matter of
fact the phrase in Arrian V, 22, 2, και τονται κατα τα αντα Οξνδραkαι κτλ. does not
mean. The Cathae were allied with the Oxydracae etc. ,' but (as Mr. M'Crindle
correctly translates) 'The Catheans enjoyed the highest reputation for courage. . . and
the same war-like spirit characterised the Oxydracae etc. ' There is no evidence for
a confederation.
7 The site is uncertain. Anspach conjectures Jandiāla.
## p. 333 (#369) ############################################
Xv]
RĀJA SAUBHŪTI
333
found that the invaders drew the siege tight around it in deadly fashion.
But it was eventually not foreigners only whom they saw from their
walls. Their old Paurava enemy arrived in the Macedonian camp with a
force of elephants and five thousand Indian soldiers. He arrived in
time to see the Macedonian storm the city. Seventeen thousand of
the defenders, we are told, fell by the sword, whilst the captives surpassed
the enormous figure of 70,000. The inhabitants of other towns of the
Kshatriyas fed in a mass, althovgh Alexander sent his clever Greek
secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, to assure them of his clemency if they
submitted. Many succeeded in getting out of the country, but some
500 were overtaken by the Europeans and killed. Sangala was razed to
the ground, and the country made over to the Paurava.
Somewhere near the Kshatriya country, it would seem, lay the
principality, of the rāja Saubhūti, worthy to be set beside the Paurava, as
he is described to us, for goodliness of person and stature and for the
vigour of his administration'. In later days he struck coins with his name
in Greek as Sophytes? . It was now apparently that he first saw the
Yavanas as the invaders of his territory and had the prudence to make
friends with them. He entertained the Macedonian king with a splendour;
the strength and tenacity of his great hunting dogs, of which he gave
an exhibition, was what impressed the Europeans more than anything
else.
Still eastwards the European host marched and came to the fifth
river, the Hyphasis (modern Beās). The Sutlej remained (some 80 miles by
the road from Gurdāspur to Rūpar) as the only considerable river of the
Indus system after that to cross ; and then another river-system would be
reached, that which empties itself through the Ganges into the Eastern Sea.
Already the ears of Alexander were filled with accounts of the great
kingdom of Magadha on the Ganges, of its populousness and splendour and
power. His chief informant apparently was a rāja of the neighbourhood,
Bhagala, who had submitted to the invadert. Was it an enterprise which a
man in his senses could undertake, to attempt the subjugation of such
a country with an army already nearly three thousand miles from its home?
Some modern historians maintain that Alexander had too sound a sense of
1 The site of the domain of Saubhùti cannot be determined more precisely from
the contradictory statements of the Greek authorities. Dr. Vincent Smith uses the
statement of Strabo as to the mountain of salt (Strabo XV, C. 700) to fix the principality
to the Salt Range between the. Jhelum and the Indus. Against this identification is
the difficuty that the contradictory statements in sources all agree at any rate
in placing the principality east of the Jhelum. Even in Arrian VI, 2, 2 the royal
seat of Sopeithes is on the left bank of the river. The salt mines of Mandi, on the othe:
hand, to which Droysen refers, lie, one would think, much too far to the east.
2 V. inf. p. 348 and Pl. I, 17.
3 Diod. XVII, 91, 92.
4 Phegelis in MSS. of Curtius IX, 2, 2 ; Phegeus in Diod. XVII, 93. See Sylvain
Levi, Journ. Asiat. Sme ser, vol. XV (1890), p. 239.
our
## p. 334 (#370) ############################################
334
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
possibilities to have thought of it. But the ancient historians affirm
that he saw himself in anticipation arriving victorious at the utmost
bound of the earth on the Eastern Sea. We may believe that his astounding
success had indeed made nothing seem impossible to him, that his
judgment of things was no longer completely sane : we may also believe
that, although he knew some great and powerful nations stiil remained to
be subdued, before he could round off his conquest of the eastern world, he
did not know the full extent of the East - that further India, for instance,
and China lay together outside his knowledged. It is not unlikely that he
may seriously have thought it practicable to make himself king of the whole
inhabited earth. But on the banks of the Hyphasis (Beās), somewhere near
the modern Gurdāspur, an imperious check awaited him. The army,
which had followed him thus far, suddenly struck : all the personal
magnetism, all the stirring and indignant appeals of the king could
not induce the stout Macedonian countrymen to go a step further. For
three days he shut himself in his tent, and the battle of wills remained
in grim deadlock. At last the king recognised the bitter necessity of giving
up his ambitions half-fulfilled. To save his face probably, he offered
sacrifice again to the Greek gods, as preliminary to crossing the river
and then discovered that the omens were unfavourable. After that he
gave the word for the retreat. But first, in his romantic imaginative
vein, he made the army build twelve gigantic altars, like towers, upon the
banks of the Hyphasis, to show to future times how far into the East
Alexander had come. One account says that later on the Mauryan kings
used to offer sacrifice in the Yavana manner upon those altars. All trace
of them has long since disappeared.
So India, about the end of July 326 B c. ), saw the wave of European
invasion, which had washed thus far, begin to ebb, back to the Hydraõtes,
back to the Acesines, where a certain number of the Greek veterans were
ordered to fix themselves for good in the city which Hephaestion had been
building, back to the Hydaspes. The thoughts of Alexander were now
turning in another direction. If the most easterly waters of the Indus river-
system were for the time being to bound his empire, he would at any rate
pass along his frontier, pursue the course of the Indus to the Ocean and
return by the sea-board to Babylon. He had to organise the conquered
1 How hazy Alexander's geographical notions were at this time is shown by the
statement of Nearchus (who was in a position to know) that Alexander, on first
coming to the Acesines and seeing Egyptian beans there, supposed that this was the
same river which ultimately turned into the Nile. Strabo XV, C. 696.
2 Plut. Alex. 62. It is doubtful whether these altars were on the right or left
bank of the river. Pliny, VI, $ 62, puts them on the eastern bank, but the historians
say nothing of Alexander's crossing the Hyphasis. Plutarch's phrase about the
Mauryan kings, daßalvoutes(not daß UTES) ospouta: is ambiguous.
3 Anspach, note 269.
## p. 335 (#371) ############################################
Xv ]
THE RETURN
335
portion of India on a basis that would endure when the European army had
departed. And he forecast a different Punjab from the one he had found.
Instead of a multiplicity of rival princes and independent tribes, all the
country from the Hydaspes to the Hyphasis was to form one kingdom
under the Paurava. Another large principality was created for Āmbhi west
of the Hydaspes. Similarly in Kashmir, the rāja of Abhisāra, whose
embassies and presents had at last convinced Alexander of his loyalty, was
given extended authority, and his neighbouring rāja of Uraçā (Hazāra),
called by the Greeks Arsaces, was ordered to regard him as overlord. But
if the free tribes, as independent powers, were suppressed, Alexander would
leave a new element in the country, which might to some extent counter-
poise the power of the kings—the new cities of European men, or
Europeans and Indians mingled, plants of Hellenism in a strange soil. The
rudimentary walls of Bucephala and Nicaea on the Hydaspes Alexander
found on his return damaged by the rains, and the army had to build them
stronger before it moved in the new direction down the river.
The autumn at the new cities was spent in preparing a fleet? to trans-
port a part of the army and the horses by water. The conduct of this was
entrusted to the Cretun Nearchus. The rest of the army, now swelled by
reinforcements from the West? , was to accompany them on either bank.
Philip, the satrap of the province between the Hydaspes and the Hindu
Kush, was ordered to follow three days' journey behind with the force
under his command. The scene at setting out is described to us in some
detail. It was probably a day in November 326 B. C. At day break the king,
standing in the sight of all on the prow of his vessel, poured from a golden
bowl libations to the Rivers – the Hydaspes, the Acesines, and the Indus-
to Heracles his ancestor, to the Egyptain god Amun, and the deities, Greek
or foreign, whom he was wont to invoke. Then a trumpet sounded for the
start. The fleet presented a picture of impressive order, the grouping and
intervals being precisely regulated. But the extraordinary mixture of nation-
alities and garb must have satisfied the eye with variety and colour, while to
the ear the noise of the rowing and the shouts in a hundred different
tongues made a bewildering volume of sound. Amongst the crews of the
boats the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Cypriots were prominent.
Besides the Macedonian and greek troops, the Indians ran in crowds along
the banks, speeding the fleet with songs, 'in their barbaric way,' says the
Greek author. 'No nation,' he explains, ‘is fonder of singing and dancing
than the Indian3. '
This novel armada glided down the Hydaspes, past jungles and
villages, and in ten days from the start reached the confluence of the
1 On the varying statements as to the numbers of ships, see Anspach, note 278.
Anspach supposes that about a thousand is the most probable estimate.
2 Diod. XVII, 95, 4, Curt. IX, 3, 21. 3 Arr. VI, 3, 5,
## p. 336 (#372) ############################################
336
[CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Hydaspes and the Acesines. Two divisions under Hephaestion and Craterus
respectively marched along the two banks, and the satrap Philip, whc had
overtaken the fleet at its first balting, had been sent across to the Acesines
to march down this river to the confluence. Some of the peoples along the
banks - such as the Sibae, whose garb of shaggy skins and clubs made the
Europeans take them for descendants of the companions of their own
Heracles - offered submission. The resistance of others was easily
suppressed. But further down stream a strong confederation of free
tribes was awaiting the Europeans with a high courage. These were a
tribe, called Mālavas (in Greek Malloi)', between the lower Hydraõtes
and the Acesines, and the Kshudrakas (in Greek Oxydrakai) higher up the
Hydraõtes, between that river and the Hyphasis. The rapids at the
meeting of the Hydaspas and the Acesines gave some trouble to the fleet,
and two boats foundered. On the frontiers of the Mālavas the whole
European force - the fleet and the three divisions of Craterus, Hephaestion,
and Philip re-assembled. The fleet was now sent on under Nearchus three
days in advance with orders to wait for the land-force at the next
confluence, that of the Acesines and the Hydraõtes. The land-force was
broken up anew into different divisions for the attack on the Mālavas.
With a suddenness which disconcerted their plans the Indian tribesmen
found Alexander in their midst. The first of their cities to be attacked
was on the edge of a tract of sandy desert, from which one morning early
a force of mounted Macedonians, with the king as its head, broke
upon it, having ridden all night across the waste. And here first was
enacted what was repeated in city after city of the confederacy-the
attack, the capture, the massacre. Many of the inhabitants of these places
escaped to the jungles or across the Hydraõtes : many were captured by
the Macedonians in their flight and slaughtered. It was at the storming of
one of these towns that the king exposed his person in a way which
nearly cost his life. We may probably infer that the morale of the
European army, fighting across the interminable spaces of this strange
land, had begur ') decline, that such desperate expedients on the part
of the great leader were necessary. Alexander, reaching the top of the
1 The Mālavas of the Punjab and the Kshudrakas are associated in Sanskrit
literature.
2 Anspaca, note 316.
3 The place of the confluence in 326 B. C. has not been ascertained; see Vincent
Smith, pp. 92, 93. It would seem that so far geographical researches such as those of
Major G. H. Raverty (J. A. S. B. for 1892, pt. i) have a mainly negative value in showing
the rashness of the older identifications rather than a positive value in establishing new
ones. If either the statements in our texts had been loss vague or the river beds less
changeable the case would not have been so hopeless.
