In
winter, under circumstances that made regular provisioning impossible, by
extraordinary endurance it pushed through the hills and descended into
the Kābul valley.
winter, under circumstances that made regular provisioning impossible, by
extraordinary endurance it pushed through the hills and descended into
the Kābul valley.
Cambridge History of India - v1
292-3, 302-3) were represented in the host of Xerxes as well ; namely
the Bactrians, Sakai, Are)ioi, Gandarioi, Dadikai, Kaspioi, Sarangai,
Paktyes, occupying the Afghān region, and the Mykoi of Baluchistān
(Hdt. VII, 64-68). On the whole, therefore, we may conclude that the
eastern domain of the Persian Empire was much the same in its extent
under Xerxes in 480 B. C. as it had been in the reign of his great father? .
The period following the defeat of the Persian arms under Xerxes
by Greece marks the beginning of the decadence of the Achæmenian
Empire. For this reason it is easy to understand why there was no forward
movement on Persia's part in India, even though the Irānian sway in that
territory endured for a century and longer. Among other proofs of this
close and continued connexion may be mentioned the fact that Ctesias, who
was resident physician at the court about the beginning of the fourth century
B. C. , could hardly have written his Indica without the information he must
have received regarding India from envoys sent as tribute-bearers to the
Great King or from Persian officials who visited India on state business,
as well as from his intercourse with travellers and traders of the two
countries. If the work of Ctsias on India had been preserved in full, and
not merely in the epitome by Photius and in fragmentary citations by other
authors, we should be better informed to-day as to Persia's control over
Indian territory during the period under consideration
The fact, however, that this domination prevailed even to the end of
the Achæmenian sway in 330 B. c. is furthermore proved by the call
which Darius III, the last of the dynasty, was able to issue to Indian troops
when making his final stand at Arbela to resist the Greek invasion of Persia
by Alexander. According to Arrian (Anab. iii, 8. 3-6), some of the Indian
forces were grouped with their neighbours the Bactrians and with the
Sogdians under the command of the satrap of Bactria, whereas those who
were called ‘mountainous Indians' followed the satrap of Arachosia. The
Sakai appeared as independent allies under their leader Manakes. These
1 As a matter of curiosity it may be noted that Herodotus (vii, 187) says that an
immense number of Indian dogs followed the army of Xerxes in his Grecian invasion.
2 Later Jewish tradition has the same formulaic description for the empire of
Xerxes (Ahasuerus) as for that of Darius (cf. p. 304, above) ; thus in the Book of
Esther, I, 1 (cf. also VIII, 9), Xerxes is styled 'Ahasuerus which reigned from India
even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces'.
3 In this connexion compare M' Crindle, Ancient India as described by Ktesias,
pp. 3-4, London, 1882, noting certain details, for example, in $3-7.
4 The extant remains of the India are to be found in Ctesiae. . . Fragmenta, ed.
C. Müller, pp. 79. 105 (in his edition of Herodotus, Paris, 1844).
9
## p. 306 (#340) ############################################
306
(CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
frontier troops were supplemented by a small force of elephants belonging
to the Indians who lived this side of the Indus. '
Emphasis may be laid anew on the fact that the sphere of Persian in-
fluence in these early times can hardly have reached beyond the realm of
the Indus and its affluents We may assume, accordingly, that when
Alexander reached the river Hyphasis, the ancient Vipāç and modern Beās,
and was then forced by his own generals and soldiers to start upon his
retreat, he had touched the extreme eastern limits of the Persian domain,
over which he had triumphed throughout! . The interesting articles by
Dr. D. B. Spooner in the Jour. R. A. S. for 1915 (pp. 63-89, 405-455), entitled
The Zcroastrian Period of Indian History, make the strongest possible plea
for a far wider extension of Persian influence upon India in the early
historic period. While scholars are fully agreed to allow for the general and
far-reaching theory of Persian influence, they have not found themselves
prepared to accept many of the hypotheses put forward in Dr. Spooner's
two articles, as the criticisms which succeeded their publication shows.
With the downfall of the Achæmenian rule before the onslaught
of the conqueror from Macedon ends the first chapter in the story of
the relations between India and Persia. It belongs elsewhere to indicate
those which existed under the successors of Alexander, under the Parthian
and Sassanian sovereigns, and down through Muhammadan times, until, in
the eighteenth century, a Persian invader like Nadir Shāh could carry
off the Peacock Throne of the Mughals and deck his crown with the
Koh-i-Nür.
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
Whatever were the actual limits of Persian power in India, it is certain
that within these limits the money of the Persian kings must have been
current. At the same time it is not easy to support the general statement by
definite facts. Properly authenticated records of finds áre virtually unknown.
Nor can over-much reliance be placed on deductions drawn from the
occurrence of individual specimens in collections that have been formed in
North-western India. Before the construction of the Russian railways
in Central Asia the waifs and strays of commerce, like gold and silver coins
from Bukhāra and Khorāsān, naturally drifted over the mountain-passes of
Afghānistān into the Punjab as the nearest profitable market. Once they had
arrived there, however, the dealers into whose hands they came were free to
assign to them the provenance that seemed most likely to enhance their
1 For the situation, see Chapter xv, pp. 333-4, and refer to the map.
2 V. A. Smith. J. R. A. S. 1915, pp. 800-802 ; Keith ibid. 1916, pp. 138. 143 ;
Thomas, ibid. pp. 362-366 ; Nimrod,' The Modern Review, Calcutta, 1916, pp. 372-376,
490-498, 597-600.
9
## p. 307 (#341) ############################################
XIV]
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
307
>
>
price, a circumstance that renders it difficult to appraise the value of
the scanty evidence available. For reasons that will presently appear, the
two precious metals can best be considered separately.
The standard gold coin of Ancient Persia was the daric, which
bore upon the obverse a figure of the Great King hastening through
his dominions, armed with bow and spear; and upon the reverse an irregular
oblong incuse. It weighed about 130 grains (8:42 grammes), and was in all
probability first minted by Darius Hystaspes, the monarch who was respon-
sible for adding the valley of the Indus to the empire. From its infancy,
therefore, the daric would have ready access to the country beyond
the Hindu Kush. At the same time there was an important economic reason
which would militate against its extensive circulation in these regions.
Gold was abundant there, so abundant that for many centuries its value
relatively to silver was extraordinarily low. There are grounds for believing
that during the period of the Persian dominion the ratio was no higher
than 1:8, as compared with the norm of 1 : 13:3 maintained by the
imperial mint. Such daries as made their way thither would thus consti-
tute an artificially inflated currency, and would tend to be exported again
on the earliest possible opportunity. There was no temptation to accumu-
late them, when they could be exchanged elsewhere for silver at so very
substantial a profit. The conclusion here suggested is fully borne out by the
actual phenomena. Persian gold has never been discovered in any quantity
in India ; the hoards of 'darics’ sometimes said to have been found in
the eighteenth century can be shown to have consisted of Gupta coins. Iso-
lated examples have, indeed, been picked up sporadically; the daric reprc-
duced on Pl. I, 1, is from the Cunningham Collection. But it is significant
that in no single instance do these bear countermarks or any other
indication that could possibly be interpreted as suggestive of a prolonged
Indian sojourn.
The corresponding silver coinage consisted of sigloi or shekels, twenty
of which were equivalent to a daric. They had a maximum weight of
86. 45 grains (5. 6 grammes), and had the same types as the gold (Pl. I, 2, 3).
Sigloi are frequently offered for sale by Indian dealers, and it is a reason-
able inference that they are fairly often disinterred from the soil of India
itself. That is precisely what might be expected from the working of
economic law. The relative cheapness of gold would act like a lodestone.
Silver coins from the west would flow into the country freely, and would
remain in active circulation. At one time confirmation seemed to be
provided by the surviving sigloi. Many of them - including, it should
be added, a very large proportion that are not directly of Indian pro-
venance-are distinguished by the presence of peculiar countermarks which
were thought to have their closest analogy on the square-shaped pieces of
.
## p. 308 (#342) ############################################
308
[CH, XIV
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
silver that constitute the oldest native coinage of India'. The punch-marks
on the native Indian coins (Pl. I, 4, 5) appear to have been affixed partly
by the local authority of the district in which the money was used, but
to a much larger extent by the merchants or money-changers through
whose hands it passed. The practice was plainly designed to obviate
the necessity for repeated weighing. As this advantage would be as
pronounced in the case of the sigloi as in the case of the indigenous issues,
it would not have been surprising to find that they had been subjected to
similar treatment. M. Babelon has, however, expressed the view that
the punch-marked sigloi should, as a rule, be associated with Lycia,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Cyprus. And it must be admitted that the results
of the most recent investigation? rather tend to bear out this opinion. The
resemblance to the Indian punch-marks remains noteworthy, but proof of
absolute identity is lacking
1 Rapson J. R. A. S. 1895, pp. 865 ff.
2 Hill, J. H. S. 1919, pp. 125 ff.
## p. 308 (#343) ############################################
## p. 308 (#344) ############################################
## p. 309 (#345) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
In the fourth century B. C. there is a sudden rift in the mists which
envelop the ancient history of India. The regions disclosed are the Kābul
Valley, the foothills through which the Five Rivers come down into the
plains of the Punjab, the plains themselves, and the lower course of the
Indus. The country, as we see it, is held partly by a number of independent
tribes, governed by their own headmen and owning the authority of no king.
But this primitive aristocratic type of community is holding its own with
difficulty against another type of government, the monarchic. In parts
of the country principalities have been formed under despotic rājas, and
between the different elements a struggle with varying vicissitudes is going
on. The rājas are fighting to extend their authority over the free tribes and
the free tribes are fighting to repel the rājas. The rājas are also fighting
amongst themselves, and mutual jealousies lead to politic alliances accord-
ing to the necessities of the moment; we divine in this little world a conflict
and shifting of antagonistic groups such as we can follow on a larger scale
in the history of Europe. It is into this world that the Western invader
plunges in 326 B. C.
About ten miles north-west from where Rāwalpindi now stands
stood, in the fourth century B. C. , the city of Takshaçilā (Taxila), long
eminent among the cities of India as a great seat of learning. In the year
327 it was the capital of a rāja, whose principality lay between the Indus
and its tributary the Jhelum (the ancient Vitastā, the Hydaspes of the
Greeks)'. Like Rāwalpindi to day, Takshaçilā guarded the chief gate of
India from the north-west: it was the first great Indian city at which
1 Although the courses of the great rivers of the Punjab have greatly changed in
historical times and are still changing, their names may be traced with certainty from
the Age of the Rigveda down to the present day. Those which are chiefly important
in the history of Alexander's Indian campaign are :
Ancient Indian
Greek Latin
Modern
Sindhu.
'Ivobs,
Indus.
Indus.
Kubhā.
Κωφην,
Cophen.
Kābul,
Suvāstu.
Σοαστος, Soastus.
Vitastā.
‘ydàrins, Hydaspes.
Jhelum.
Asikni, later Chandrabhāgā. ’Aksoivre, Acesines.
Chenāb.
Parushṇī, later Irāvati.
'yogantys, Hydrates
Rāvi.
Vipāç, later Vipācā.
"Ύφασις, Hyphasis.
Beās
Çutudri.
Zagados, Zaradrus, Hesydrus. Sutlej.
Swat,
309
## p. 310 (#346) ############################################
310
[CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
merchants who had come down the Kābul Valley and crossed the Indus
about Attock arrived, three days' journey beyond the river. Its ruler was
the first among the kings of the Punjab to hear any tidings which might
come down from the highlands of Afghānistān of events happening behind
those tremendous mountain walls. For many generations now the Punjab
must have had some knowledge of what went on in the dominions of the
King of Kings. For the Persian Empire founded two centuries before by
Cyrus had been a huger realm than had ever, so far as we know, existed in
the world under the hand of one man, and the power and glory of the
man who ruled it, the splendour of Ecbatana and Persepolis, must have
been carried by fame over the neighbouring lands.
The rājas of Takshaçilā must therefore have long lent an ear to the
rumbling of wars and rebellions which came across the western mountains.
They may indeed have known next to nothing of what went on at the
further extremities of the Persian Empire ; for the same realm which at its
utmost extension eastward touched the Indus reached at its other end the
Aegean and Black Seas ; and the great monarchic Empires of the east are
conglomerations too loosely organised for the troubles of one province to
be necessarily felt in the more distant ones. The Indian princes may there-
fore have been ignorant of the fact that the Persian king at the other end of
his realm had come into contact with a singular people settled in a
quantity of little republics over the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula,
along the coasts of Asia Minor, and in the intermediate islands, the people
whom the Persians called collectively Yavanas (Ionians). We do not know
whether it even produced any considerable shock on the banks of the Indus,
when a century and a half before 334 B. c. the Persian king had led his
armies to disaster in the land of the Yavanas, although those armies
included Indian tribesmen torn by Persi
torn by Persian officers from the frontier hills,
whose bones were destined to find their last resting-place on the field of
Plataea thousands of miles away. Of the long struggle which went on for
generations after that between the Yavana republics, especially the one
called Athens, and the western satraps of the Great King perhaps no
rumour was brought down the Kabul valley to Takshaçilā.
But in 334 B. C. and tbe following years the struggle between Persia
and the Yavanas took a turn which must have made talk even in the pala-
ces and bazaars of the Punjab. The Indian princes learnt that a Yavana king
had arisen in the utmost West strong enough to drive the Great King from
his throne. It may be that the western provinces, Asia Minor and Egypt,
were torn away in 331, 333 and 332 B. c. by the invader without yet bring.
ing the Indian princes to realise that so huge a fact in the world as the
Persian Empire was about to vanish. But there can have been no mistaking
the magnitude of the catastrophe, when Darius III was flying northward
for his life, when Alexander had occupied the central seats of government
## p. 311 (#347) ############################################
XV )
FROM KANDHAR TO KĀBUL
311
and set Persepolis on fire (330 B. C. ). If this man from the West was going
to claim the whole heritage of the Achaemenian kings, that would make him
the neighbour of the princes of India. It must have been a concern to
the rāja of Takshaçilā and his fellow-kings to learn in what direction the
victorious Yavana host would move next. And in fact the tidings came
before long that it was moving nearer. When the winter of 330 fell,
it was encamped in Seistān, and with the spring moved to the uplands
which to-day constitute the southern part of Afghānistān. Here the
awe-struck inhabitants, Pashtus probably, ancestors of the modern Afghāns
saw the European strangers set about a work which indicated a resolve
to make themselves at home for all time in these lands won by their
spear. They saw them begin to construct a city after the manner of the
Yavanas at a point commanding the roads; and when the rest of the
host had gone onward, there a body of Europeans remained, established
behind the fresh-built walls. If we may judge by analogies, some thousands
of the native people were induced by force or persuasion to settle side
by side with them in the new city. It was only one of the chain of cities
which marked the track of conquering Hellenism. Like many of the
others, this too was given the name of the conqueror. In the speech of
the Greeks it was known as Alexandria-among-the-Arachosians. To-day
we call it Kandahār.
A mountain barrier still separated the Yavana host at Kandahār
in the summer of 329 from the Kābul valley, that is to say, from the river
system of the Indus. And it would seem that, when the passes filled
with the first winter snows, the Yavanas had not yet crossed it. But the
army led by Alexander was one which defied ordinary obstacles.
In
winter, under circumstances that made regular provisioning impossible, by
extraordinary endurance it pushed through the hills and descended into
the Kābul valley. The princes of the Punjab might feel that the outlandish
host stood indeed at the door.
But Alexander, having reached the Kābyl valley in the winter of
329-8, did not make an immediate advance upon India. Beyond the
mountain range which forms the northern side of the valley, the Hindu
Kush, lay the extreme provinces of the old Persian Empire towards the
north-east-Bactria (whose name still survives in the city of Balkh) and the
country now called Bukhāra. Not only were these provinces still unsubdued
but the Persian cause was upheld there by a prince of the old blood royal.
Alexander must beat down that opposition, before he could think of
invading India. He waited therefore for the rest of the winter in the
Kābul valley, till the spring should unblock the passes of the Hindu Kush.
And again here the inhabitants saw the Europeans make preparations
1 γπό “IIλειάδος δνσιν, Strabo, XV, C. 725. .
2 Diod. XVII, 82 ; Curt. VII, 3, 12.
1
## p. 312 (#348) ############################################
312
I ch.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
for permanent settlement. At the foot of the Hindu Kush, whence three
roads to Bactria radiatel, on the site probably of the still existing village
of Charikār, rose another Alexandria, Alexandria-under-the-Cauca. us. In
support of the Yavana colony to be left in this town, other little settlements
were established at points a day's journey off in what were henceforth to
be Greek towns ; Cartana, noted for the rectangular precision with which
its walls we traced out (modern Begrām, according to Cunningham) and
Cadrusi (Koratas ? ) are names given us. In this case we have an express
statement that 7000 of the people of the land were to be incorporated
as citizens of the new towns with those of Alexander's mercenaries who
cared to settle in this region 2800 miles away from their old home.
Another new city, or old city transformed with a new Greek :ame,
Nicaea, occupied apparently some site between Alexandria and the Kābul
rivers
As soon as the snow was melted enough to make the Khawak Pass
practicable, the Yavan ı arıny trailed up the Panjshir valley, leaving little
bodies of Europeans behind it to hold the Kābul valley under a Persian
satrap and a Macedonian episkopos. The main body of the army once
more contended with the hardships of a passage over the high ridges and
disappeared to the northwards. During the following twelve months (May
328 to May 327) such news of it as reached India showed that the Yavana
king still prevailed against all enemies. As far as the Syr Daria (Jazartes)
the peoples of Eastern Irān were broken before him. In the early spring of
327 he was again moving to the south.
The rāja of Takshaçilā must have realised at this juncture that
a momentous choice lay before him. It may be that the idea of a common
Indian nationality, in whose cause he and his brother kings might stand
together against the stranger, did not even occur to him : India was
too large and too disunited for the mind to embrace it as a unity. But he
might well tremble for his own power, if this new resistless deluge came
bursting into the land. On the other hand it might perhaps be turned to
his account. His policy was largely governed by his antagonism to the rival
1 Cunningham, Ancient Geography, p. 24.
2 Diod. XVII, 83 ; Curt. VII, 3, 23, according to the MSS, bas 'vii millibus seni.
orum Macedonum. ' Hedieke in the Teubner text amends this, perhaps too boldiy, as
VII millibus subactarum nationum. '
3 The discussions of Dr Vincent Smith and of Sir Thomas Holdich as to the site
of Nicaea-the former puts it at Jalālābād and the latter at Kābul—are invalidated by
the fact that Nicaea, if we follow Arrian, was not on the river Kābul at all. Alexander
from Nicaea advances towards the Kābul; aơ:kousvos és Nikaiav. . . po-Xúper us ezt
vov Kuova. IV, 22, 6. Mr M-Crindle curiously omits the words in his translation. Not
Nicaea, but some place on the way to the river Kābul, was where the army was divided.
4 Holdich, Gates of India, p. 88.
.
## p. 313 (#349) ############################################
Xv]
THE RAJA OF TAKSHAÇILA
313
prince of the Pauraval house (Porus), who ruled on the other side of the
Hydaspes (Jhelum). The Paurava was indeed a neighbour to be dreaded.
He is described to us as a man of gigantic and powerful build, a warrior-
chief, such as in an unsettled world extends his power by aggressive
ambition and proud courage. He had conceived the idea of building up
for himself a great kingdom, and he was the man to realise it. He had
already made an attempt to crush the free tribes to the east, pushing his
advance even beyond the Hydraotes (Rāvi), in alliance with the raja of
the Abhisāra country (corresponding roughly with the Pūnch and Naoshera
districts in Kashmir) and with many of the free tribes whom he had
drawn into vassalage swelling his army, although the resistance he there
encountered from the Kshatriyas had made him temporarily give backs.
His hand had perhaps also reached westward across the Hydaspes into the
country which the rāja of Takshaçilā considered bis own'. It might well
seem to the rāja of Takshaçilā that, threatened on the one side by the
Paurava and on the other side by the European invader, his safest course
lay in allying himself with the European, riding on the crest of the wave
that would sweep his rival to destruction.
And yet the European host which had emerged out of the unknown
West to shatter the Persian Empire may have appcared too unfamiliar and
incalculable a power to make the decision easy. But, if the rāja hesitated,
his son Āmbhi (Omphis) had a clear opinion as to what the situation
required. He pressed his father to place his principality at the Yavana
king's disposal. While Alexander was still in Bukhāra, Āmbhi began to
negotiate on his own account. Envoys from Takshaçilā made their way
over the ridges of the Hindu Kush. They were charged with the message
that Āmbhi was ready to march by Alexander's side against any Indians
who might refuse to submit. Thus the European, at his first arrival at the
Gates of India, found India divided against itself. It was the hand of an
Indian prince, which unharred the door to the invader.
The summer of 327 B. C. was almost come before the hillmen of the
Hindu Kush saw the Yavana army re-appear on the ridges, cross prob-
ably by the Kushan Pass? , and stream down to the new Alexandria.
The satrap who had been left here was found to have done badly, and
Alexander appointed another in his place, Tyriespes, a Persian like his
predecessor. The population of the city was enlarged by drawing in more
1 Paurava is a title denoting the chief of the Pūrus, a tribe known in Vedic times
(v sup. Chapter IV, pp. 74 f. ).
2 In Greek Kathajoi, see Lassen, vol. II, p. 167. The general designation of the
warrior caste seems to be applied in this case to a particular people.
3 Arrian V, 22.
4 See Anspach, note 125.
5 See Sylvain Levi in Journal Asiatique, &me Serie XV (1890), p. 2341 .
6 'EŠ KOUTOS 987 Tou pos, Arr. IV, 22, 3.
? Strabo XV, Ç 697; Cunningham, Ancient Geography, p. 25.
## p. 314 (#350) ############################################
314
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
of the people of the land and setting down there more war-worn European
veterans. The work of making a city of Greek type bad really only been
begun, and a Macedonian of high rank, Nicanor', was now appointed to
see it carried through.
The army moved on from Alexandria to Nicaea, where Alexander
sacrificed to the Greek goddess Athena. From Nicaea he sent on a herald
to the rāja of Takshaçilā and the native princes west of the Indus to meet
him in the Kābul Valley. We know of one Indian chief, Çaçigupta
(Sisikottos), already in the conqueror's train. His had been probably
some little hill-state on the slopes of the Hindu Kush, whence he had gone
two years since, to help the Irānians in Bactria against Alexander. When
their cause was lost, he had gone over to the European. Messengers now
summoned the other chieftains of the lower Kābul Valley to meet their
overlord. At Takshaçilā too messengers appeared with the summops. And
the rāja, acting on the policy which his son had espoused so decisively,
rose up to obey.
Encamped in the Kābul Valley at some place not named the rāja of
Takshaçilā saw the hosi destined for the invasion of his mother-land. It
numbered, at the lowest estimate, from twenty-five to thirty thousand
menº -a strangely compounded army, which can only be called European
with qualification. Its strength indeed consisted in the Macedonian regi.
ments, stout yeomen and peasants carrying the long spear of the heavy-
arme I footsoldier, and troops of splendidly disciplined cavalry drawn from
the aristocracy of the country, the Companions' of the national King.
Euro, can too were the thousands of soldiers from the Greek cities, serving
as mercenaries, on foot or mounted, and the contingents of semi-barbarous
hillmen from the Balkans, Agrianes and Thracians, serving as light troops-
slingers. javelineers, and bowmen-invaluable for mountain warfare.
mingled with the Europeans were men of many nations. Here were troops
of horsemen, representing the chivalry of Irān, which had followed
Alexander from Bactria and beyond, Pashtus and men of the Hindu Kush
with their highland-bred horses', Central-Asiatics who could ride and
1 Dr Vincent Smith (Early History of India, 3rd edition, p. 49) seems to be in
error in identifying this Nicanor with the son of Parmenio.
2 The numbers in the ancient texts are often untrustworthy. The estimate in the
text is Delbrück's, Geschichte der Kriegskunst (1900), vol. I, p. 184. Anspach (note 20),
combining Arrian, Ind. 19, 5 with Diod. XVII, 95, reckons the ariny in the Kābul
Valley at about 85,000. Delbrück denies that so large an army with the necessary
camp-followers could have got across the Hindu Kush. This is a point for practical
strategists. Whether Plutarch's number (Alex. 56) is correct or not, he does not say, as
Or. Vincent Smith, p. 49, inadvertently quotes him, that Alexander entered India with
120,000 foot and 15,000 horres, but that Alexander left India with that number.
Reinforcements had been arriving from the West in the meantime,
3 Arr. IV, 17, 3.
4 Ib. V, 11, 3.
## p. 315 (#351) ############################################
XV]
FROM KABUL TO THE INDUS
315
His army
shoot at the same timel; and among the camp-followers one could find
groups representing the older civilisations of the world, Phoenicians inherit-
ing an immemorial tradition of ship-craft and trade, bronzed Egyptians
able to confront the Indians with an antiquity still longer than their own.
There was nothing to arrest this army between the point they had
now reached and the Indus. The local chieftains had indicated their sub-
mission. All along the north side of the Kābul however lay the hills, whose
inhabitants in their rock citadels, in the valleys of the Kūnar, the Panj.
kora, and the Swāt, were unschooled to recognise an overlord, and as pre-
pared to give trouble to anyone who tried to incorporate them in an
imperial system as their Pathān successors of a later day. But it was not
Alexander's way to leave unsubducd regions beside his road.
therefore broke up into two divisions. One, commanded by Hephaestion,
the king's friend, and Perdiccas, the proudest of the Macedonian nobles,
moved to the Indus by the most direct route. This would probably mean
a route along the south bank of the Kābul, whether through the actual
Khyber Pass or not? ; the other, led by the king himself, turned up into
the hills. The two divisions were to rejoin each other upon the Indus;
Hephaestion and Perdiccas, arriving there first, it was calculated would
have made all preparations for the passage of the great river.
The Europeans who had followed Alexander so far into Asia now
entered the region in which the armies of the English operate to-day. At
that season of the year the hill-country must have been bitterly cold, and
probably to some extent under snow. It was the same hill-country whose
contours and tracks and points of vantage are studied now by British
commanders ; the tough highlander of the Balkans or of Crete climbed and
skirmished with bow and javelin in 327 B. C. where the Scottish highlander
was to climb and skirmish with rifle and bayonet two thousand two
hundred years later. And yet it is impossible to follow the track of
Alexander, over these hills with any precision. We hear of little moun-
tain towns stormed, of others abandoned by their inhabitants. But their
sites cannot be identified. One must however note that at this point Alex-
ander, in an ethnographical sense, entered India ; for these hills, whose
population at the present day is either Afghān or Kāfir, seem then to have
been possessed by Indian tribes. The Açvakas, as their name apparently
was in their native speech, were the first Indian people to receive the brunt
1 16. IV. 24, 1.
2 Dr Vincent Smith says that he did not go by the Khyber and cites Sir Thomas
Holdich in support of the assertion. Sir Thomas in his more recent book, Gates of India
(p. 94), says that he ‘urdoubtedly followed the main route which. . . is sufficiently well
indicated in these days as the “Khaibar". '
3 Metà svo uàs II Letà dwv, Aristobulus ap. Strabo XV, C. 691.
## p. 316 (#352) ############################################
316
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
[ch.
of the invasion? . The fighting seems to have been of exceptional ferocity.
At one place, where Alexander was wounded, the whole population was
put to the sword. At another place we hear of a huge massacre, and 40,000
men taken captive. At a third place a body of Indians from the Punjab
had come to help the local chieftain for bire. When the town capitulated, it
was agreed that these mercenaries should transfer their services to Alexan-
der. They encamped on a little hill apart. There, as they talked together,
it seemed to them a horrible thing that they should march with the Yara-
nas against their own people. They determined to slip away, when night
fell, and make across the hills for home. But when night fell, they found
the hill beset on all sides with the soldiers of Alexander ; for some one had
betrayed their design. The Macedonians suffered none of them to live till
morning?
The town with which this incident is connected the Greeks call
Massaga. We know only that it was situated east of the Guraeus river and
apparently not far from the stream. The resistance which the eastern-most
branch of the h. ll-people, those called by the Greeks Assakēnoi, offered
to the invader seems to have been concentrated at this place. All
these tribes, as far as the Indus, recognised as overlord a chief whom the
Greeks call Assakēnos. His organisation for defence included an alliance with
the king of the Abhisāra country beyond the Indus, who sent contingents
to his support3. Assakēnos had himself taken command at Massaga, and
fell there, struck by a missile from one of the European siegemachines'.
His mother and daughter were left in the enemies' hands• ; but it was not
among Alexander's faults to fail in chivalry to the women whom war put
at his mercy.
1 In the Greek accounts a people called Aspasioi are found in Choes (either the
Alishang or Kūnar) Valley and a people called Assakenoi in the Swāt Valley. Both
names are supposed to represent the same Indian name Açvaka, connected with
açia
horse. If so, the two Greek names may be due to local varieties of pronunciation, and
it may be noted that the form Aspasioi would then approximate to Irānian speech, in
which aspa is the equivalent of aqua. Strabo, according to the MSS. (XV, C. 691,
C. 698), calls the Aspasioi Hypasioi ; this is often amended in modern texts to Hippasioi,
on the supposition that the Greeks knew their hippos to be the etymological equivalent
of aspa and attempted a translation. This is extremely unlike the Greek way in these
matters. The confusion is made worse by another people called Astakenoi appearing
in the Pushkalāvati region, whose name is supposed not to be connected etymologically
with that of their neighbours, the Assakenoi.
2 Arr. IV 27 ; Diod. XVII, 84 ; Plut. Alex. 69 ; Polyaen. Strateg. IV, 3, 20.
3 Arr. IV, 27, 7.
4 Arr. IV, 27, 2.
5 Arr. IV, 27, 4.
the Bactrians, Sakai, Are)ioi, Gandarioi, Dadikai, Kaspioi, Sarangai,
Paktyes, occupying the Afghān region, and the Mykoi of Baluchistān
(Hdt. VII, 64-68). On the whole, therefore, we may conclude that the
eastern domain of the Persian Empire was much the same in its extent
under Xerxes in 480 B. C. as it had been in the reign of his great father? .
The period following the defeat of the Persian arms under Xerxes
by Greece marks the beginning of the decadence of the Achæmenian
Empire. For this reason it is easy to understand why there was no forward
movement on Persia's part in India, even though the Irānian sway in that
territory endured for a century and longer. Among other proofs of this
close and continued connexion may be mentioned the fact that Ctesias, who
was resident physician at the court about the beginning of the fourth century
B. C. , could hardly have written his Indica without the information he must
have received regarding India from envoys sent as tribute-bearers to the
Great King or from Persian officials who visited India on state business,
as well as from his intercourse with travellers and traders of the two
countries. If the work of Ctsias on India had been preserved in full, and
not merely in the epitome by Photius and in fragmentary citations by other
authors, we should be better informed to-day as to Persia's control over
Indian territory during the period under consideration
The fact, however, that this domination prevailed even to the end of
the Achæmenian sway in 330 B. c. is furthermore proved by the call
which Darius III, the last of the dynasty, was able to issue to Indian troops
when making his final stand at Arbela to resist the Greek invasion of Persia
by Alexander. According to Arrian (Anab. iii, 8. 3-6), some of the Indian
forces were grouped with their neighbours the Bactrians and with the
Sogdians under the command of the satrap of Bactria, whereas those who
were called ‘mountainous Indians' followed the satrap of Arachosia. The
Sakai appeared as independent allies under their leader Manakes. These
1 As a matter of curiosity it may be noted that Herodotus (vii, 187) says that an
immense number of Indian dogs followed the army of Xerxes in his Grecian invasion.
2 Later Jewish tradition has the same formulaic description for the empire of
Xerxes (Ahasuerus) as for that of Darius (cf. p. 304, above) ; thus in the Book of
Esther, I, 1 (cf. also VIII, 9), Xerxes is styled 'Ahasuerus which reigned from India
even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces'.
3 In this connexion compare M' Crindle, Ancient India as described by Ktesias,
pp. 3-4, London, 1882, noting certain details, for example, in $3-7.
4 The extant remains of the India are to be found in Ctesiae. . . Fragmenta, ed.
C. Müller, pp. 79. 105 (in his edition of Herodotus, Paris, 1844).
9
## p. 306 (#340) ############################################
306
(CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
frontier troops were supplemented by a small force of elephants belonging
to the Indians who lived this side of the Indus. '
Emphasis may be laid anew on the fact that the sphere of Persian in-
fluence in these early times can hardly have reached beyond the realm of
the Indus and its affluents We may assume, accordingly, that when
Alexander reached the river Hyphasis, the ancient Vipāç and modern Beās,
and was then forced by his own generals and soldiers to start upon his
retreat, he had touched the extreme eastern limits of the Persian domain,
over which he had triumphed throughout! . The interesting articles by
Dr. D. B. Spooner in the Jour. R. A. S. for 1915 (pp. 63-89, 405-455), entitled
The Zcroastrian Period of Indian History, make the strongest possible plea
for a far wider extension of Persian influence upon India in the early
historic period. While scholars are fully agreed to allow for the general and
far-reaching theory of Persian influence, they have not found themselves
prepared to accept many of the hypotheses put forward in Dr. Spooner's
two articles, as the criticisms which succeeded their publication shows.
With the downfall of the Achæmenian rule before the onslaught
of the conqueror from Macedon ends the first chapter in the story of
the relations between India and Persia. It belongs elsewhere to indicate
those which existed under the successors of Alexander, under the Parthian
and Sassanian sovereigns, and down through Muhammadan times, until, in
the eighteenth century, a Persian invader like Nadir Shāh could carry
off the Peacock Throne of the Mughals and deck his crown with the
Koh-i-Nür.
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
Whatever were the actual limits of Persian power in India, it is certain
that within these limits the money of the Persian kings must have been
current. At the same time it is not easy to support the general statement by
definite facts. Properly authenticated records of finds áre virtually unknown.
Nor can over-much reliance be placed on deductions drawn from the
occurrence of individual specimens in collections that have been formed in
North-western India. Before the construction of the Russian railways
in Central Asia the waifs and strays of commerce, like gold and silver coins
from Bukhāra and Khorāsān, naturally drifted over the mountain-passes of
Afghānistān into the Punjab as the nearest profitable market. Once they had
arrived there, however, the dealers into whose hands they came were free to
assign to them the provenance that seemed most likely to enhance their
1 For the situation, see Chapter xv, pp. 333-4, and refer to the map.
2 V. A. Smith. J. R. A. S. 1915, pp. 800-802 ; Keith ibid. 1916, pp. 138. 143 ;
Thomas, ibid. pp. 362-366 ; Nimrod,' The Modern Review, Calcutta, 1916, pp. 372-376,
490-498, 597-600.
9
## p. 307 (#341) ############################################
XIV]
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
307
>
>
price, a circumstance that renders it difficult to appraise the value of
the scanty evidence available. For reasons that will presently appear, the
two precious metals can best be considered separately.
The standard gold coin of Ancient Persia was the daric, which
bore upon the obverse a figure of the Great King hastening through
his dominions, armed with bow and spear; and upon the reverse an irregular
oblong incuse. It weighed about 130 grains (8:42 grammes), and was in all
probability first minted by Darius Hystaspes, the monarch who was respon-
sible for adding the valley of the Indus to the empire. From its infancy,
therefore, the daric would have ready access to the country beyond
the Hindu Kush. At the same time there was an important economic reason
which would militate against its extensive circulation in these regions.
Gold was abundant there, so abundant that for many centuries its value
relatively to silver was extraordinarily low. There are grounds for believing
that during the period of the Persian dominion the ratio was no higher
than 1:8, as compared with the norm of 1 : 13:3 maintained by the
imperial mint. Such daries as made their way thither would thus consti-
tute an artificially inflated currency, and would tend to be exported again
on the earliest possible opportunity. There was no temptation to accumu-
late them, when they could be exchanged elsewhere for silver at so very
substantial a profit. The conclusion here suggested is fully borne out by the
actual phenomena. Persian gold has never been discovered in any quantity
in India ; the hoards of 'darics’ sometimes said to have been found in
the eighteenth century can be shown to have consisted of Gupta coins. Iso-
lated examples have, indeed, been picked up sporadically; the daric reprc-
duced on Pl. I, 1, is from the Cunningham Collection. But it is significant
that in no single instance do these bear countermarks or any other
indication that could possibly be interpreted as suggestive of a prolonged
Indian sojourn.
The corresponding silver coinage consisted of sigloi or shekels, twenty
of which were equivalent to a daric. They had a maximum weight of
86. 45 grains (5. 6 grammes), and had the same types as the gold (Pl. I, 2, 3).
Sigloi are frequently offered for sale by Indian dealers, and it is a reason-
able inference that they are fairly often disinterred from the soil of India
itself. That is precisely what might be expected from the working of
economic law. The relative cheapness of gold would act like a lodestone.
Silver coins from the west would flow into the country freely, and would
remain in active circulation. At one time confirmation seemed to be
provided by the surviving sigloi. Many of them - including, it should
be added, a very large proportion that are not directly of Indian pro-
venance-are distinguished by the presence of peculiar countermarks which
were thought to have their closest analogy on the square-shaped pieces of
.
## p. 308 (#342) ############################################
308
[CH, XIV
ANCIENT PERSIAN COINS IN INDIA
silver that constitute the oldest native coinage of India'. The punch-marks
on the native Indian coins (Pl. I, 4, 5) appear to have been affixed partly
by the local authority of the district in which the money was used, but
to a much larger extent by the merchants or money-changers through
whose hands it passed. The practice was plainly designed to obviate
the necessity for repeated weighing. As this advantage would be as
pronounced in the case of the sigloi as in the case of the indigenous issues,
it would not have been surprising to find that they had been subjected to
similar treatment. M. Babelon has, however, expressed the view that
the punch-marked sigloi should, as a rule, be associated with Lycia,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Cyprus. And it must be admitted that the results
of the most recent investigation? rather tend to bear out this opinion. The
resemblance to the Indian punch-marks remains noteworthy, but proof of
absolute identity is lacking
1 Rapson J. R. A. S. 1895, pp. 865 ff.
2 Hill, J. H. S. 1919, pp. 125 ff.
## p. 308 (#343) ############################################
## p. 308 (#344) ############################################
## p. 309 (#345) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
In the fourth century B. C. there is a sudden rift in the mists which
envelop the ancient history of India. The regions disclosed are the Kābul
Valley, the foothills through which the Five Rivers come down into the
plains of the Punjab, the plains themselves, and the lower course of the
Indus. The country, as we see it, is held partly by a number of independent
tribes, governed by their own headmen and owning the authority of no king.
But this primitive aristocratic type of community is holding its own with
difficulty against another type of government, the monarchic. In parts
of the country principalities have been formed under despotic rājas, and
between the different elements a struggle with varying vicissitudes is going
on. The rājas are fighting to extend their authority over the free tribes and
the free tribes are fighting to repel the rājas. The rājas are also fighting
amongst themselves, and mutual jealousies lead to politic alliances accord-
ing to the necessities of the moment; we divine in this little world a conflict
and shifting of antagonistic groups such as we can follow on a larger scale
in the history of Europe. It is into this world that the Western invader
plunges in 326 B. C.
About ten miles north-west from where Rāwalpindi now stands
stood, in the fourth century B. C. , the city of Takshaçilā (Taxila), long
eminent among the cities of India as a great seat of learning. In the year
327 it was the capital of a rāja, whose principality lay between the Indus
and its tributary the Jhelum (the ancient Vitastā, the Hydaspes of the
Greeks)'. Like Rāwalpindi to day, Takshaçilā guarded the chief gate of
India from the north-west: it was the first great Indian city at which
1 Although the courses of the great rivers of the Punjab have greatly changed in
historical times and are still changing, their names may be traced with certainty from
the Age of the Rigveda down to the present day. Those which are chiefly important
in the history of Alexander's Indian campaign are :
Ancient Indian
Greek Latin
Modern
Sindhu.
'Ivobs,
Indus.
Indus.
Kubhā.
Κωφην,
Cophen.
Kābul,
Suvāstu.
Σοαστος, Soastus.
Vitastā.
‘ydàrins, Hydaspes.
Jhelum.
Asikni, later Chandrabhāgā. ’Aksoivre, Acesines.
Chenāb.
Parushṇī, later Irāvati.
'yogantys, Hydrates
Rāvi.
Vipāç, later Vipācā.
"Ύφασις, Hyphasis.
Beās
Çutudri.
Zagados, Zaradrus, Hesydrus. Sutlej.
Swat,
309
## p. 310 (#346) ############################################
310
[CH.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
merchants who had come down the Kābul Valley and crossed the Indus
about Attock arrived, three days' journey beyond the river. Its ruler was
the first among the kings of the Punjab to hear any tidings which might
come down from the highlands of Afghānistān of events happening behind
those tremendous mountain walls. For many generations now the Punjab
must have had some knowledge of what went on in the dominions of the
King of Kings. For the Persian Empire founded two centuries before by
Cyrus had been a huger realm than had ever, so far as we know, existed in
the world under the hand of one man, and the power and glory of the
man who ruled it, the splendour of Ecbatana and Persepolis, must have
been carried by fame over the neighbouring lands.
The rājas of Takshaçilā must therefore have long lent an ear to the
rumbling of wars and rebellions which came across the western mountains.
They may indeed have known next to nothing of what went on at the
further extremities of the Persian Empire ; for the same realm which at its
utmost extension eastward touched the Indus reached at its other end the
Aegean and Black Seas ; and the great monarchic Empires of the east are
conglomerations too loosely organised for the troubles of one province to
be necessarily felt in the more distant ones. The Indian princes may there-
fore have been ignorant of the fact that the Persian king at the other end of
his realm had come into contact with a singular people settled in a
quantity of little republics over the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula,
along the coasts of Asia Minor, and in the intermediate islands, the people
whom the Persians called collectively Yavanas (Ionians). We do not know
whether it even produced any considerable shock on the banks of the Indus,
when a century and a half before 334 B. c. the Persian king had led his
armies to disaster in the land of the Yavanas, although those armies
included Indian tribesmen torn by Persi
torn by Persian officers from the frontier hills,
whose bones were destined to find their last resting-place on the field of
Plataea thousands of miles away. Of the long struggle which went on for
generations after that between the Yavana republics, especially the one
called Athens, and the western satraps of the Great King perhaps no
rumour was brought down the Kabul valley to Takshaçilā.
But in 334 B. C. and tbe following years the struggle between Persia
and the Yavanas took a turn which must have made talk even in the pala-
ces and bazaars of the Punjab. The Indian princes learnt that a Yavana king
had arisen in the utmost West strong enough to drive the Great King from
his throne. It may be that the western provinces, Asia Minor and Egypt,
were torn away in 331, 333 and 332 B. c. by the invader without yet bring.
ing the Indian princes to realise that so huge a fact in the world as the
Persian Empire was about to vanish. But there can have been no mistaking
the magnitude of the catastrophe, when Darius III was flying northward
for his life, when Alexander had occupied the central seats of government
## p. 311 (#347) ############################################
XV )
FROM KANDHAR TO KĀBUL
311
and set Persepolis on fire (330 B. C. ). If this man from the West was going
to claim the whole heritage of the Achaemenian kings, that would make him
the neighbour of the princes of India. It must have been a concern to
the rāja of Takshaçilā and his fellow-kings to learn in what direction the
victorious Yavana host would move next. And in fact the tidings came
before long that it was moving nearer. When the winter of 330 fell,
it was encamped in Seistān, and with the spring moved to the uplands
which to-day constitute the southern part of Afghānistān. Here the
awe-struck inhabitants, Pashtus probably, ancestors of the modern Afghāns
saw the European strangers set about a work which indicated a resolve
to make themselves at home for all time in these lands won by their
spear. They saw them begin to construct a city after the manner of the
Yavanas at a point commanding the roads; and when the rest of the
host had gone onward, there a body of Europeans remained, established
behind the fresh-built walls. If we may judge by analogies, some thousands
of the native people were induced by force or persuasion to settle side
by side with them in the new city. It was only one of the chain of cities
which marked the track of conquering Hellenism. Like many of the
others, this too was given the name of the conqueror. In the speech of
the Greeks it was known as Alexandria-among-the-Arachosians. To-day
we call it Kandahār.
A mountain barrier still separated the Yavana host at Kandahār
in the summer of 329 from the Kābul valley, that is to say, from the river
system of the Indus. And it would seem that, when the passes filled
with the first winter snows, the Yavanas had not yet crossed it. But the
army led by Alexander was one which defied ordinary obstacles.
In
winter, under circumstances that made regular provisioning impossible, by
extraordinary endurance it pushed through the hills and descended into
the Kābul valley. The princes of the Punjab might feel that the outlandish
host stood indeed at the door.
But Alexander, having reached the Kābyl valley in the winter of
329-8, did not make an immediate advance upon India. Beyond the
mountain range which forms the northern side of the valley, the Hindu
Kush, lay the extreme provinces of the old Persian Empire towards the
north-east-Bactria (whose name still survives in the city of Balkh) and the
country now called Bukhāra. Not only were these provinces still unsubdued
but the Persian cause was upheld there by a prince of the old blood royal.
Alexander must beat down that opposition, before he could think of
invading India. He waited therefore for the rest of the winter in the
Kābul valley, till the spring should unblock the passes of the Hindu Kush.
And again here the inhabitants saw the Europeans make preparations
1 γπό “IIλειάδος δνσιν, Strabo, XV, C. 725. .
2 Diod. XVII, 82 ; Curt. VII, 3, 12.
1
## p. 312 (#348) ############################################
312
I ch.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
for permanent settlement. At the foot of the Hindu Kush, whence three
roads to Bactria radiatel, on the site probably of the still existing village
of Charikār, rose another Alexandria, Alexandria-under-the-Cauca. us. In
support of the Yavana colony to be left in this town, other little settlements
were established at points a day's journey off in what were henceforth to
be Greek towns ; Cartana, noted for the rectangular precision with which
its walls we traced out (modern Begrām, according to Cunningham) and
Cadrusi (Koratas ? ) are names given us. In this case we have an express
statement that 7000 of the people of the land were to be incorporated
as citizens of the new towns with those of Alexander's mercenaries who
cared to settle in this region 2800 miles away from their old home.
Another new city, or old city transformed with a new Greek :ame,
Nicaea, occupied apparently some site between Alexandria and the Kābul
rivers
As soon as the snow was melted enough to make the Khawak Pass
practicable, the Yavan ı arıny trailed up the Panjshir valley, leaving little
bodies of Europeans behind it to hold the Kābul valley under a Persian
satrap and a Macedonian episkopos. The main body of the army once
more contended with the hardships of a passage over the high ridges and
disappeared to the northwards. During the following twelve months (May
328 to May 327) such news of it as reached India showed that the Yavana
king still prevailed against all enemies. As far as the Syr Daria (Jazartes)
the peoples of Eastern Irān were broken before him. In the early spring of
327 he was again moving to the south.
The rāja of Takshaçilā must have realised at this juncture that
a momentous choice lay before him. It may be that the idea of a common
Indian nationality, in whose cause he and his brother kings might stand
together against the stranger, did not even occur to him : India was
too large and too disunited for the mind to embrace it as a unity. But he
might well tremble for his own power, if this new resistless deluge came
bursting into the land. On the other hand it might perhaps be turned to
his account. His policy was largely governed by his antagonism to the rival
1 Cunningham, Ancient Geography, p. 24.
2 Diod. XVII, 83 ; Curt. VII, 3, 23, according to the MSS, bas 'vii millibus seni.
orum Macedonum. ' Hedieke in the Teubner text amends this, perhaps too boldiy, as
VII millibus subactarum nationum. '
3 The discussions of Dr Vincent Smith and of Sir Thomas Holdich as to the site
of Nicaea-the former puts it at Jalālābād and the latter at Kābul—are invalidated by
the fact that Nicaea, if we follow Arrian, was not on the river Kābul at all. Alexander
from Nicaea advances towards the Kābul; aơ:kousvos és Nikaiav. . . po-Xúper us ezt
vov Kuova. IV, 22, 6. Mr M-Crindle curiously omits the words in his translation. Not
Nicaea, but some place on the way to the river Kābul, was where the army was divided.
4 Holdich, Gates of India, p. 88.
.
## p. 313 (#349) ############################################
Xv]
THE RAJA OF TAKSHAÇILA
313
prince of the Pauraval house (Porus), who ruled on the other side of the
Hydaspes (Jhelum). The Paurava was indeed a neighbour to be dreaded.
He is described to us as a man of gigantic and powerful build, a warrior-
chief, such as in an unsettled world extends his power by aggressive
ambition and proud courage. He had conceived the idea of building up
for himself a great kingdom, and he was the man to realise it. He had
already made an attempt to crush the free tribes to the east, pushing his
advance even beyond the Hydraotes (Rāvi), in alliance with the raja of
the Abhisāra country (corresponding roughly with the Pūnch and Naoshera
districts in Kashmir) and with many of the free tribes whom he had
drawn into vassalage swelling his army, although the resistance he there
encountered from the Kshatriyas had made him temporarily give backs.
His hand had perhaps also reached westward across the Hydaspes into the
country which the rāja of Takshaçilā considered bis own'. It might well
seem to the rāja of Takshaçilā that, threatened on the one side by the
Paurava and on the other side by the European invader, his safest course
lay in allying himself with the European, riding on the crest of the wave
that would sweep his rival to destruction.
And yet the European host which had emerged out of the unknown
West to shatter the Persian Empire may have appcared too unfamiliar and
incalculable a power to make the decision easy. But, if the rāja hesitated,
his son Āmbhi (Omphis) had a clear opinion as to what the situation
required. He pressed his father to place his principality at the Yavana
king's disposal. While Alexander was still in Bukhāra, Āmbhi began to
negotiate on his own account. Envoys from Takshaçilā made their way
over the ridges of the Hindu Kush. They were charged with the message
that Āmbhi was ready to march by Alexander's side against any Indians
who might refuse to submit. Thus the European, at his first arrival at the
Gates of India, found India divided against itself. It was the hand of an
Indian prince, which unharred the door to the invader.
The summer of 327 B. C. was almost come before the hillmen of the
Hindu Kush saw the Yavana army re-appear on the ridges, cross prob-
ably by the Kushan Pass? , and stream down to the new Alexandria.
The satrap who had been left here was found to have done badly, and
Alexander appointed another in his place, Tyriespes, a Persian like his
predecessor. The population of the city was enlarged by drawing in more
1 Paurava is a title denoting the chief of the Pūrus, a tribe known in Vedic times
(v sup. Chapter IV, pp. 74 f. ).
2 In Greek Kathajoi, see Lassen, vol. II, p. 167. The general designation of the
warrior caste seems to be applied in this case to a particular people.
3 Arrian V, 22.
4 See Anspach, note 125.
5 See Sylvain Levi in Journal Asiatique, &me Serie XV (1890), p. 2341 .
6 'EŠ KOUTOS 987 Tou pos, Arr. IV, 22, 3.
? Strabo XV, Ç 697; Cunningham, Ancient Geography, p. 25.
## p. 314 (#350) ############################################
314
[сн.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
of the people of the land and setting down there more war-worn European
veterans. The work of making a city of Greek type bad really only been
begun, and a Macedonian of high rank, Nicanor', was now appointed to
see it carried through.
The army moved on from Alexandria to Nicaea, where Alexander
sacrificed to the Greek goddess Athena. From Nicaea he sent on a herald
to the rāja of Takshaçilā and the native princes west of the Indus to meet
him in the Kābul Valley. We know of one Indian chief, Çaçigupta
(Sisikottos), already in the conqueror's train. His had been probably
some little hill-state on the slopes of the Hindu Kush, whence he had gone
two years since, to help the Irānians in Bactria against Alexander. When
their cause was lost, he had gone over to the European. Messengers now
summoned the other chieftains of the lower Kābul Valley to meet their
overlord. At Takshaçilā too messengers appeared with the summops. And
the rāja, acting on the policy which his son had espoused so decisively,
rose up to obey.
Encamped in the Kābul Valley at some place not named the rāja of
Takshaçilā saw the hosi destined for the invasion of his mother-land. It
numbered, at the lowest estimate, from twenty-five to thirty thousand
menº -a strangely compounded army, which can only be called European
with qualification. Its strength indeed consisted in the Macedonian regi.
ments, stout yeomen and peasants carrying the long spear of the heavy-
arme I footsoldier, and troops of splendidly disciplined cavalry drawn from
the aristocracy of the country, the Companions' of the national King.
Euro, can too were the thousands of soldiers from the Greek cities, serving
as mercenaries, on foot or mounted, and the contingents of semi-barbarous
hillmen from the Balkans, Agrianes and Thracians, serving as light troops-
slingers. javelineers, and bowmen-invaluable for mountain warfare.
mingled with the Europeans were men of many nations. Here were troops
of horsemen, representing the chivalry of Irān, which had followed
Alexander from Bactria and beyond, Pashtus and men of the Hindu Kush
with their highland-bred horses', Central-Asiatics who could ride and
1 Dr Vincent Smith (Early History of India, 3rd edition, p. 49) seems to be in
error in identifying this Nicanor with the son of Parmenio.
2 The numbers in the ancient texts are often untrustworthy. The estimate in the
text is Delbrück's, Geschichte der Kriegskunst (1900), vol. I, p. 184. Anspach (note 20),
combining Arrian, Ind. 19, 5 with Diod. XVII, 95, reckons the ariny in the Kābul
Valley at about 85,000. Delbrück denies that so large an army with the necessary
camp-followers could have got across the Hindu Kush. This is a point for practical
strategists. Whether Plutarch's number (Alex. 56) is correct or not, he does not say, as
Or. Vincent Smith, p. 49, inadvertently quotes him, that Alexander entered India with
120,000 foot and 15,000 horres, but that Alexander left India with that number.
Reinforcements had been arriving from the West in the meantime,
3 Arr. IV, 17, 3.
4 Ib. V, 11, 3.
## p. 315 (#351) ############################################
XV]
FROM KABUL TO THE INDUS
315
His army
shoot at the same timel; and among the camp-followers one could find
groups representing the older civilisations of the world, Phoenicians inherit-
ing an immemorial tradition of ship-craft and trade, bronzed Egyptians
able to confront the Indians with an antiquity still longer than their own.
There was nothing to arrest this army between the point they had
now reached and the Indus. The local chieftains had indicated their sub-
mission. All along the north side of the Kābul however lay the hills, whose
inhabitants in their rock citadels, in the valleys of the Kūnar, the Panj.
kora, and the Swāt, were unschooled to recognise an overlord, and as pre-
pared to give trouble to anyone who tried to incorporate them in an
imperial system as their Pathān successors of a later day. But it was not
Alexander's way to leave unsubducd regions beside his road.
therefore broke up into two divisions. One, commanded by Hephaestion,
the king's friend, and Perdiccas, the proudest of the Macedonian nobles,
moved to the Indus by the most direct route. This would probably mean
a route along the south bank of the Kābul, whether through the actual
Khyber Pass or not? ; the other, led by the king himself, turned up into
the hills. The two divisions were to rejoin each other upon the Indus;
Hephaestion and Perdiccas, arriving there first, it was calculated would
have made all preparations for the passage of the great river.
The Europeans who had followed Alexander so far into Asia now
entered the region in which the armies of the English operate to-day. At
that season of the year the hill-country must have been bitterly cold, and
probably to some extent under snow. It was the same hill-country whose
contours and tracks and points of vantage are studied now by British
commanders ; the tough highlander of the Balkans or of Crete climbed and
skirmished with bow and javelin in 327 B. C. where the Scottish highlander
was to climb and skirmish with rifle and bayonet two thousand two
hundred years later. And yet it is impossible to follow the track of
Alexander, over these hills with any precision. We hear of little moun-
tain towns stormed, of others abandoned by their inhabitants. But their
sites cannot be identified. One must however note that at this point Alex-
ander, in an ethnographical sense, entered India ; for these hills, whose
population at the present day is either Afghān or Kāfir, seem then to have
been possessed by Indian tribes. The Açvakas, as their name apparently
was in their native speech, were the first Indian people to receive the brunt
1 16. IV. 24, 1.
2 Dr Vincent Smith says that he did not go by the Khyber and cites Sir Thomas
Holdich in support of the assertion. Sir Thomas in his more recent book, Gates of India
(p. 94), says that he ‘urdoubtedly followed the main route which. . . is sufficiently well
indicated in these days as the “Khaibar". '
3 Metà svo uàs II Letà dwv, Aristobulus ap. Strabo XV, C. 691.
## p. 316 (#352) ############################################
316
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
[ch.
of the invasion? . The fighting seems to have been of exceptional ferocity.
At one place, where Alexander was wounded, the whole population was
put to the sword. At another place we hear of a huge massacre, and 40,000
men taken captive. At a third place a body of Indians from the Punjab
had come to help the local chieftain for bire. When the town capitulated, it
was agreed that these mercenaries should transfer their services to Alexan-
der. They encamped on a little hill apart. There, as they talked together,
it seemed to them a horrible thing that they should march with the Yara-
nas against their own people. They determined to slip away, when night
fell, and make across the hills for home. But when night fell, they found
the hill beset on all sides with the soldiers of Alexander ; for some one had
betrayed their design. The Macedonians suffered none of them to live till
morning?
The town with which this incident is connected the Greeks call
Massaga. We know only that it was situated east of the Guraeus river and
apparently not far from the stream. The resistance which the eastern-most
branch of the h. ll-people, those called by the Greeks Assakēnoi, offered
to the invader seems to have been concentrated at this place. All
these tribes, as far as the Indus, recognised as overlord a chief whom the
Greeks call Assakēnos. His organisation for defence included an alliance with
the king of the Abhisāra country beyond the Indus, who sent contingents
to his support3. Assakēnos had himself taken command at Massaga, and
fell there, struck by a missile from one of the European siegemachines'.
His mother and daughter were left in the enemies' hands• ; but it was not
among Alexander's faults to fail in chivalry to the women whom war put
at his mercy.
1 In the Greek accounts a people called Aspasioi are found in Choes (either the
Alishang or Kūnar) Valley and a people called Assakenoi in the Swāt Valley. Both
names are supposed to represent the same Indian name Açvaka, connected with
açia
horse. If so, the two Greek names may be due to local varieties of pronunciation, and
it may be noted that the form Aspasioi would then approximate to Irānian speech, in
which aspa is the equivalent of aqua. Strabo, according to the MSS. (XV, C. 691,
C. 698), calls the Aspasioi Hypasioi ; this is often amended in modern texts to Hippasioi,
on the supposition that the Greeks knew their hippos to be the etymological equivalent
of aspa and attempted a translation. This is extremely unlike the Greek way in these
matters. The confusion is made worse by another people called Astakenoi appearing
in the Pushkalāvati region, whose name is supposed not to be connected etymologically
with that of their neighbours, the Assakenoi.
2 Arr. IV 27 ; Diod. XVII, 84 ; Plut. Alex. 69 ; Polyaen. Strateg. IV, 3, 20.
3 Arr. IV, 27, 7.
4 Arr. IV, 27, 2.
5 Arr. IV, 27, 4.
