Part 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIXTH BOOK

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

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

_Chapter II.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Chapter VI.—Alexander invades the territories of the Malloi_