Part 16

He then took again the half of the hypaspists and Agrianians, and the corps of cavalry and the horse-archers, and marched forward to the frontiers of the Gadrôsoi and the Oreitai, where he was informed his way would lie through a narrow defile before which the combined forces of the Oreitai and the Gadrôsoi were lying encamped, resolved to prevent his passage. They were in fact drawn up there, but when they were apprised of Alexander’s approach most of them deserted the posts they were guarding and fled from the pass. Then the leaders of the Oreitai came to him to surrender themselves and their nation. He ordered them to collect the multitude of the Oreitai, and send them away to their homes, since they were not to be subjected to any bad treatment. Over these people he placed Apollophanês as satrap. Along with him he left Leonnatos, an officer of the body-guard in Ora,[195] in command of all the Agrianians, some of the archers and cavalry, and the rest of the Grecian mercenary infantry and cavalry, and instructed him to remain in the country till the fleet sailed past its shores, to settle a colony in the city, and establish order among the Oreitai, so that they might be readier to pay respect and obedience to the satrap. He himself with the great bulk of the army (for Hêphaistiôn had now rejoined him with his detachment) advanced to the country of the Gadrôsoi[196] by a route mostly desert.

Aristoboulos says that myrrh-trees larger than the common kind grow plentifully in this desert, and that the Phoenicians who followed the army as suttlers collected the drops of myrrh which oozed out in great abundance from the trees (their stems being large and hitherto uncropped), and conveyed away the produce loaded on their beasts of burden. He says also that this desert yields an abundance of odoriferous roots of nard, which the Phoenicians likewise collected; but much of it was trodden down by the army, and the sweet perfume thus crushed out of it was from its great abundance diffused far and wide over the country.[197] Other kinds of trees are found in the desert, one in particular which had a foliage like that of the laurel, and grew in places washed by the waves of the sea. These trees when the tide ebbed were left in dry ground, but when it returned they looked as if they grew in the sea. The roots of some were always washed by the sea, since they grew in hollows from which the water never receded, and yet trees of this kind were not destroyed by the brine. Some of these trees attained here the great height of 30 cubits. They happened to be at that season in bloom, and their flower closely resembled the white violet,[198] which, however, it far surpassed in the sweetness of its perfume. Another kind of thorny stalk is mentioned, which grew on dry land, and was armed with a thorn so strong that when it got entangled in the dress of some who were riding past, it rather pulled the rider down from his horse than was itself torn away from its stalk. When hares are running past these bushes the thorns are said to fasten themselves in the fur so that the hares are caught like birds with bird-lime or fish with hooks. These thorns were, however, easily cut through with steel, and when severed the stalk yielded juice even more abundant and more acid than what flows from fig-trees in springtime.[199]

_Chapter XXIII.—Alexander marching through Gadrôsia endeavours to collect supplies for the fleet_

Thence he marched through the country of the Gadrôsoi by a difficult route, on which it was scarcely possible to procure the necessaries of life, and which often failed to yield water for the army. They were besides compelled to march most of the way by night, and at too great a distance from the sea; for Alexander wished to go along the sea-coast, both to see what harbours it had, and to make in the course of his march whatever preparations were possible for the benefit of the fleet, either by making his men dig wells or seek out markets and anchorages. The maritime parts of Gadrôsia were, however, entirely desert. Nevertheless he sent Thoas, the son of Mandradôros, down to the sea with a few horsemen to see if there happened to be any anchorage or water not far from the sea, or anything else that could supply the wants of the fleet. This man on returning reported that he found some fishermen upon the beach living in stifling huts, which had been constructed by heaping up mussel shells, while the roofs were formed of the backbones of fish. He also reported that these fishermen had only scanty supplies of water, obtained with difficulty by their digging through the shingle, and that what they got was far from sweet.[200]

When Alexander came to a district of the Gadrôsian country where corn was more abundant, he seized it, placed it upon the beasts of burden, and having marked it with his own seal ordered it to be conveyed to the sea. But when he was coming to the halting station nearest the sea, the soldiers paid but little regard to the seal, and even the guards themselves made use of the corn and gave a share of it to such as were most pinched with hunger. Indeed, they were so overcome by their sufferings, that, as reason dictated, they took more account of the impending danger with which they now stood face to face than of the unseen and remote danger of the king’s resentment. Alexander, however, forgave the offenders when made aware of the necessity which had prompted their act. He himself scoured the country in search of provisions, and sent Krêtheus the Kallatian[201] with all the supplies he could collect for the use of the army which was sailing round with the fleet. He also ordered the natives to grind all the corn they could collect in the interior districts, and convey it, for sale to the army, along with dates and sheep. He besides sent Telephos, one of the companions, to another locality with a small supply of ground corn.

_Chapter XXIV.—Difficulties encountered on the march through Gadrôsia_

He then advanced towards the capital of the Gadrôsoi, called Poura,[202] and arrived there in sixty days after he had started from Ora. Most of Alexander’s historians admit that all the hardships which his army suffered in Asia are not to be compared with the miseries which it here experienced. Nearchos is the only author who says that Alexander did not take that route in ignorance of its difficulty, but that he chose it on learning that no one had as yet traversed it with an army except Semiramis when she fled from India. The natives of the country say that she escaped with only twenty men of all her army, while even Cyrus, the son of Kambyses, escaped with only seven. For Cyrus, they say, did in truth enter this region to invade India, but lost, before reaching it, the greater part of his army from the difficulties which beset his march through the desert. When Alexander heard these accounts he was seized, it is said, with an ambition to outrival both Cyrus and Semiramis. Nearchos says that this motive, added to his desire to be near the coast in order to keep the fleet supplied with provisions, induced him to march by this route; but that the blazing heat and want of water destroyed a great part of the army, and especially the beasts of burden, which perished from the great depth of the sand, and the heat which scorched like fire, while a great many died of thirst. For they met, he says, with lofty ridges of deep sand not hard and compact, but so loose that those who stepped on it sunk down as into mud or rather into untrodden snow. The horses and mules besides suffered still more severely both in ascending and descending the ridges, because the road was not only uneven, but wanted firmness. The great distances also between the stages were most distressing to the army, compelled as it was at times from want of water to make marches above the ordinary length. When they traversed by night all the stage they had to complete and came to water in the morning, their distress was all but entirely relieved. But if as the day advanced they were caught still marching owing to the great length of the stage, then suffer they did, tortured alike by raging heat and thirst unquenchable.

_Chapter XXV.—Sufferings of the army in the Gadrôsian desert_

The soldiers destroyed many of the beasts of burden of their own accord. For when their provisions ran short they came together and killed most of the horses and mules. They ate the flesh of these animals, which they professed had died of thirst and perished from the heat. No one cared to look very narrowly into the exact nature of what was doing, both because of the prevailing distress and also because all were alike implicated in the same offence. Alexander himself was not unaware of what was going on, but he saw that the remedy for the existing state of things was to pretend ignorance of it rather than permit it as a matter that lay within his cognisance. It was therefore no longer easy to convey the soldiers labouring under sickness, nor others who had fallen behind on the march from exhaustion. This arose not only from the want of beasts of burden, but also because the men themselves took to destroying the waggons when they could no longer drag them forward owing to the deepness of the sand. They had done this even in the early stages of the march, because for the sake of the waggons they had to go not by the shortest roads, but those easiest for carriages. Thus some were left behind on the road from sickness, others from fatigue or the effects of the heat or intolerable thirst, while there were none who could take them forward or remain to tend them in their sickness. For the army marched on apace, and in the anxiety for its safety as a whole the care of individuals was of necessity disregarded. As they generally made their marches by night, some of the men were overcome by sleep on the way, but on awaking afterwards those who still had some strength left followed close on the track of the army, and a few out of many saved their lives by overtaking it. The majority perished in the sand like shipwrecked men at sea.

Another disaster also befell the army which seriously affected the men themselves as well as the horses and the beasts of burden. For the country of the Gadrôsians, like that of the Indians, is supplied with rains by the Etesian winds; but these rains do not fall on the Gadrôsian plains, but on the mountains to which the clouds are carried by the wind, where they dissolve in rain without passing over the crests of the mountains. When the army on one occasion lay encamped for the night near a small winter torrent for the sake of its water, the torrent which passes that way about the second watch of the night became swollen by rains which had fallen unperceived by the army, and came rushing down with so great a deluge that it destroyed most of the women and children of the camp-followers, and swept away all the royal baggage and whatever beasts of burden were still left. The soldiers themselves, after a hard struggle, barely escaped with their lives, and a portion only of their weapons. Many of them besides came by their death through drinking, for if when jaded by the broiling heat and thirst they fell in with abundance of water, they quaffed it with insatiable avidity till they killed themselves. For this reason Alexander generally pitched his camp not in the immediate vicinity of the watering-places, but some twenty stadia off to prevent the men and beasts from rushing in crowds into the water to the danger of their lives, as well as to prohibit those who had no self-control from polluting the water for the rest of the troops by their stepping into the springs or streams.

_Chapter XXVI.—Incidents of the march through Gadrôsia_

Here I feel myself bound not to pass over in silence a noble act performed by Alexander, perhaps the noblest in his record, which occurred either in this country or, as some other authors have asserted, still earlier, among the Parapamisadai. The story is this. The army was prosecuting its march through the sand under a sun already blazing high because a halt could not be made till water, which lay on the way farther on was reached, and Alexander himself, though distressed with thirst, was nevertheless with pain and difficulty marching on foot at the head of his army, that the soldiers might, as they usually do in a case of the kind, more cheerfully bear their hardships when they saw the misery equalised. But in the meantime some of the light-armed soldiers, starting off from the army, found water collected in the shallow bed of a torrent in a small and impure spring. Having, with difficulty, collected this water they hastened off to Alexander as if they were the bearers of some great boon. As soon as they came near the king they poured the water into a helmet, and offered it to him. He took it and thanked the men who brought it, but at once poured it upon the ground in the sight of all. By this deed the whole army was inspired with fresh vigour to such a degree that one would have imagined that the water poured out by Alexander had supplied a draught to the men all round. This deed I commend above all others, as it exhibits Alexander’s power of endurance as well as his wonderful tact in the management of an army.

The army met also with the following adventure in this country. The guides, becoming uncertain of the way, at last declared that they could no longer recognise it, because all its tracks had been obliterated by the sands which the wind blew over them. Amid the deep sands, moreover, which had been everywhere heaped up to a uniform level, nothing rose up from which they could conjecture their path, not even the usual fringe of trees, nor so much as the sure landmark of a hill-crest. Nor had they practised the art of finding their way by observation of the stars by night or of the sun by day, as sailors do by watching one or other of the Bears—the Phoenicians the Lesser Bear, and all other nations the Greater. Alexander, at last perceiving that he should direct his march to the left, rode away forward, taking a small party of horsemen with him. But when their horses were tired out by the heat, he left most of his escort behind, and rode on with only five men and found the sea. Having scraped away the shingle on the beach, he found water, both fresh and pure, and then went back and brought his whole army to this place. And for seven days they marched along the sea-coast, and procured water from the beach. As the guides by this time knew the way, he led his expedition thence into the interior parts.

_Chapter XXVII.—Appointment of satraps—Alexander learns that the satrap Philippos had been murdered in India—Punishes satraps who had misgoverned_

When he arrived at the capital of the Gadrôsians he then gave his army a rest. Apollophanês he deposed from his satrapy because he found out that he had utterly disregarded his instructions. He appointed Thoas to be satrap over the people of this district, but, as he took ill and died, Siburtios received the vacant office. The same man had also recently been appointed by Alexander satrap of Karmania, but now the government of the Arachotians and Gadrôsians was committed to him, and Tlêpolemos, the son of Pythophanês, got Karmania. The king was already advancing into Karmania when tidings reached him that Philippos, the satrap of the Indian country, had been plotted against by the mercenaries and treacherously murdered; but that the Macedonian bodyguards of Philippos had put to death his murderers whom they had caught in the very act, and others whom they had afterwards seized. On learning what had occurred he sent a letter to India addressed to Eudêmos and Taxilês directing them to assume the administration of the province previously governed by Philippos until he could send a satrap to govern it.

When he arrived in Karmania, Krateros joined him, bringing the rest of the army and the elephants. He brought also Ordanês, whom he had made prisoner for revolting and attempting to make a revolution. Thither came also Stasanôr, the satrap of the Areians and Zarangians, accompanied by Pharismanes, the son of Phrataphernês, the satrap of the Parthyaians and Hyrkanians. There came besides the generals who had been left with Parmenion over the army in Media, Kleander and Sitalkês and Hêrakôn, who brought with them the greater part of their army. Against Kleander and Sitalkês both the natives and the soldiers themselves brought many accusations, as that they had pillaged temples, despoiled ancient tombs, and perpetrated other outrageous acts of injustice and tyranny against their subjects. When these charges were proved against them, he put them to death, to make others who might be left as satraps, or governors, or chiefs of districts, stand in fear of suffering a like punishment if they violated their duty. This was the means which above all others served to keep in due order and obedience the nations which Alexander had conquered in war or which had voluntarily submitted to him, numerous as they were, and so far remote from each other, because under his sceptre the ruled were not allowed to be unjustly treated by their rulers. Hêrakôn on this occasion was acquitted of the charge, but was soon afterwards punished, because he was convicted by the men of Sousa of having plundered the temple of their city. Stasanôr and Phrataphernês in setting out to join Alexander, took with them a multitude of beasts of burden and many camels, because they learned that he was taking the route through the Gadrôsians, and conjectured that his army would suffer, as it actually did. These men arrived therefore very opportunely, as did also their camels and their beasts of burden. For Alexander distributed all these animals to the officers one by one, to the squadrons and centuries of the cavalry, and to the companies of the infantry as far as their number sufficed.

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

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

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

Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, BY Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

EIGHTH BOOK

_Chapter IX.—Description of India_

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

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