Part 20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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