BATTLES WITH THE ASPASIANS.
Alexander now took command of the shield-bearing guards, the
Companion cavalry with the exception of those who had been joined
with Hephaestion’s division, the regiments of what were called
foot-Companions, the archers, the Agrianians and the horse-lancers,
and advanced with them into the land of the Aspasians, Guraeans and
Assacenians.[601] Marching by a mountainous and rough road along the
river called Choes,[602] which he crossed with difficulty, he ordered
the main body of his infantry to follow at leisure; while he himself
took all the cavalry, and 800 of the Macedonian infantry whom he
mounted upon horses with their infantry shields, and made a forced
march, because he had received information that the barbarians who
inhabited that district had fled for safety into the mountains which
extend through the land and into as many of their cities as were strong
enough to resist attack. Assaulting the first of these cities which
was situated on his route, he routed, at the first attack without
any delay, the men whom he found drawn up in front of the city, and
shut them up in it. He was himself wounded by a dart which penetrated
through the breastplate into his shoulder; but the wound was only a
slight one, for the breastplate prevented the dart from penetrating
right through his shoulder. Leonnatus and Ptolemy, son of Lagus, were
also wounded. Then he encamped near the city at the place where the
wall seemed most easy to assault. At dawn on the following day the
Macedonians easily forced their way through the first wall, as it had
not been strongly built. The city had been surrounded with a double
wall. At the second wall the barbarians stood their ground for a short
time; but when the scaling ladders were now being fixed, and the
defenders were being wounded with darts from all sides, they no longer
stayed; but rushed through the gates out of the city towards the
mountains. Some of them were killed in the flight, and the Macedonians,
being enraged because they had wounded Alexander, slew all whom they
took prisoners. Most of them, however, escaped into the mountains,
because they were not far from the city. Having levelled this city
with the ground, he marched to another, named Audaca, which he got
possession of by capitulation. He left Craterus there with the other
commanders of the infantry to capture all the remaining cities which
would not yield of their own accord, and to set the affairs of the
whole country in such order as he should find most convenient under the
circumstances.