SIEGE OF MASSAGA.
In the first place Alexander led his forces against Massaga,[607] the
largest of the cities in that district; and when he was approaching the
walls, the barbarians being emboldened by the mercenaries whom they had
obtained from the more distant Indians to the number of 7,000, when
they saw the Macedonians pitching their camp, advanced against them
with a run. Alexander, seeing that the battle was about to be fought
near the city, was anxious to draw them further away from their walls,
so that if they were put to rout, as he knew they would be, they might
not be able easily to preserve themselves by fleeing for refuge into
the city close at hand. When therefore he saw the barbarians running
out, he ordered the Macedonians to turn round and retreat to a certain
hill distant something about seven stades from the place where he had
resolved to encamp. The enemy being emboldened, as if the Macedonians
had already given way, rushed upon them with a run and with no kind
of order. But when the arrows began to reach them, Alexander at once
wheeled round at the appointed signal, and led his phalanx against
them with a run. His horse-lancers, Agrianians, and archers first ran
forward and engaged with the barbarians, while he himself led the
phalanx in regular order. The Indians were alarmed at this unexpected
manœuvre, and as soon as the battle became a hand-to-hand conflict,
they gave way and fled into the city. About 200 of them were killed,
and the rest were shut up within the walls. Alexander then led his
phalanx up to the wall, from which he was soon after slightly wounded
in the ankle with an arrow. On the next day he brought up his military
engines and easily battered down a piece of the wall; but the Indians
so gallantly kept back the Macedonians who were trying to force an
entrance where the breach had been made, that he recalled the army for
this day. But on the morrow the Macedonians themselves made a more
vigorous assault, and a wooden tower was drawn up to the walls, from
which the archers shot at the Indians, and missiles were hurled from
the military engines which repulsed them to a great distance. But not
even thus were they able to force their way within the wall. On the
third day he led the phalanx near again, and throwing a bridge from a
military engine over to the part of the wall where the breach had been
made, by this he led up the shield-bearing guards, who had captured
Tyre for him in a similar way.[608] But as many were urged on by
their ardour, the bridge received too great a weight, and was snapped
asunder, so that the Macedonians fell with it. The barbarians, seeing
what was taking place, raised a great shout, and shot at them from the
wall with stones, arrows, and whatever else any one happened to have at
hand, or whatever any one could lay hold of at the time. Others issued
forth by the small gates which they had between the towers in the wall,
and at close quarters struck the men who had been thrown into confusion
by the fall.