of the fierce tribes of northern Afghânistân, led his army over into the
plains of India by a bridge of boats, with which he had spanned the Indus
a little below its junction with the Kabul river.[1] He remained in the
country not more than twenty months all told, yet in that brief space he
reduced the Panjâb as far as the Satlej, and the whole of the spacious
valley of the lower Indus, downwards to the ocean itself. He would even
have penetrated to the Ganges had his army consented to follow him, and,
in the opinion of Sandrokottos, would have succeeded in adding to his
empire the vast regions through which that river flows. The rapidity
with which he achieved his actual conquests in the country appears all
the more surprising when we take into account that at every stage of
his advance he encountered a most determined resistance. The people
were not only of a most martial temperament, but were at the same time
inured to arms; and had they but been united and led by such a capable
commander as Pôros, the Macedonian army was doomed to utter destruction.
Alexander, with all his matchless strategy, could not have averted such
a catastrophe; for what is the record of his Indian campaigns? We find
that the toughest of all his battles was that which he fought on the
banks of the Hydaspes against Pôros; that he had hot work in overcoming
the resistance of the Kathaians before the walls of Sangala; that he
was wounded near to death in his assault upon the Mallian stronghold;
and that in the valley of the Indus he could only overpower the
opposition instigated by the Brahmans by means of wholesale massacres
and executions. It may hence be safely inferred that if Alexander had
found India united in arms to withstand his aggression, the star of his
good fortune would have culminated with his passage of the Indus. But
he found, on the contrary, the political condition of the country when
he entered it eminently favourable to his designs. The regions of the
Indus and its great tributary streams were then divided into separate
states—some under kingly and others under republican governments, but
all alike prevented by their mutual jealousies and feuds from acting
in concert against a common enemy, and therefore all the more easy to
overcome. Alexander, in pursuance of his usual policy, sought to secure
the permanence of his Indian conquests by founding cities,[2] which he
strongly fortified and garrisoned with large bodies of troops to overawe
and hold in subjection the tribes in their neighbourhood. The system of
government also which he established was the same as that which he had
provided for his other subject provinces, the civil administration being
entrusted to native chiefs, while the executive and military authority
was wielded by Macedonian officers.
The Asiatic nations in general submissively acquiesced in the new order
of things, and after a time found no reason to regret the old order
which it had superseded. Under their Hellenic masters they enjoyed a
greater measure of freedom than they had ever before known; commerce was
promoted, wealth increased, the administration of justice improved, and
altogether they reached a higher level of culture, both intellectual and
moral, than they could possibly have attained under a continuance of
Persian supremacy.
India did not participate to any great extent in these advantages. Her
people were too proud and warlike to brook long the burden and reproach
of foreign thraldom, and within a few years after the Conqueror’s death
they completely freed themselves from the yoke he imposed, and were
thereafter ruled by their native princes. The Greek occupation having
thus proved so transient, had little more effect in shaping the future
course of the national destinies than a casual raid of Scottish borderers
into Cumberland in the old days could have had in shaping the general
course of English history.[3]
By this disruption of her relations with the rest of Alexander’s empire,
India fell back into her former isolation from all the outside world, and
for more than fifteen or sixteen centuries afterwards the western nations
knew as little of her internal condition as they knew till lately of the
interior of the Dark Continent. The invasion was, however, by no means
fruitless of some good results. As has been already indicated, it drew
aside the veil which had till then shrouded India from the observation
of the rest of the world, and it thus widened the horizon of knowledge.
It is fortunate that what then became known of India was not left for
its preservation at the mercy of mere oral tradition, but was committed
to the safer custody of writing. Not a few of Alexander’s officers and
companions were men of high attainments in literature and science, and
some of their number composed memoirs of his wars, in the course of
which they recorded their impressions of India and the races by which
they found it inhabited.[4] These reports, even in the fragmentary state
in which they have come down to us, have proved of inestimable value to
scholars engaged in the investigation of Indian antiquity—a task which
the sad deficiency of Sanskrit literature in history and chronology has
rendered one of no ordinary difficulty. Strabo, we must however note,
stigmatized the authors referred to as being in general a set of liars,
of whom only a few managed now and then to stammer out some words of
truth. This sweeping censure is, however, a most egregious calumny. It
may indeed be admitted that their descriptions are not uniformly free
from error or exaggeration, and may even be tainted by some intermixture
of fiction, but on the whole they wrote in good faith—a fact which even
Strabo himself practically admits by frequently citing their authority
for his statements. If one or two of them are to some extent liable to
the censure, it must be remembered that Ptolemy, Aristoboulos, Nearchos,
Megasthenes, and others of them, are writers of unimpeachable veracity.
It is to be regretted that the works in which these writers recorded
their Indian experiences have all, without exception, perished. We know,
however, the main substance of their contents from the histories of
Alexander, written several centuries after his death by the authors we
have here translated, as well as from Strabo, Pliny, Ailianos, Athênaios,
Orosius, and others.
The following is a list of the writers on India who visited the country
either with Alexander, or not many years after his death, or who were at
least his contemporaries:—
1. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, who became king of Egypt.
2. Aristoboulos of Potidaia, or, as it was called afterwards,
Kassandreia.
3. Nearchos, a Kretan by birth, but settled at Amphipolis,
admiral of the fleet.
4. Onêsikritos of Astypalaia, or, as some say, of Aegina, pilot
of the fleet.
5. Eumenês of Kardia, Alexander’s secretary, who kept the
_Ephemerides_ or Court Journal. His countryman, Hieronymos, in
his work on Alexander’s successors, made a few references to
the campaigns of the Conqueror.
6. Chares of Mitylene, wrote anecdotes of Alexander’s private
life.
7. Kallisthenes of Olynthos, Aristotle’s kinsman, author of an
account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition.
8. Kleitarchos (Clitarchus), son of Deinôn of Rhodes, author of
a life of Alexander.
9. Androsthenes of Thasos, a naval officer, author of a
Paraplous.
10. Polykleitos of Larissa, author of a history of Alexander,
full of geographical details.
11. Kyrsilos of Pharsalos, who wrote of the exploits of
Alexander.
12. Anaximenes of Lampsakos, author of a history of Alexander.
13. Diognêtos, who, with Baitôn, measured and recorded the
distances of Alexander’s marches.
14. Archelaös, a geographer, supposed to have accompanied
Alexander’s expedition.
15. Amyntas, author of a work on Alexander’s _Stathmoi_, _i.e._
stages or halting-places.
16. Patroklês, a writer on geography.
17. Megasthenês, friend of Seleukos Nikator, and his ambassador
at the Court of Sandrokottos, king of Palibothra, composed an
_Indika_.
18. Dêïmachos, ambassador at the same court in the days of the
son and successor of Sandrokottos, author of a work on India in
two books.
19. Diodotos of Erythrai, who, like Eumenês, kept Alexander’s
Court Journal, and may possibly have been in India.
Five consecutive narratives of Alexander’s Indian campaigns, compiled
several centuries after his death from the works of the writers
enumerated, who were either witnesses of the events they described, or
living at the time of their occurrence, have descended to our times, and
are respectively contained in the following productions:—
1. The Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian of Nikomêdeia.
2. The History of Alexander the Great, by Quintus Curtius Rufus.
3. The Life of Alexander, in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.
4. The History of Diodôros the Sicilian.
5. The Book of Macedonian History, compiled from the Universal
History of Trogus Pompeius, by Justinus Frontinus.
ARRIAN
Arrian, who is universally allowed to be by far the best of all
Alexander’s historians, was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a
military commander, an expert in the tactics of war, and an accomplished
writer. He was born towards the end of the first century of our aera at
Nikomêdeia (now Ismiknid or Ismid), the capital of Bithynia, situated
near the head of a deep bay at the south-eastern end of the Propontis or
Sea of Marmora. He became a disciple of the Stoic philosopher Epiktêtos
(much in the same way as Xenophon attached himself to Sôkrates), and
gave to the world an abstract of his master’s lectures, together with
an _Encheiridion_ or manual of his philosophy—a work which was long
and widely popular. Under the Emperor Hadrian he was appointed in A.D.
132 prefect of Kappadokia. He had not long filled this office when a
large body of wild Alan horsemen made one of their formidable raids
into his province. They had hitherto proved irresistible, but on this
occasion they were completely foiled by the skilful strategy and tactics
of Arrian, who expelled them from his borders before they had secured
any plunder. In Rome he was preferred to various high offices, and
under Antoninus Pius was raised to the consulship. In his later years
he retired to his native city, where he occupied himself in composing
treatises on a considerable variety of subjects, but chiefly on history
and geography. He died at an advanced age in the reign of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius.
His account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition was followed by a treatise
on India called the _Indika_. The first part of this work, which gives a
description of India and its people, was based chiefly on the _Indika_
of Megasthenes; and the second part, which narrates the famous voyage of
Nearchos from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, was
based on a journal kept by Nearchos himself. The work is but a supplement
to his history. He speaks himself with noble pride of this great work.
“This I do assert,” he says, “that this historical record of Alexander’s
deeds is, and has been from my youth up, in place to me of native
land, family, and honours of state; and so I do not regard myself as
unworthy to take rank among the foremost writers in the Greek language,
if Alexander be forsooth among the foremost in arms.” “Quel délire de
l’amour propre!” here exclaims Sainte-Croix. His merits as an author
are thus well stated by a writer in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_:
“This great work (the _Anabasis_) reminds the reader of Xenophon’s
_Anabasis_, not only by its title, but also by the ease and clearness
of its style.... Great as his merits thus are as an historian, they are
yet surpassed by his excellences as an historical critic. His _Anabasis_
is based upon the most trustworthy historians among the contemporaries
of Alexander.... One of the great merits of the work is the clearness
and distinctness with which he describes all military movements and
operations, the drawing up of the armies for battle, and the conduct of
battles and sieges.”
Q. CURTIUS RUFUS
Nothing is known with any certainty respecting either the life of this
historian or the time at which he lived. Niebuhr makes him contemporary
with Septimius Severus, but most critics with Vespasian. Zumpt again,
who, like some other eminent scholars, identifies him with the
rhetorician Q. Curtius Rufus, of whom Suetonius wrote a life now lost,
places him as early as Augustus.[5] The style in which his history is
written certainly shows him to have been a consummate master of rhetoric.
He was particularly given to adorning his narrative with speeches and
public harangues, and these, as Zumpt observes, are marked with a degree
of power and effectiveness which scarcely anything in that species of
writing can surpass. It may also be said that his style for elegance does
not fall much short of the perfection of Cicero himself. It has of course
its faults, and in these can be traced the incipient degeneracy of the
Latin language, such as the introduction of poetical diction into prose,
the ambition of expressing everything pointedly and strikingly, not to
mention certain deviations from strict grammatical propriety.
The materials of his narrative were drawn chiefly from Ptolemy, who
accompanied Alexander into India, from Kleitarchos their contemporary,
and from Timagenes, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and wrote
an excellent history of Alexander and his successors. While the sources
whence he derived his information were thus good on the whole, he was
himself deficient in the knowledge of military tactics, geography,
chronology, astronomy, and especially in historical criticism, and he
is therefore as an historical authority far inferior to Arrian. But
in perusing his “pictured pages” the reader takes but little note of
his errors and inconsistencies, being fascinated with his graceful and
glowing narrative, interspersed as it is with brilliant orations, sage
maxims, sound moral reflections, vivid descriptions of life and manners,
and beautiful estimates of character. It is not surprising that with such
merits Curtius has been one of the most popular of the classical authors.
In spite of all his sins, for which he has so often been pilloried by the
censors of literary morals, his history of Alexander has been the delight
and admiration of not a few of the greatest of European scholars. He
seems to have taken Livy as his model, as Arrian took Xenophon for his.
His work consisted originally of ten books, but the first two are lost,
and in some of the others considerable gaps occur. The French translation
of Curtius by Vaugelas, who devoted thirty years of his life to the task,
is so remarkable for its elegance that it has been pronounced to be as
inimitable as Alexander himself was invincible. It is not, however, a
very close version.
PLUTARCH
There are but few works in the wide circle of literature which have
afforded so much instruction and entertainment to the world as Plutarch’s
_Parallel Lives of the Famous Men of Greece and Rome_. These _Lives_,
which are forty-six in number, are arranged in pairs, and each pair
contains the _life_ of a Greek and a Roman, followed, though not always,
by a comparison drawn between the two. Alexander the Great and Caesar are
ranked together, but no comparison follows. In his introduction to the
_life_ of the former, Plutarch explains his method as a biographer. “We
do not,” he says, “give the actions in full detail and with a scrupulous
exactness, but rather in a short summary, since we are not writing
_histories_, but _lives_. It is not always in the most distinguished
achievements that men’s vices or virtues may be best discerned, but
often an action of but little note—a short saying or a jest—may mark
a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges or the most
important battles.” His _Lives_, therefore, while useful to the writer of
history, must be used with care, since they are not intended as materials
for history. His narrative of Alexander’s progress through India has one
or two passages which show this indifference to historical accuracy, as
when, for instance, he states that the soldiers of Alexander refused to
pass the Ganges when they saw the opposite bank covered with the army of
the King of the Praisians.[6] His account of the battle with Pôros is,
however, excellent, and all the more interesting, because, as he tells
us, he obtained the particulars from Alexander’s own letters.[7]
Plutarch was a native of Chairôneia, a town in Boiôtia. The date of
his birth is unknown, but may be fixed towards the middle of the first
century of our aera. He visited Italy, and lectured on philosophy in some
of its cities. For some time he lived in Rome, where, it is said, but on
doubtful authority, that he was promoted to high offices of state, and
became tutor to the Emperor Trajan. The later years of his life he spent
at Chairôneia, where he discharged various magisterial offices and held
a priesthood. The date of his death, like that of his birth, is unknown,
but it is clear that he lived to an advanced age. Besides the _Lives_,
he published other writings, mostly essays, having some resemblance to
those of Bacon. They are sixty in number, and are called collectively
_Moralia_, though some of them are of an historical character. Two of
them are orations _About the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander_. His style
is somewhat difficult, at times cumbrous and involved, and somewhat
deficient in that grace and perspicuity for which the works of the Attic
writers are noted. His writings are all the more valuable from their
supplying a deficiency of the Greek historians, whose works are filled
with the records of war and politics, while giving us but little insight
into men’s private lives and their social surroundings.
DIODOROS THE SICILIAN
Diodôros was born at Agyrium, a city in the interior of Sicily, and was
a contemporary of Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus. It was the
great ambition of his life to write an universal history, and having
this in view he travelled over a great part of Europe and Asia in order
to acquire a more accurate knowledge of countries and nations than could
be obtained from merely reading books. In Rome, where a far greater
number of the ancient documents which he required to consult had been
collected than were to be found elsewhere, he resided for a considerable
time. He spent thirty years in the composition of his work, to which he
gave the name of _Bibliothêkê_, which indicated that it formed quite _a
library_ in itself, embracing, as it did, the history of all ages and all
countries. It consisted of forty books, which he divided into three great
sections: 1st, the mythical period previous to the Trojan war; 2d, the
period thence to the death of Alexander the Great; 3d, the period from
Alexander to the beginning of Caesar’s Gallic wars. Considerable portions
of the _Bibliothêkê_ are lost, but all the books relating to the period
with which we are concerned are still extant.
Diodôros constructed his narrative upon the plan of annals, placing
the events of each year side by side without regard to their intrinsic
connection. The value of the work is greatly impaired by the author’s
evident want of critical discernment; he mixes up history with fiction,
shows frequently that he has misunderstood his authorities, and advances
statements which are mutually contradictory. His style is, however,
pleasing, having the merits of simplicity and clearness. In his second
book he gives a description of India epitomized from Megasthenes.
His account of Alexander’s career in India records some interesting
particulars of which we should otherwise have remained ignorant. He seems
to have drawn largely from the same sources as Curtius.
JUSTINUS FRONTINUS
Justin, in the preface to his work entitled _De Historiis Philippicis_,
informs us that it was “a kind of anthology”—_veluti florum
corpusculum_—extracted from the forty-four volumes published by Pompeius
Trogus on Philippic (_i.e._ Macedonian) history. As these volumes
included histories of nearly all the countries with which the Macedonian
sovereigns had transactions, they embraced such a very wide field that
they were regarded as a cyclopaedia of general history. Justin remarks
that while many authors regard it as an arduous task to write no more
than the history of one king or one state, we cannot but think that
Pompeius had the daring of Hercules in attacking the whole world, seeing
that in his books are contained the _res gestae_ of all ages, kings,
nations, and peoples. He then states that he had occupied his leisure
while in Rome by selecting those passages of Trogus which seemed most
worthy of being generally known, and passing over such as he took to
be neither particularly interesting nor instructive. He has been much,
but unjustly, blamed for his omissions, seeing that his only object in
writing was to compile a work of elegant historical extracts. By so
doing he has rescued from oblivion many facts not elsewhere recorded.
From the extracts relating to India we gather more information about
Sandrokottos (Chandragupta) than from any other classical source. Trogus
Pompeius belonged, we know, to the age of Augustus, but it is uncertain
when Justin lived. As the earliest writer by whom he is mentioned is St.
Jerome, his date cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth century
of our aera.
THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—LYSIMACHOS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—ARISTOTLE.]
Alexander III., King of Macedonia, surnamed the Great, was born at Pella
in the year 356 B.C. He was the son of Philip II. and Olympias, who
belonged to the royal race of Epeiros, which claimed to be descended
from Achilles, the hero of the _Iliad_. The education of the prince
was in the outset entrusted to Lysimachos, an Akarnanian, and to his
mother’s kinsman Leonidas, a man of an austere character, who inured
his pupil to Spartan-like habits of hard exercise and simple fare.
In his thirteenth year he was placed under the immediate tuition of
Aristotle, who acquired a life-long influence over the mind and character
of his pupil. It may be supposed that the eager love of discovery which
conspicuously distinguished Alexander from ordinary conquerors was in
a great measure inspired and stimulated by the precepts of his master.
In his sixteenth year he was entrusted, during his father’s absence
on a foreign expedition, with the regency of Macedonia; and two years
later, at the battle of Chaironeia, which was won chiefly through his
impetuous valour, he displayed for the first time his incomparable genius
for war. This victory made the Macedonian King supreme in Greece, and
at a convention which met soon afterwards at his summons, and which was
attended by deputies from all the Grecian states except Sparta, he was
appointed to command the national forces and to conduct an expedition
against Persia to avenge the invasions of Mardonios and Xerxes. He was
actively engaged in preparing for this great contest when he fell by
the hand of an assassin. Alexander succeeded (336 B.C.) not only to his
sovereignty, but also to his supremacy in the affairs of Greece. He found
himself, immediately on his accession, beset on all sides with most
formidable opponents. Attalos, who was in Asia with a considerable force
under his command, aspired to the throne; the Greeks, instigated by the
passionate eloquence of Demosthenes, attempted to liberate themselves
from Macedonian dictation, and the barbarians of the north threatened his
hereditary dominions with invasion. The youthful monarch was equal to the
emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly
marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient
rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms
northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous
tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube.
Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which
had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single
year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been,
he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian
expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted
to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse.