fertile, and that the inhabitants were good agriculturists, brave in
war, and living under an excellent system of internal government; for
the multitude was governed by the aristocracy, who exercised their
authority with justice and moderation. It was also reported that the
people there had a greater number of elephants than the other Indians,
and that those were of superior size and courage. This information only
whetted Alexander’s eagerness to advance farther, but the Macedonians now
began to lose heart when they saw the king raising up without end toils
upon toils and dangers upon dangers. The army, therefore, began to hold
conferences at which the more moderate men bewailed their condition,
while others positively asserted that they would follow no farther though
Alexander himself should lead the way. When this came to Alexander’s
knowledge he convoked the officers in command of brigades, before the
disorder and despondency should be further developed among the soldiers,
and he thus addressed them:
“On seeing that you, O Macedonians and allies! no longer follow me into
dangers with your wonted alacrity, I have summoned you to this assembly
that I may either persuade you to go farther, or be persuaded by you to
turn back. If you have reason to complain of past labours, and of me your
leader, I need say no more. But if by those labours you have acquired
Ionia,[131] and the Hellespont with the two Phrygias, Kappadokia,
Paphlagonia, Lydia, Karia, Lykia, and Pamphylia, as well as Phoenikia
and Egypt, together with Hellenic Lybia, part of Arabia, Hollow Syria,
Mesopotamia, Babylon, Sousiana, Persis, and Media, and all the provinces
governed by the Medes and Persians, not to mention other states which
were never subject to them; if in addition we have conquered the regions
beyond the Kaspian Gates, those beyond Kaukasos, the Tanais[132] also,
and the country beyond, Baktria, Hyrkania, and the Hyrkanian Sea; if we
have driven the Skythians back into their deserts, and if besides, the
Indus, Hydaspês, Akesinês, and Hydraôtês flow through territories that
are ours, why should you hesitate to pass the Hyphasis also and add the
tribes beyond it to your Macedonian conquests? Are you afraid there are
other barbarians who may yet successfully resist you, although of those
we have already met some have willingly submitted, others have been
captured in flight, while others have left us their deserted country to
be distributed either to our allies or to those who have voluntarily
submitted to us?”
_Chapter XXVI.—Continuation of Alexander’s Speech_
“For my part, I think that to a man of spirit there is no other aim and
end of his labours except the labours themselves, provided they be such
as lead him to the performance of glorious deeds. But if any one wishes
to know the limits of the present warfare, let him understand that the
river Ganges and the Eastern Sea are now at no great distance off. This
sea, I am confident, is connected with the Hyrkanian Sea, because the
Great Ocean flows round the whole earth.[133] I shall besides prove
to the Macedonians and their allies that the Indian Gulf is connected
with the Persian, and the Hyrkanian Sea with the Indian Gulf. From the
Persian Gulf our fleet will sail round to Lybia as far as the Pillars
of Heraklês.[134] From these pillars all the interior of Lybia becomes
ours, and thus all Asia shall belong to us,[135] and the boundaries of
our empire in that direction will coincide with those which the deity has
made the boundaries of the earth. But, if we now turn back, many warlike
nations extending beyond the Hyphasis to the Eastern Sea, and many others
lying northwards between these and Hyrkania, to say nothing of their
neighbours the Skythian tribes, will be left behind us unconquered, so
that if we turn back there is cause to fear lest the conquered nations,
as yet wavering in their fidelity, may be instigated to revolt by those
who are still independent. Our many labours will in that case be all
completely thrown away, or we must enter on a new round of toils and
dangers. But persevere, O Macedonians and allies! glory crowns the deeds
of those who expose themselves to toils and dangers. Life, signalised
by deeds of valour, is delightful, and so is death, if we leave behind
us an immortal name. Know ye not that it was not by staying at home
in Tiryns[136] or Argos, or even in Peloponnêsos or Thebes, that our
ancestor was exalted to such glory, that from being a man he became, or
was thought to be, a god. Nor were the labours few even of Dionysos, who
ranks as a god far above Heraklês. But we have advanced beyond Nysa,
and the rock Aornos, which proved impregnable to Heraklês, is in our
possession. Add, then, the rest of Asia to our present acquisitions—the
smaller part of it to the greater. Could we ourselves, think you, have
achieved any great and memorable deeds if, sitting down at home in
Macedonia, we had been content without exertion merely to preserve our
own country, by repelling the attacks of the neighbouring Thracians,
Illyrians, and Triballians, or those Greeks whose disposition to us is
unfriendly?
“If, indeed, while leading you, I had myself shrunk from the toils and
dangers to which you were exposed, you would not without good reason be
dispirited in prospect of undertaking fresh enterprises, seeing that
while you alone shared the toils, it was for others you procured the
rewards. But our labours are in common; I, equally with you, share in
the dangers, and the rewards become the public property. For the land is
yours, and you are its satraps; and among you the greater part of its
treasures has already been distributed. And when all Asia is subdued
then, by heaven, I will not merely satisfy, but exceed every man’s hopes
and wishes. Such of you as wish to return home I shall send back to your
own country, or even myself will lead you back. But those who remain here
I will make objects of envy to those who go back.”
_Chapter XXVII—Koinos, replying to Alexander, states the grievances of
the army_
When Alexander had spoken to this and the like effect, a long silence
followed, because those present neither dared to speak freely in
opposition to the king, nor yet wished to assent to what he proposed.
Alexander again and again requested that any one who wished should speak,
even if his views differed from those which he had himself expressed. But
the silence was unbroken for a long time, till at last Koinos, the son of
Polemokratês, summoned up courage and spoke to this effect:
“Forasmuch as you do not wish, O king! to rule Macedonians by constraint,
but say that you will lead them by persuasion, or suffering yourself to
be persuaded by them, will not have recourse to compulsion, I intend to
speak, not on behalf of myself and fellow-officers who have been honoured
above the other soldiers, and have most of us received splendid rewards
of our labours, and from having been highly exalted above others are
more zealous than others to serve you in all things, but in behalf of
the great body of the army. Yet on behalf of this army I intend not to
say what may be agreeable to the men, but what I think will be conducive
to your present interests and safest for the future. I feel bound by my
age not to conceal what appears to be the best course to follow; bound
by the high authority conferred on me by yourself, and bound also by the
unhesitating boldness which I have hitherto exhibited in all enterprises
of danger. The more I look to the number and magnitude of the exploits
performed under your command by us who set out with you from home, the
more does it seem to me expedient to place some limit to our toils and
dangers. For you see yourself how many Macedonians and Greeks started
with you, and how few of us are left. From our ranks you sent away home
from Baktra the Thessalians[137] as soon as you saw they had no stomach
for further toils, and in this you acted wisely. Of the other Greeks,
some have been settled in the cities founded by you, where all of them
are not willing residents; others still share our toils and dangers.
They and the Macedonian army have lost some of their numbers in the
fields of battle; others have been disabled by wounds; others have been
left behind in different parts of Asia, but the majority have perished
by disease. A few only out of many survive, and these few possessed no
longer of the same bodily strength as before, while their spirits are
still more depressed.[138] All those, whose parents are still living,
have a yearning to see them—a yearning to see their wives and children—a
yearning to see were it but their native land itself—a desire pardonable
in men who would return home in great splendour derived from your
munificence, and raised from humble to high rank, and from indigence to
wealth. Seek not, therefore, to lead them against their inclinations, for
you will not find them the same men in the face of dangers, if they enter
without heart into their contests with the enemy. But do you also, if it
agree with your wishes, return home with us, see your mother once more,
settle the affairs of the Greeks, and carry to the house of your fathers
those your great and numerous victories. Then having so done, form, if
you so wish, a fresh expedition against these same tribes of eastern
Indians, or, if you prefer, against the shores of the Euxine Sea, or
against Karchêdon,[139] and the parts of Lybia beyond the Karchêdonians.
It will then be your part to unfold your purpose, and then other
Macedonians and other Greeks will follow you—young men full of vigour
instead of old men worn out with toils—men for whom war, through their
inexperience of it, has no immediate terrors, and eager to set out from
the hope of future rewards. They will also naturally follow you with the
greater alacrity, from seeing that the companions of your former toils
and dangers have returned home wealthy instead of poor, and raised to
high distinction from their original obscurity. Moderation, in the midst
of success, is, O king! the noblest of virtues, for though, at the head
of so brave an army, you have nothing to dread from mortal foes, yet the
visitations of the deity cannot be foreseen, and man cannot, therefore,
guard against them.”
_Chapter XXVIII.—Alexander mortified by the refusal of his army to
advance, secludes himself in his tent, but in the end resolves to return_
When Koinos had concluded his address, those present are said to have
signified their approval of what he said by loud applause, while many
by their streaming tears showed still more expressively their aversion
to encounter further dangers, and how welcome to them was the idea of
returning. But Alexander, who resented the freedom with which Koinos
had spoken, and the hesitation displayed by the other generals, broke up
the conference; but next day while his wrath was still hot he summoned
the same men again, and told them that he was going forward himself, but
would not force any of the Macedonians to accompany him against their
wishes, for he would find men ready to follow their king of their own
free will. But those who wished to go away were free to go home, and
might tell their friends there that they had returned, and left their
king in the midst of his enemies. It is said that with these words he
withdrew into his tent, and did not admit any of his companions to see
him on that day, nor even till the third day after, waiting to see
whether a change of mood, such as often takes place in an assemblage
of soldiers, would manifest itself among the Macedonians and the
allies, and make them readier to yield to his persuasions. But when a
deep silence again reigned throughout the camp, and the soldiers were
evidently offended by his wrath without their minds being changed by it,
he began none the less, as Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, states, to offer
there sacrifice for the passage of the river; but when on sacrificing
he found the omens were against him, he then assembled the oldest of
the Companions, and especially his intimate friends among them, and as
everything indicated that to return was his most expedient course he
intimated to the army that he had resolved to march back.
_Chapter XXIX.—Alexander erects altars on the banks of the Hyphasis to
mark the limits of his advance, recrosses the Hydraôtês and Akesinês and
regains the Hydaspês_
Then they shouted, as a mixed multitude would shout when rejoicing,
and many of them shed tears. Some of them even approached the royal
pavilion, and invoked many blessings on Alexander, because by them and
them only did he permit himself to be vanquished. He then divided the
army into brigades, which he ordered to prepare twelve altars[140] to
equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in
point of breadth, to serve as thank-offerings to the gods who had led
him so far as a conqueror, and also as a memorial of his own labours.
When the altars had been constructed, he offered sacrifice upon them
with the customary rites, and celebrated a gymnastic and equestrian
contest. Having thereafter committed all the country west of the river
Hyphasis to the government of Pôros, he marched back to the Hydraôtês.
After crossing this river, he retraced his steps to the Akesinês, and on
arriving there found the city which he had ordered Hêphaistiôn to fortify
completely built.[141] Herein he settled as many of the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood as were willing to make it their domicile, and such
also of the mercenary soldiers as were now unfit for further service. He
then began to make preparations for the downward voyage to the Great Sea.
At this time Arsakês,[142] ruler of the country adjoining the dominions
of Abisarês, together with the brother of Abisarês and his other
relatives, came to him, bringing presents such as the Indians consider
the most valuable, and some thirty elephants sent by Abisarês. They
represented that Abisarês was prevented from coming in person by
illness—a statement which the ambassadors sent by Alexander to Abisarês
corroborated. Alexander, readily believing that such was the case, made
Abisarês satrap of his own dominions, and moreover placed Arsakês under
his jurisdiction. Having then fixed the amount which was to be paid as
tribute, he again offered sacrifice near the river Akesinês. He then
recrossed that river, and reached the Hydaspês, where he employed his
army in repairing the damage caused by the rains to the cities of Nikaia
and Boukephala, and set the other affairs of the country in order.
SIXTH BOOK
_Chapter I.—Alexander mistakes the Indus for the upper Nile—Prepares to
sail down stream to the sea_
When Alexander had got ready upon the banks of the Hydaspês a large
number of thirty-oared galleys, and others of one bank and a half of
oars, besides numerous horse transports and every other requisite for
the easy conveyance of an army by river, he resolved to sail down the
Hydaspês[143] to the Great Sea. As he had before this seen crocodiles in
the river Indus, and in no other river but the Nile only, and had besides
seen beans of the same species as those which Egypt produces[144] growing
near the banks of the Akesinês, and as he had heard that this river falls
into the Indus, he was led to think that he had discovered the sources of
the Nile. His idea was that this river rose somewhere among the Indians
and pursued its course through a vast tract of desert country, where it
lost the name of the Indus, and that from the time when it began to flow
through the inhabited parts of the world it was called the Nile both by
the Aithiopians, who lived there and by the Egyptians, just as Homer also
changed its name, calling it the river Egypt after Egypt, the country
where at last it discharges itself into the Inner Sea.[145] Accordingly
when he was writing to his mother Olympias about the country of the
Indians, he mentioned, it is said, among other things that he thought he
had discovered the sources of the Nile, actually basing on such slight
and contemptible evidence his judgements respecting questions of so much
importance. When, however, he investigated with special care the facts
relating to the river Indus, he ascertained from the natives that the
Hydaspês unites with the Akesinês, and the Akesinês with the Indus, to
which the other two rivers lose both their waters and their names. He
learned further that the Indus discharges itself into the Great Sea by
two mouths, and that it has no connection with the Egyptian country.
He is said to have then deleted what he had written about the Nile in
the letter to his mother, and as he had set his mind on sailing down
the rivers to the Great Sea he ordered a fleet for this purpose to be
prepared for him. Adequate crews for the vessels were supplied by the
Phoenicians, Cyprians, Karians, and Egyptians who accompanied the army.
_Chapter II.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês_
At this time Koinos, who was one of Alexander’s most faithful
companions, took ill and died, and his master buried him with all the
magnificence circumstances allowed. He then assembled the Companions and
all the ambassadors of the Indians who had come to him, and in their
presence appointed Pôros king of all the Indian territories already
subjugated—seven nations in all, containing more than 2000 cities.
He then made the following distribution of his army. He took in the
ships along with himself all the hypaspists, and the archers, and the
Agrianians, and the corps of horse-guards.[146] Krateros commanding
a division of the infantry and cavalry, conducted it along the right
bank of the Hydaspês, while Hêphaistiôn on the opposite bank advanced
in command of the largest and best division of the army, to which the
elephants, now about 200 in number, were attached. These generals were
instructed to march with all possible speed to where the palace of
Sôpeithês[147] was situated. Philippos, the satrap of the province
lying west of the Indus in the direction of the Baktrians, received
orders to follow them with his troops after an interval of three days,
but the cavalry of the Nysaians he now sent back to Nysa. The command
of the whole naval squadron was entrusted to Nearchos, while the pilot
of Alexander’s own ship was Onêsikritos, who, in the narrative which he
composed about the wars of Alexander, among his other lies, described
himself as the commander of the fleet, although he was in reality only
a pilot. According to Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, whose authority I
principally follow, the ships numbered collectively eighty thirty-oared
galleys, but the whole fleet, including the horse-transports and the
small craft and other river boats consisting of those that formerly plied
on the rivers and those recently built for the present service, did not
fall much short of 2000.[148]
_Chapter III.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês continued_
When all the preparations had been completed, the army at break of day
began to embark. Alexander himself sacrificed according to custom both
to the gods and to the river Akesinês as the seers directed. After he
had embarked he poured a libation into the river, from his station on
the prow, out of a golden bowl, and invoked not only the Hydaspês, but
also the Akesinês, as he had learned that the Akesinês was the greatest
of all the confluents of the Hydaspês, and that their point of junction
was not far off. He invoked likewise the Indus, into which the Akesinês
falls after receiving the Hydaspês. He further poured out libations to
his ancestor Heraklês, and to Ammôn[149] and every other god to whom it
was his custom to sacrifice, and then he ordered the signal for starting
on the voyage to be given by sound of trumpet. The fleet as soon as the
signal sounded began the voyage in due order, for directions had been
given at what distances the luggage-boats, the horse-transports, and
the war-galleys should keep apart from each other to prevent collisions
which would be inevitable if the ships sailed at random down the channel.
Even the fast sailers were not allowed to break rank by out-distancing
the others. The noise caused by the rowing was great beyond all
precedent, proceeding as it did from a vast number of boats being rowed
simultaneously, and swelled by the shouts of the officers directing the
rowing to begin or to stop, commingled with the shouts of the rowers,
which rung like the war-cry when they joined together in keeping time
to the dashing of the oars. The banks, moreover, being in many places
higher than the ships, and compressing the sound within a narrow compass,
sent the echoes, greatly increased by the compression itself, flying
to and fro between them. The ravines also which occasionally opened on
the river on either of its shores served further to swell the din by
reverberating amid their solitudes the thuds of the oars. The appearance
of the war-horses on the decks of the transports struck the barbarians,
who saw them through the lattice work, with such wonder and astonishment,
that the throng which lined the shores to witness the departure of the
fleet accompanied it to a great distance, for in the country of the
Indians horses had never before been seen on shipboard, nor was there
any tradition to the effect that the Indian expedition of Dionysos was
of a naval character. Those Indians also who had already submitted to
Alexander, as soon as they heard the shouts of the rowers and the dashing
of the oars, ran down to the edge of the river and followed the fleet,
singing their wild native chaunts, for the Indians have been peculiarly
distinguished among the nations as lovers of dance and song, ever since
Dionysos and his attendant Bacchanals made their festive progress through
the realms of India.[150]
_Chapter IV.—Alexander accelerates his voyage to frustrate the plans of
the Malloi and Oxydrakai, and reaches the turbulent confluence of the
Hydaspês and Akesinês_