dastards would have polluted the spoils stripped from the invincible
Alexander, had not fortune, looking with pity on us, interfered for your
deliverance. We are no better than traitors, no better than deserters,
all of us who were unable to keep up with you when you ran into danger;
and should you therefore brand us all with dishonour, none of us will
refuse to give satisfaction for that from the guilt of which he could
not secure himself. Show us, we beseech you then, in some other way, how
cheap you hold us. We are ready to go wherever you order. We solicit that
for us you reserve obscure dangers and inglorious battles, while you save
yourself for those occasions which give scope for your greatness. Glory
won in a contest with inferior opponents soon becomes stale, and nothing
can be more absurd than to let your valour be wasted where it cannot be
displayed to view.”
Ptolemy and others who were present addressed him in the same or similar
terms, and all of them, as one man, besought him with tears that, sated
as he was with glory, he would at last set some limits to that passion
and have more regard for his own safety, on which that of the public
depended. The affection and loyalty of his friends were so gratifying
to the king that he embraced them one by one with more than his usual
warmth, and requested them all to be seated.[298]
Then, in addressing them, he went far back in a review of his career and
said: “I return you, most faithful and most dutiful subjects and friends,
my most heartfelt thanks, not only because you at this time prefer my
safety to your own, but also because from the very outset of the war you
have lost no opportunity of showing by every pledge and token your kindly
feelings towards myself, so that I must confess my life has never been
so dear to me as it is at present, and chiefly so, that I may long enjoy
your companionship. At the same time, I must point out that those who are
willing to lay down their lives for me do not look at the matter from my
point of view, inasmuch as I judge myself to have deserved by my bravery
your favourable inclinations towards me, for you may possibly be coveting
to reap the fruit of my favour for a great length of time, perhaps even
in perpetuity, but I measure myself not by the span of age, but by that
of glory.
“Had I been contented with my paternal heritage, I might have spent my
days within the bounds of Macedonia, in slothful ease, to an obscure and
inglorious old age; although even those who remain indolently at home are
not masters of their own destiny, for while they consider a long life to
be the supreme good, an untimely death often takes them by surprise. I,
however, who do not count my years but by my victories, have already had
a long career of life, if I reckon aright the gifts of fortune. Having
begun to reign in Macedonia, I now hold the supremacy of Greece. I have
subdued Thrace and the people of Illyria; I give laws to the Triballi and
the Maedi,[299] and am master of Asia from the shores of Hellespont as
far south as the shores of the Indian Ocean. And now I am not far from
the very ends of the earth, which when I have passed I purpose to open
up to myself a new realm of nature—a new world. In the turning-point of
a single hour I crossed over from Asia into the borders of Europe.[300]
Having conquered both these continents in the ninth year of my reign,
and in my twenty-eighth year, do you think I can pause in the task
of completing my glory, to which, and to which only, I have entirely
devoted myself? No, I shall not fail in my duty to her, and wheresoever
I shall be fighting I shall imagine myself on the world’s theatre, with
all mankind for spectators. I shall give celebrity to places before
unnoted. I shall open up for all nations a way to regions which nature
has hitherto kept far distant.
“If fortune shall so direct that in the midst of these enterprises my
life be cut short, that would only add to my renown. I am sprung from
such a stock that I am bound to prefer living much to living long.[301]
Reflect, I pray you, that we have come to lands in the eyes of which the
name of a woman is the most famed for valour. What cities did Semiramis
build! What nations did she bring to subjection! What mighty works did
she plan! We have not yet equalled the glorious achievements of a woman,
and have we already had our fill of glory? No, I say. Let the gods,
however, but favour us, and things still greater remain for us yet to
do. But the countries we have not yet reached shall only become ours on
condition that we consider nothing little in which there is room for
great glory to be won. Do you but defend me against domestic treason
and the plots of my own household,[302] and I will fearlessly face the
dangers of battle and war.
“Philip was safer in the field of fight than in the theatre. He often
escaped the hands of his enemies—he could not elude those of his
subjects.[303] And if you examine how other kings also came by their end,
you can count more that were slain by their own people than by their
enemies. But now lastly, since an opportunity has presented itself to me
of disclosing a matter which I have for a long time been turning over
and over in my mind, I give you to understand that to me the greatest
rewards of all my toils and achievements will be this, that my mother
Olympias shall be deified as soon as she departs this life. If I be
spared, I shall myself discharge that duty, but if death anticipate me,
bear in memory that I have entrusted this office to you.” With these
words he dismissed his friends; but for a good many days he remained in
the same encampment.
_Chapter VII.—The affair of Biton and Boxus at Baktra—Embassy from the
Sudracae and Malli proffering submission—Alexander entertains his army
and the embassy at a sumptuous banquet—Single combat between a Macedonian
and an Athenian champion_
While these things were doing in India, the Greek soldiers who had been
recently drafted by the king into settlements around Bactra disagreed
among themselves and revolted, for the stronger faction, having killed
some of their countrymen who remained loyal, had recourse to arms, and
making themselves masters of the citadel of Bactra, which happened to be
carelessly guarded, forced even the barbarians to join their party. Their
leader was Athenodorus, who had also assumed the title of king, not so
much from an ambition to reign as from a wish to return to his native
country along with those who acknowledged his authority. Against his life
one Biton, a citizen of the same Greek state as himself, but who hated
him from envy, laid a plot, and having invited him to a banquet, had him
assassinated during the festivities by the hands of a native of Margiana
called Boxus. The day following Biton, in a general meeting which had
been convoked, persuaded the majority that Athenodorus had without
any provocation formed a plot to take away his life. Others, however,
suspected there had been foul play on Biton’s part, and by degrees this
suspicion spread itself about among the rest. The Greek soldiers,
therefore, took up arms to put Biton to death should an opportunity
present itself.
But the leading men appeased the anger of the multitude, and Biton
being thus freed from his imminent danger, contrary to what he had
anticipated, soon afterwards conspired against the very man to whom he
owed his safety. But when his treachery came to their knowledge they
seized both Biton himself and Boxus. The latter they ordered to be at
once put to death, but Biton not till after he had undergone torture. The
instruments for this purpose were already being applied to his limbs when
the soldiers, it is not known why, ran to their arms like so many madmen.
On hearing the uproar they made, the men who had orders to torture Biton
desisted from their office, thinking that the object of the rioters, whom
they had heard shouting, was to prevent them going on with their work.
Biton, stripped as he was, ran for protection to the Greeks, and the
sight of the wretched man sentenced to death caused such a revulsion of
their feelings that they ordered him to be set at liberty. Having twice
escaped punishment, he returned to his native country with the rest of
those who left the colonies which the king had assigned to them.[304]
These things were done about Bactra and the borders of Scythia.
In the meantime a hundred ambassadors came to the king from the two
nations we have before mentioned.[305] They all rode in chariots and were
men of uncommon stature and of a very dignified bearing. Their robes were
of linen and embroidered with inwrought gold and purple. They informed
him that they surrendered into his hands themselves, their cities, and
their territories, and that he was the first to whose authority and
protection they had intrusted their liberty which for so many ages
they had preserved inviolate. The gods, they said, were the authors of
their submission and not fear, seeing that they had submitted to his
yoke while their strength was quite unbroken. The king at a meeting of
his council accepted their proffer of submission and allegiance, and
imposed on them the tribute which the two nations paid in instalments
to the Arachosians.[306] He further ordered them to furnish him with
2500 horsemen, all which commands were faithfully carried out by the
barbarians. After this he gave orders for the preparation of a splendid
banquet to which he invited the ambassadors and the petty kings of the
neighbouring tribes. Here a hundred couches of gold had been placed at a
small distance from each other, and these were hung round with tapestry
curtains which glittered with gold and purple. In a word he displayed
at this entertainment all that was corrupt in the ancient luxury of the
Persians as well as in the new-fangled fashions which had been adopted by
the Macedonians, thus intermixing the vices of both nations.
At this banquet there was present Dioxippus the Athenian, a famous
boxer,[307] who on account of his surprising strength was already well
known to the king, and one even of his favourites. Some there were who
from envy and malice used to carp at him between jest and earnest,
remarking they had a full-fed good-for-nothing beast in their company,
who when others went forth to fight would rub himself with oil and take
exercise to get up his appetite. Now at the banquet a Macedonian called
Horratus, who was by this time “flown with wine,” began to taunt him in
the usual style, and challenged him, if he were a man, to fight him next
day with his sword, after which the king would judge of his temerity or
of the cowardice of Dioxippus. The terms of the challenge were accepted
by Dioxippus, who treated with contempt the bravado of the insolent
soldier. The king finding next day that the two men were more than ever
bent on fighting, and that he could not dissuade them, allowed them to do
as they pleased. The soldiers came in crowds to witness the affair, and
among others Greeks who backed up Dioxippus.[308]
The Macedonian came with the proper arms, carrying in his left hand
a brazen shield and the long spear called the _sarissa_, and in his
right a javelin. He wore also a sword by his side as if he meant to
fight with several opponents at once. Dioxippus again entered the ring
shining with oil, wearing a garland about his brows, having a scarlet
cloak wrapped about his left arm, and carrying in his right hand a stout
knotty club. This singular mode of equipment kept all the spectators for
a time in suspense, because it seemed not temerity but downright madness
for a naked man to engage with one armed to the teeth. The Macedonian
accordingly, not doubting for a moment but that he could kill his
adversary from a distance, cast his javelin at him, but this Dioxippus
avoided by a slight bending of his body, and before the other could shift
the long pike to his right hand, sprang upon him and broke the weapon in
two by a stroke of his club. The Macedonian, having thus lost two of his
weapons, prepared to draw his sword, but Dioxippus closed with him before
he was ready to wield it, and suddenly tripping up his heels, knocked
him down as with a blow from a battering-ram. He then wrested his sword
from his grasp, planted his foot on his neck as he lay prostrate, and
brandishing his club would have brained him with it, had he not been
prevented by the king.
The result of the match was mortifying not only to the Macedonians, but
even to Alexander himself, for he saw with vexation that the vaunted
bravery of the Macedonians had fallen into contempt with the barbarians
who attended the spectacle. This made the king lend his ear all too
readily to the accusations of those who owed Dioxippus a grudge. So at
a feast which he attended a few days afterwards a golden bowl was by a
private arrangement secretly taken off the table, and the attendants
went to the king to complain of the loss of the article which they
themselves had hidden. It often enough happens that one who blushes at
a false insinuation has less control of his countenance than one who is
really guilty. Dioxippus could not bear the glances which were turned
upon him as if he were the thief, and so when he had left the banquet he
wrote a letter which he addressed to the king, and then killed himself
with his sword. The king took his death much to heart, judging that the
man had killed himself from sheer indignation, and not from remorse of
conscience, especially since the intemperate joy of his enemies made it
clear that he had been falsely accused.
_Chapter VIII.—Alexander receives the submission of the Malli—Invades the
Musicani and the Praesti, whose king Porticanus is slain—He next attacks
King Sambus, many of whose cities surrendered—Musicanus having revolted
is captured and executed—Ptolemy is wounded by a poisoned arrow in the
kingdom of Sambus, but recovers—Alexander reaches Patala and sails down
the Indus_
The Indian ambassadors were dismissed to their several homes, but in a
few days they returned with presents for Alexander which consisted of 300
horsemen, 1030 chariots each drawn by four horses, 1000 Indian bucklers,
a great quantity of linen-cloth, 100 talents of steel,[309] some tame
lions and tigers of extraordinary size, the skins also of very large
lizards, and a quantity of tortoise shells.[310] The king commanding
Craterus to move forward in advance with his troops and to keep always
near the river, down which he intended himself to sail, took ship along
with his usual retinue, and dropping down stream came to the territories
of the Malli.[311] Thence he marched towards the Sabarcae,[312] a
powerful Indian tribe where the form of government was democratic and not
regal. Their army consisted of 60,000 foot and 6000 cavalry attended by
500 chariots.
They had elected three generals renowned for their valour and military
skill; but when those who lived near the river, the banks of which were
most thickly studded with their villages,[313] saw the whole river as
far as the eye could reach covered with ships, and saw besides the
many thousands of men and their gleaming arms, they took fright at the
strange spectacle and imagined that an army of the gods and a second
Father Bacchus, a name famous in that country, were coming into their
midst. The shouts of the soldiers and the noise of the oars, together
with the confused voices of the sailors encouraging each other, so
filled their alarmed ears that they all ran off to the army and cried
out to the soldiers that they would be mad to offer battle to the gods,
that the number of ships carrying these invincible warriors was past all
counting.[314] By these reports they created such a terror in the ranks
of their own army that they sent ambassadors commissioned to surrender
their whole nation to Alexander.
Having received their submission, he came on the fourth day after to
other tribes which had as little inclination for fighting as their
neighbours. Here therefore he built a town, which by his orders was
called Alexandrea,[315] and then he entered the country of the people
known as the Musicani.[316] While he was here he held an enquiry into the
complaints advanced by the Parapamisadae against Terioltes,[317] whom
he had made their satrap, and, finding many charges of extortion and
tyranny proved against him, he sentenced him to death. On the other hand
Oxyartes, the governor of the Bactriani, was not only acquitted, but, as
he had claims upon Alexander’s affections, was rewarded with an extension
of the territory under his jurisdiction. Having thereafter reduced the
Musicani, Alexander put a garrison into their capital, and marched thence
into the country of the Praesti, another Indian tribe.[318] Their king
was Porticanus, and he with a great body of his countrymen had shut
himself up within a strongly-fortified city. Alexander, however, took
it after a three days’ siege. Porticanus, who had taken refuge within
the citadel after the capture of the city, sent deputies to the king to
arrange about terms of capitulation. Before they reached him, however,
two towers had fallen down with a dreadful crash, and the Macedonians
having made their way through the ruins into the citadel, captured it and
slew Porticanus, who with a few others had offered resistance.
Having demolished the citadel and sold all the prisoners, he marched
into the territories of King Sambus, where he received the submission
of numerous towns.[319] The strongest, however, of all the cities which
belonged to this people, he took by making a passage into it underground.
To the barbarians, who had no previous knowledge of this device for
entering fortified places, it seemed as if a miracle had been wrought
when they saw armed men rise out of the ground in the middle of their
city almost without any trace of the mine by which they had entered being
visible.[320] Clitarchus says that 80,000 Indians were slain in that part
of the country, and that numerous prisoners were sold as slaves. The
Musicani again rebelled, and Pithon being sent to crush them, brought the
chief of the tribe, who was also the author of the insurrection, to the
king, who ordered him to be crucified, and then returned to the river,
where the fleet was waiting for him.
The fourth day thereafter he sailed down the river to a town that lay at
the very extremity of the kingdom of Sambus. That prince had but lately
surrendered himself to Alexander, but the people of the city refused
to obey him, and had even closed their gates against him. The king,
however, despising the paucity of their numbers, ordered 500 Agrianians
to go close up to the walls and then to retire by little, in order to
entice the enemy from the town, who would in that case certainly pursue
under the belief that they were retreating. The Agrianians, after some
skirmishing, suddenly showed their backs to the enemy as they had been
ordered, and were hotly pursued by the barbarians, who fell in with
other troops led by the king in person. The fighting was therefore
renewed, with the result that out of the 3000 barbarians who were in
the action, 600 were killed, 1000 taken prisoners, and the rest driven
back into the city. But this victory did not end so happily as at first
sight it promised to do, for the barbarians had used poisoned swords,
and the wounded soon afterwards died; while the surgeons were at a loss
to discover why a slight wound should be incurable, and followed by so
violent a death. The barbarians had been in hopes that the king, who
was known to be rash and reckless of his safety, might be in this way
cut off, and in fact it was only by sheer good luck that he escaped
untouched, fighting as he did among the very foremost.
Ptolemy was wounded in the left shoulder, slightly indeed, but yet
dangerously on account of the poison, and his case caused the king
especial anxiety. He was his own kinsman; some even believed that Philip
was his father, and it is at all events certain that he was the son of
one of that king’s mistresses. He was a member of the royal body-guard,
and the bravest of soldiers. At the same time, he was even greater and
more illustrious in civil pursuits than in war itself. He lived in a
plain style like men of common rank, was liberal in the extreme, easy
too of access, and a man who gave himself none of the high airs so often
assumed by courtiers. These qualities made it doubtful whether he was
more loved by the king or by his countrymen. At all events, now that his
life was in danger, he was for the first time made aware of the great
affection entertained for him by the Macedonians, who by this time seem
to have presaged the greatness to which he afterwards rose, for they
showed as much solicitude for him as they did for Alexander himself.
Alexander, again, though fatigued with fighting and anxiety, sat watching
over Ptolemy, and when he wished to take some rest, did not leave the
sick-room, but had his bed brought into it.
He had no sooner laid himself down than he fell into a profound sleep,
from which, when he awoke, he told his attendants that in a vision he had
seen a creature in the form of a serpent carrying in its mouth a plant,
which it offered him as an antidote to the poison. He gave besides such
a description of the colour of the plant as he was sure would enable
any one falling in with it to recognise it. The plant was found soon
afterwards, as many had gone to search for it, and was laid upon the
wound by Alexander himself. The application at once removed the pain and
speedily cicatrised the wound.[321] The barbarians finding themselves
disappointed of their first hopes, surrendered themselves and their city.
Alexander marched thence into the Patalian territory. Its king was
Moeres,[322] but he had abandoned the town and fled for safety to the
mountains. Alexander then took possession of the place, and ravaged the
surrounding country, from which he carried off a great booty of sheep and
cattle, besides a great quantity of corn. After this, taking some natives
acquainted with the river to pilot his way, he sailed down the stream to
an island which had sprung up almost in the middle of the channel.[323]
_Chapter IX.—Perils encountered on the voyage down the western arm of the
Indus to the sea—Alexander returns from the mouth of the river to Patala_
Here he was obliged to make a longer stay than he had anticipated,
because the pilots, finding they were not strictly guarded, had
absconded. He then sent out a party of his men to search for others. They
returned without finding any, but his unquenchable ambition to see the
ocean and reach the boundaries of the world, made him entrust his own
life and the safety of so many gallant men to an unknown river without
any guides possessed of the requisite local knowledge. They thus sailed
on ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass. It was entirely
left to haphazard and baseless conjecture how far off they were from the
sea, what tribes dwelt along the banks, whether the river was placid
at its mouth, and whether it was thereabouts of a depth sufficient for
their war-ships. The only comfort in this rash adventure was a confident
reliance on Alexander’s uniform good fortune. The expedition had in this
manner now proceeded a distance of 400 stadia, when the pilots brought to
his notice that they began to feel sea-air, and that they believed the
ocean was not now far off.
The king, elated by the news, exhorted the sailors to bend to their oars.
The end of their labours, he said, for which they had always been hoping
and praying, was close at hand; nothing was now wanting to complete their
glory; nothing left to withstand their valour. They could now, without
the hazard of fighting, without any bloodshed, make the whole world
their own. Even nature herself could advance no farther, and within a
short time they would see what was known to none but the immortal gods.
He nevertheless sent a small party ashore in a boat in order to take
some of the natives straggling about, from whom he hoped some correct
information might be obtained. After all the huts near the shore had been
searched, some natives at last were found hidden away in them. These,
on being asked how far off the sea was, answered that they had never so
much as heard of such a thing as the sea, but that on the third day they
might come to water of a bitter taste which corrupted the fresh water.
From this it was understood they meant the sea, whose nature they did
not understand. The mariners therefore plied their oars with increased
alacrity, and still more strenuously on the following day as they drew
nearer to the fulfilment of their hopes.