insignificant province called Persis, which was included between the
Persian Gulf in the south and Mêdia in the north, and which stretched
eastward from Susiana (Elam) to the deserts of Karmania. The great empire
won by their arms, extended from the Mediterranean to the Jaxartes and
Indus. Xenophon says that the Persians in early times led a life of
penury and hard toil, as they inhabited a rugged country which they
cultivated with their own hands (_Kyrop._ vii. 5, 67).
[81] Cyrus is said to have perished in this expedition against the
Skythians, who lived beyond the Jaxartes, and were led by Queen Tomyris.
The account of this expedition, given by Herodotos in the closing
chapters of his first book, is examined at length by Duncker in the sixth
volume of his _History of Antiquity_, pp. 112-124. Xenophon represents
Cyrus as dying in peace at an advanced age.
[82] Called the _Indika_, written in the Ionic dialect, and based chiefly
on the works (now lost) of Megasthenes and Nearchos.
[83] The Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, in contrast to the interior sea
or Mediterranean.
[84] By the Indian Ocean (called immediately afterwards the Great Sea) is
meant here the Bay of Bengal and the ocean beyond, then unknown, which
extended to the shores of China. By the Kaukasos, which extended to this
eastern ocean, is meant the vast Himâlayan range.
[85] Regarding the Maiôtic Lake, now generally called the Sea of Azof,
the ancients entertained very hazy and inaccurate notions. They supposed
it to be situated in the remotest regions of the earth (Aisch. _Prom._
427), and to be almost equal in size to the Euxine (Herod, iv. 86).
Arrian, who might have known better, seems here to have adopted the
crude notion current in Alexander’s time that the Jaxartes (which they
confounded with the Tanais or Don) entered by one arm the Hyrkanian or
Kaspian Sea, and by another the Maiôtic Lake. The Kaspian itself was
taken to be a gulf of the Great Eastern Ocean. Herodotos, however, is
guiltless of this geographical heresy.
[86] This does not mean that Megasthenes was sent on frequent embassies
to Sandrakottos, but that during his embassy he had frequent interviews
with him. The former interpretation, however, finds its advocates.
[87] See Herodotos, ii. 5. Diodôros applies to Lower Egypt the epithet
ποταμόχωστος, _i.e._ _deposited by the river_.
[88] See _Odyssey_, iv. 477, 581.
[89] Modern science confirms this theory. Thus Sir W. Hunter in his
_Brief History of the Indian People_, says: “In order to understand the
Indian plains we must have a clear idea of the part played by these great
rivers; for the rivers first create the land, then fertilize it, and
finally distribute its produce. The plains were in many parts upheaved by
volcanic action, or deposited in an aqueous aera long before man appeared
on the earth.”
[90] Arrian has named these in his _Indika_, c. 4.
[91] See Herod, vii. 33-36; iv. 83, 97, 133-141.
[92] Diodôros says the passage was made by a bridge of boats.
[93] There is a Rhenos in Italy—the Reno, a tributary of the Po, from
which the great Rhine is distinguished as the Keltic. The famous bridge
made by Caesar over the latter river is described in his _De Bello
Gallico_, iv. 17.
[94] See Note I, Taxila.
[95] We learn from Curtius that Alexander, before taking hostile action
against Pôros, demanded from him through an envoy called Cleochares
that he should pay tribute and come to meet him on the frontiers of his
dominions. To this Pôros replied that in compliance with the second
request he would meet Alexander at the place appointed, but would attend
in arms. Alexander was perhaps justified by the laws of war in exacting
submission from the tribes west of the Indus, since these had been
subject to Darius, whom he had overthrown, and to whose rights he had
succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjâb, those at least that lay to the
east of the Hydaspês, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian
domination, and hence his invasion, according to modern ideas, was
altogether indefensible. He could, however, justify himself on the ground
of the principles held by the Greeks of his day, who considered that
their superiority in wisdom and virtue to the rest of mankind gave them a
natural right to attack, plunder, and enslave all barbarians except such
only as were protected by a special treaty. Such a view, repugnant as it
seems to every principle of justice, was held nevertheless by Aristotle,
who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illustrious pupil. Hence
Alexander, in attacking Pôros, was not conscious, like Caesar, when he
invaded Britain, of perpetrating an unwarrantable aggression for which
some kind of an excuse had to be trumped up.
[96] The Hydaspês, now the Jhîlam, is called by the natives of Kâśmîr,
where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of
its Sanskrit name, the Vitastâ, which means “wide-spread.” In Ptolemy’s
geography it appears as the Bidaspês—a form nearer the original than
_Hydaspês_. It is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, along
with other great Indian rivers: “Receive favourably this my hymn, O
Gangâ, Yamunâ, Sarasvatî, Śutudrî, Parashni; hear O Marudvridhâ, with
the Asiknî and _Vitastâ_, and thou Arjîkîyâ with the Sushômâ.” In
advancing from the Indus at Attak to the Hydaspês, Alexander followed the
Râjapatha, that is, the _king’s highway_, called by Megasthenes the ὁδὸς
βασιληίη. It is the route which has been taken by all foreign conquerors
who have penetrated into India by the valley of the Kôphês. Elphinstone,
who followed this route in returning from Kâbul, describes it thus: “The
whole of our journey across the track between the Indus and Hydaspês was
about 160 miles; for which space the country is among the strongest I
have ever seen. The difficulty of our passage across it was increased by
heavy rain. While in the hilly country our road sometimes lay through
the beds of torrents” (_Mission to Kâbul_, p. 78). In another passage
(p. 80) he says: “I was greatly struck with the difference between the
banks of this river; the left bank had all the characteristics of the
plains of India. The right bank, on the contrary, was formed by the end
of the range of the Salt Hills, and had an air of extreme ruggedness and
wildness that must inspire a fearful presentiment of the country he was
entering into the mind of a traveller from the East.” General Chesney, in
the lecture already cited, thus remarks on the advance of Alexander to
the Hydaspês: “What is remarkable about this part of the advance is that
it was not made direct on Jhelum, as would appear natural. True, that
line is over what would be a very difficult country, as any traveller by
the existing road knows. Still it would be the easiest line; nevertheless
it appears certain that Alexander took a more southerly line, and
threading his way through the intricate ravines of the upper part of the
Salt range, and leaving Tilla and Rhotas on his left, penetrated that
range by the gorge through which runs the Bhundar river, and struck the
river Jhelum at Jalâlpûr, about thirty miles below Jhelum.”
[97] See Note I, Site of Alexander’s camp on the Hydaspês.
[98] The Greeks, for the first time, saw elephants used in war at the
battle of Arbela.
[99] Arrian, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, states that the
battle with Pôros was fought in the Archonship of Hêgemôn at Athens, in
the month of Mounychiôn, _i.e._ between the 18th of April and 18th of
May, 326 B.C. Here, however, according to the reading of all the MSS.,
he makes the battle take place _after_ the solstice of June 21st, μετὰ
τροπάς. Editors remove the difficulty by substituting κατά for μετά, and
I have translated accordingly. As the rainy season, however, does not set
in till near the end of June, and it had set in, as Strabo informs us,
during the march to the Hydaspês, the later date has probability in its
favour.
[100] Enyalios, an epithet of the war-god.
[101] Curtius mentions that near the bluff there was a deep hollow or
ravine which sufficed to screen both the infantry and the cavalry, and
on this Cunningham remarks: “There is a ravine to the north of Jalâlpûr
which exactly suits the descriptions of the historians. This ravine is
the bed of the Kandar Nala, which has a course of six miles from its
source down to Jalâlpûr, where it is lost in a waste of sand. Up this
ravine there has always been a passable, but difficult road towards
Jhelum. From the head of the Kandar this road proceeds for three miles
in a northerly direction down another ravine called the Kasi, which then
turns suddenly to the east for six and a half miles, and then again one
and a half mile to the south, where it joins the river Jhelum immediately
below Dilâwar, the whole distance from Jalâlpûr being exactly seventeen
miles.” These seventeen miles are about the equivalent of the 150 stadia
given by Arrian as the distance from the great camp to the bluff.
[102] “Arrian,” says Cunningham, “records that Alexander placed running
sentries along the bank of the river at such distances that they could
see each other and communicate his orders. Now, I believe that this
operation could not be carried out in the face of an observant enemy
along any part of the river bank, excepting only that one part which lies
between Jalâlpûr and Dilâwar. In all other parts the west bank is open
and exposed, but in this part alone the wooded and rocky hills slope down
to the river and offer sufficient cover for the concealment of single
sentries.”—_Geog. of Anc. India_, pp. 170, 171.
[103] With Alexander’s passage of the Hydaspês may be compared Hannibal’s
passage of the Rhone made upwards of a century later. The Carthaginian
general, whose education included a knowledge of Greek, was no doubt
familiar with the history of Alexander’s wars, and from knowing how the
Hydaspês was crossed may have laid his plans for crossing the Rhone. _v._
Livy, xxi. 26-28; Polyb. iii. 45, 46.
[104] Here, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was fought, in 1849, the
battle of Chilianwála. On this occasion the inferiority of the British
commander as a strategist to Alexander was signally manifested.
[105] The left wing of the Indian army was flanked by the river.
[106] This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as
generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station
himself opposite _the enemy’s_ right, and not on the _Macedonian_ extreme
right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (_Alexander in
the Punjaub_, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite
the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry
from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus
was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the
Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as,
in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from
their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly
and Rüstow, however, in their _History of the Greek Military System_,
advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos
to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from
the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had
he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too
far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s
rear.” This seems the preferable view.
[107] “To meet the double assault (of Alexander and Coenus) they resorted
to one of those changes of front in which Indian cavalry are often so
surprisingly rapid—facing partly to the front and partly to the rear. Yet
Alexander was beforehand with them; and his renewed charge threw them
into utter confusion before they could fully assume their new formation.
Flying along the front of their own infantry, they took refuge in the
spaces left between every two elephants, and (as it would seem in the
absence, from Arrian’s account, of the full details) passed as soon as
possible through the intervals of the foot regiments, so as to be for
the moment quite outside the battle. As soon as they were out of the
way the Indian elephants were sent on, supported by the infantry, but
were at once met face to face by the Macedonian phalanx.”—_v._ Moberly’s
_Alexander in the Punjaub_, Introd. p. 12.
[108] Diodôros gives the number of Indians killed at upwards of 12,000,
and of the captured at more than 9000, besides 80 elephants.
[109] The Spitakês here mentioned as one of the slain is probably the
same as Pittacus, who is recorded by Polyainos to have had an encounter
with Alexander during the march of the latter from Taxila to the
Hydaspês, as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in thinking.
[110] The hiatus is supposed to have contained the number of officers
killed.
[111] This death-roll evidently greatly under-estimates the loss on
Alexander’s side. Diodôros says that there fell of the Macedonians 280
cavalry and more than 700 infantry.
[112] Pôros was the first sovereign that Alexander had captured on the
field of battle. Curtius and Diodôros relate somewhat differently from
Arrian the story of his capture, representing him to have been protected
to the last by his faithful elephant.
[113] See Note R, Battle with Pôros.
[114] Diodôros says the battle occurred while Chremes was archon at
Athens.
[115] Nikaia most probably occupied the site of the modern town of Mong,
near the left bank. Nothing is known of its history. With respect to
its sister city Boukephala, the ancient writers are not in agreement.
Plutarch places it on the left or eastern bank of the Hydaspês, for
he says that Boukephalas was killed in the battle, and that the city
was built where he fell and was buried. According, however, to Strabo,
Arrian, and Diodôros, it stood on the west bank; but while Strabo places
it at the point where the troops embarked, Arrian places it farther down
the stream on the site of the great camp at Jalâlpûr. It became a great
emporium of commerce, as we find from the _Periplûs of the Erythraian
Sea_, c. 47. In the Peutinger Tables it is called _Alexandria Bucefalos_.
[116] “Schmieder says that Alexander could not have broken in the horse
before he was sixteen years old. But since at this time he was in his
twenty-ninth year he would have had him thirteen years. Consequently the
horse must have been at least seventeen years old when he acquired him.
Can any one believe this? Yet Plutarch also states that the horse was
thirty years old at his death.”—Chinnock’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, p.
296, note 4.
[117] This incident is referred by Plutarch to Hyrkania, and by Curtius
to the land of the Mardians. The Ouxioi lived on the borders of Persis,
between that province and Sousiana.
[118] Alexander, according to Diodôros, halted to recruit his army for
thirty days in the dominions of Pôros. He then advanced northwards with
a part of his army to the fertile and populous regions that lay in the
south of Kâśmîr (the Bhimber and Bajaur districts) between the upper
courses of the Hydaspês and the Akesinês and Chenâb. The name of the
inhabitants, _Glausai_ or _Glaukanîkoi_, has been identified by V. de
Saint-Martin with that of the Kalaka, a tribe mentioned in the _Varâha
Sanhita_, a work of the sixth century of our aera. In the _Mahâbhârata_
the name is written _Kalaja_, and in the Rajput Chronicles _Kalacha_, a
form which justifies the Greek _Glausai_. The second part of the longer
name, _anîka_, means a troop or army in Sanskrit.—_v._ Saint-Martin’s
_Etude_, pp. 102, 103.
[119] Conf. Strabo, XV. i. 3. “Other writers affirm that the Macedonians
conquered nine nations situated between the Hydaspês and the Hypanis
(Beas), and obtained possession of 500 cities, not one of which was less
than Kos Meropis, and that Alexander, after having conquered all this
country, delivered it up to Pôros.”
[120] This was a second embassy. An earlier is mentioned in Chapter VIII.
of this book.
[121] Strabo (XV. i. p. 699) says this Pôros was a nephew of the Pôros
whom Alexander had defeated, and that his country was called Gandaris.
The Gandarai were a widely extended people, occupying a district
stretching from the upper part of the Panjâb to the west of the Indus as
far as Qandahar. They are the Gandhâra of Sanskrit.
[122] The Akesinês, now the Chenâb, is called in the Vedic Hymns
the _Asikni_, _i.e._ “dark-coloured.” It was called also, and more
commonly, Chandrabhâgâ, which, being transliterated into Greek, becomes
Sandrophagos. This word suggested to the soldiers of Alexander another of
bad omen, _Ale-xandrophagos_, which means _devourer of Alexander_, and
hence they adopted its other name, perhaps on account of the disaster
which befell the Macedonian fleet at the turbulent junction of this river
with the Hydaspês. In Ptolemy’s _Geography_ it is called Sandabala by an
obvious error for Sandabaga. The Akesinês, though joined by the other
great Panjâb rivers, retained its name until it fell into the Indus.
[123] The Hydraôtês is called by Strabo (XV. i. 21) the Hyarôtis, and
in Ptolemy’s _Geography_ the Adris or Rhouadis. It is now the _Râvî_,
which is an abridged form of its Sanskrit name, the Airâvatî. It passes
the city of Lahore, and joins the Chenâb about 30 miles _above_ Multân.
In former times, however, the junction occurred 15 miles _below_ that
city. In Ptolemy’s _Geography_ the Rhouadis is erroneously made to join
the Hydaspês, or, as Ptolemy calls it, the Bidaspês. Arrian in his
_Indika_ (c. 4) describes the Hydraôtês as rising in the country of the
Kambistholoi, and after receiving the Hyphasis among the Astrybai, and
the Saranges from the Kêkeans (the Sekaya of Sanskrit), and the Neudros
from the Attakênoi, falling into the Akesinês. The Hyphasis does not,
however, join the Hydraôtês.
[124] _v._ Note L, Kathaians.
[125] The expression _independent_ shows that the Greeks were cognisant
of the Indian village system. Each of its rural units they took to be an
independent republic.
[126] _v._ Note M, Sangala.
[127] The Adraïstai appear to be the people called in the _Periplûs of
the Erythraean Sea_, the Aratrioi. Lassen identifies them with the Aratta
of the _Mahâbhârata_. Diodôros calls them the Adrêstai, and Orosius in
his _History_ (iii. 19) the Adrestae. Their capital, Pimprama, has not as
yet been identified with certainty, but V. de Saint-Martin suggests that
it may be represented by _Bhéranah_, a place eight leagues distant from
Lahore towards the south-east. The same author thinks that the _Adrastae_
are very probably the _Aïrâvatâ_ or _Raïvâtaka_ of Sanskrit.
[128] Chinnock notes that Caesar’s troops were assailed in a similar
manner by the Helvetians.—_v._ Caesar’s _De Bello Gallico_, i. 26.
[129] Curtius gives the loss of the Kathaians at 8000 killed. Arrian’s
numbers here seem to be greatly exaggerated.
[130] The Hyphasis, now the Beäs or Beias, is variously called by
the classical writers the Bibasis, the Hypasis, and the Hypanis. Its
Sanskrit name is the _Vipâsâ_, which means “uncorded,” and it is said
to have been so called because it _destroyed the cord_ with which one
of the Indian sages intended to hang himself. It joins the Satlej (not
the Hydraôtês, as Arrian says in his _Indika_) and the united stream is
called in Sanskrit the Śatadru, _i.e._ “flowing in a hundred channels.”
It marked the limit of Alexander’s advance eastward. In his time it
flowed in a different channel, one by which it reached the Chenâb about
40 miles above Uchh. Curtius and Diodôros inform us that Alexander
before reaching this river had entered the dominions of King Sôphites,
who submitted without resistance, and was therefore left in possession
of his sovereignty. Another chief (called Phêgeus by Diodôros, but more
correctly Phegelas by Curtius), whose dominions adjoined the Hyphasis,
entertained Alexander and his army for two days. By this time he had been
rejoined by Hêphaistiôn, who had been conducting operations elsewhere,
and he then proceeded to the bank of the river. The country beyond it
Arrian represents as exceedingly fertile, whereas in Curtius and Diodôros
we read how Alexander was informed that a desert lay beyond it which
would occupy a journey of eleven days. Arrian’s statement holds true of
the northern districts beyond the river, and the other statement of the
southern districts. Thirlwall, following the latter statement, takes it
that Alexander reached the Satlej after it had received the Hyphasis, but
this is a very questionable view.
[131] The name of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, had
originally the digamma, and hence was written as Ivon. The Hebrew
transcription of this digammated form is _Javan_, the name by which
_Greece_ is designated in the Bible. The Sanskrit transcription is
_Yavana_, the name applied in Indian works to Ionians or Greeks and
foreigners generally.
[132] The Tanais is properly the Don, but Alexander meant by it the
Jaxartes, which formed the eastern boundary of the Persian empire, and
which he had crossed to attack the nomadic Skythians, who had made
threatening demonstrations against him on the right or northern bank
(_v._ the 16th and 17th chapters of the fourth book).
[133] It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that the Kaspian or
Hyrkanian Sea was a gulf of the great ocean which encircles the earth,
and not an inland sea.
[134] Arrian (vii. 1) says: “When Alexander reached Pasargadai and
Persepolis he conceived an ardent desire to sail down the Euphrates and
Tigres to the Persian sea, and survey their mouths.... Some writers have
stated that he had in contemplation a voyage round the greater portion
of Arabia, the land of the Aethiopians, Lybia, and Numidia beyond Mount
Atlas to Gadeira (Cadiz) inward into the Mediterranean.” One of the
writers referred to is Plutarch, who says (_Alexander_, c. 68): “Nearchos
joined him (Alexander) here (at the capital of Gedrosia), and he was so
much delighted with the account of his voyage that he formed a design to
sail in person from the Euphrates with a great fleet, circle the coast
of Arabia and Africa, and enter the Mediterranean by the Pillars of
Hercules.” Herodotos (iv. 42) says that Nekô, king of the Egyptians, sent
certain Phoenicians in ships with orders to sail back through the Pillars
of Hercules into the Northern Sea (the Mediterranean that is), and so to
return to Egypt. The pillars designated the twin rocks which guard the
entrance to the Mediterranean at the eastern extremity of the Straits of
Gibraltar, the one on the European side being called _Kalpê_, and that
on the African side, where now stands the citadel of Ceuta, _Abila_ or
_Abyla_. _v._ Pliny (iii. prooem.): “Proximis autem faucibus utrimque
impositi montes coercent claustra, Abyla Africae, Europae Calpe, laborum
Herculis metae, quam ob causam indigenae columnas ejus dei vocant.”
[135] Arrian (iii. 30) informs us that in the opinion of some the Nile
formed the boundary of Asia, but he writes here as if Lybia or Northern
Africa were part of Asia.
[136] The Macedonian kings claimed to be descended from Heraklês, who
resided for some time at Tiryns, one of the most ancient cities in
Greece, situated near Argos, and, like Argos, famous for its Cyclopean
walls.
[137] “Alexander,” says Arrian (iii. 19), “on reaching Ekbatana, sent
back to the sea the Thessalian cavalry and the other Grecian allies,
paying them the full amount of the stipulated hire, and giving them
besides a donative of 2000 talents.” Was Baktra a slip of memory on the
part of Koinos?
[138] The drenching rains to which the Macedonian soldiers were
continually exposed during their march from Taxila to the Hyphasis
must have had a considerable effect in exhausting their strength and
depressing their spirits.
[139] Karchêdon is Carthage. The name is said to be a corruption
of _Kereth-Hadeshoth_ or _Carth-hadtha_, _i.e._ “new city,” in
contra-distinction to Utica, which either signifies in Phoenician “old
city,” or is derived, as Olshausen thinks, from a root signifying “a
colony.”
[140] See Note N, Alexander’s altars on the Hyphasis.