obliged from time to time to change his couch from dread of treachery.
The frequency of changes in the succession shows that such a precaution
was not unnecessary. If a woman put to death a king when he was drunk,
she was rewarded by becoming the wife of his successor. From Athênaios we
learn that among the Indians the king might not get drunk. The assertion
made by Curtius that the Indians all use much wine is contrary to the
testimony of Megasthenes, who said that they use it only on sacrificial
occasions. Wine was no doubt imported into the marts of the Malabar
coast, but the quantity must have been limited, and could only have been
purchased by the rich. The Brahmans of the Ganges, from whom Megasthenes
obtained much information, punished indulgence in intoxicating drinks
with great severity. The Aryans of the Panjâb were less abstemious, and
this led to dissensions, and a final rupture between them and their
brethren of Iran. The wine used at sacrifices was the fermented juice of
the plant called _soma_. When required for drinking it was mixed with
milk.
[224] The diversity of views which prevailed in India regarding suicide
was noticed by Megasthenes. The book of the law, in case of incapacity,
regards it as meritorious, but the Buddhists altogether condemned it.
Pliny (vi. 19) says that the Indian sages _always_ ended their life by a
voluntary death on the funeral pile.
[225] This is a very vague and meagre account of the opinions and
practices of the Indian philosophers and ascetics. Other writers are
more copious on the subject, as Strabo (XV.), Arrian (_Anab._ vii. 2, 3;
_Indika_, 11), Diodôros (ii. 40), Plutarch (_Life of Alexander_, 64, 65).
References are made to it by Mela, Suidas, Orosius, Philo, Ambrosius,
Aelian, Porphyrius, and others (_v._ Notes W and H_h_).
[226] Certain trees are still held sacred in India. The pipal, for
instance, is thought to be frequented by bhûts, _i.e._ demons.
[227] See Note X.
[228] Arrian says, however, that most of the inhabitants of this city,
which belonged to the Aspasians, and was fortified by a double wall,
escaped to the mountains.
[229] Philostratos (ii. 4) says that Alexander did not ascend the
mountain, but, though anxious to do so, contented himself with offering
prayers and sacrifices at its base. He was afraid that the Macedonians on
seeing the vines would be reminded of home, and have their love of wine
revived after being accustomed to do without it.
[230] The Elzevir editor aptly quotes here Tacit. _H._ i. 55: _Insita
mortalibus natura, propere sequi, quae piget inchoare_.
[231] Justin (xii. 7) speaks of mountains which he calls _Daedali_, and
these Cunningham (p. 52) takes to be Mount _Dantalok_, which is about
three miles distant from _Palo-dheri_ (or _Pelley_, as General Court
calls it), a place forty miles distant from Pashkalavati (Hasht-nagar).
In the spoken dialect, he adds, _Dantalok_ becomes _Dattalok_, which the
Greek _Daidalos_ may fairly be taken to represent. I think, however,
Alexander had not penetrated so far eastward as this identification
implies. It has been taken by Müller to be Arrian’s _Andaka_ or _Andêla_,
which he would therefore alter to _Daidala_. An Indian city called
_Daidala_ is mentioned by Stephanos Byz., and in Ptolemy’s _Geography_
another city of the same name is mentioned as belonging to the
Kaspeiraioi (or Kashmirians), who in Ptolemy’s days had extended their
rule as far eastward as the regions of the Jamna. Abbot in his _Gradus
ad Aornon_ seems to identify Daedala with Doodial, and Acadira, which is
mentioned immediately after, with Kaldura.
[232] Arrian calls this river the _Euaspla_. It is most probably the
Kâmah or Kunâr river. Its name, _Cho-asp-es_, has one of the elements of
the name of the people in its neighbourhood, the _Asp-asioi_. The prefix
_cho_ may, like _eu_ or _su_, mean _river_, and Aspa means _a horse_, in
Zend.
[233] Beira, it has been supposed, is the _Bazira_ of Arrian; but as
this has been on adequate grounds identified with Bazâr of the present
day, the supposition is untenable. Bazâr lies too far east to suit the
requirements.
[234] “How this arrangement was to prevent the upper part of the wall
from settling down is a mystery as the text stands; and we can only
suppose that (_a_) Curtius has not understood his authorities, or (_b_)
has left out some important steps in the description, or (_c_) that the
text is mutilated so as to conceal his real meaning.”—_Alex. in India_,
p. 107.
[235] Seneca (_Epistle_ 59) puts almost the same words into his mouth:
“All swear that I am the son of Jupiter, but this wound proclaims me to
be a man.” This is perhaps the occasion to which Plutarch refers when he
states (_Alex._ 28) that Alexander when shot with an arrow turned in his
pain to his attendants, and said: “This blood, my friends, is not the
ichor which blest immortals shed”—a quotation from Homer.
[236] Pratt (ii. 276, n.) notices from Athenaios that these movable
towers were invented by Dyades, pupil of Polyeîdes, who accompanied
Alexander.
[237] According to Arrian, the besieged lost heart not from terror of the
engines, but on seeing their commander killed. We read in Caesar that
his engines produced a similar effect on the minds of the Gauls. They
said that they could not believe the Romans were warring without the help
of the gods since they were able to move forward engines of so great a
height and with such celerity (_De Bell. Gall._ ii. 31).
[238] Curtius had no doubt here in his eye a passage from Livy, whose
picturesque style was his exemplar: “Ipse collis est in modum metae in
acutum cacumen a fundo satis lato fastigatus” (B. xxxvii. 27). In the
centre of the Roman circus ran lengthways down the course a low wall, at
each extremity of which were placed, upon a base, three wooden cylinders
of a conical shape which were called _metae_—the goals.
[239] _Ex sua cohorte_—that is, from the retinue of pages in immediate
attendance on the king. From this body officers were selected to fill the
highest civil and military posts in the Macedonian state.
[240] Perhaps passed by a council of war or a general assembly of the
troops. Philôtas, the son of Parmenion, was condemned to death by the
Macedonian army.
[241] The readers of Virgil will be reminded by this episode of that
of Euryalus and Nisus. Curtius indeed seems to me to have borrowed his
account of the death-scene from that poet rather than from any historical
authority.
[242] He is called Aphrikês by Diodôros.
[243] Diodôros less accurately calls him Môphis. His name _Ambhi_ (in
Sanskrit) is found in the Gana-pâtha, a genuine appendix to Pânini’s
_Grammar_ (v. _Journal Asiatique_, Series VIII. tome xv. p. 235). For
remarks on the _coined money_ which he gave to Alexander, see Note K_k_.
[244] It was Krateros, however, and not Ptolemy, who was left in charge
of the division of the army which faced the camp of Pôros. Curtius has
therefore here made a mistake.
[245] That is, Pôros had been enticed down the bank so far that the
island which lay where the passage was really to be made was no
longer visible. Curtius says nothing of the other island on which the
Macedonians landed under the erroneous impression that they had gained
the bank of the river, and Diodôros is equally silent.
[246] According to Arrian this force was commanded by the son of Pôros.
[247] See Note Y, Battle with Pôros.
[248] Boukephalos was no doubt the horse to which Curtius here refers,
but according to some accounts that famous steed was not in the battle.
Curtius here follows Chares, as the following passage quoted from this
writer by Aulus Gellius (_Noct. Attic._ v. 2) will show: “The horse
of King Alexander was both by his head and by his name _Bucephalas_
(_i.e._ ox-head). Cares has stated that he was bought for thirteen
talents, and presented to King Philip.... Regarding this horse it seems
worth recording that when caparisoned and armed for battle he would not
suffer himself to be mounted by any one but the king. It is also told
of this horse that in the Indian war when Alexander, mounted upon him,
and performing noble deeds of bravery, had with too little heed for his
own safety entangled himself amid a battalion of the enemy, where he
was on all sides assailed with darts, his horse was stabbed with deep
wounds in the neck and sides. Ready to expire, and drained of nearly
all his blood, he nevertheless bore back the king from the midst of his
foes at a most rapid pace; and when he had conveyed him beyond reach
of spears, he straightway dropped down, and having no further fear for
his master’s safety, he breathed his last as if with the consolation of
human sensibility. Then King Alexander having gained the victory in this
war, built a town on this spot, and in honour of his horse called it
Bucephalon.”
[249] Arrian says that the first messenger sent was Taxilês himself.
[250] According to Arrian, Taxilês escaped by a hasty flight.
[251] Diodôros states, on the contrary, that Alexander checked the
slaughter.
[252] This is scarcely probable. The incident is mentioned by no other
writer.
[253] Curtius has here marred with his rhetoric and moral reflections the
simple and dignified answer of Pôros, that he wished to be treated like
a king. Lucan similarly has dilated into some twenty lines of rhetoric
Caesar’s famous words to the boatmen in the storm: “Fear not, you carry
Caesar and his fortunes.” Plutarch, both in his _Life of Alexander_ and
in his _De Ira Cohibenda_ (c. 9), has stated the reply of Pôros in the
same terms as Arrian.
[254] Cicero (_pro Marcello_) extols Alexander in the highest terms
for acting thus towards his vanquished enemy; and Seneca in his _De
Clementia_ follows in a similar strain.
[255] Philostratos, in his life of Apollonios of Tyana, states that
Alexander dedicated likewise to the sun one of the elephants of Pôros,
the first of them that deserted to his side, and which he called _Ajax_,
and also the altars which he reared on the banks of the Hyphasis to mark
the limits of his advance. As the same author states that Apollonios saw
_Ajax_ still alive at Taxila some 370 years later, his veracity may be
suspected.
[256] See Note Z, Indian Serpents.
[257] The Sanskrit name of the rhinoceros is _Ganda_, also _Gandaka_ and
_Gandânga_.
[258] This is the _ficus Indica_, commonly called the banyan-tree,
because of the frequent use made of its shelter by traders who dealt in
grain, called in India _Banyans_. Strabo (XV. i. 21) describes this tree
from Onesikritos, who saw it growing in the country of Mousikanos. Pliny
also (_N. H._ xii. 11) describes the tree and its fruit, adding that it
grows chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Acesines (_Chenâb_); see also
Theophrastos, _De Plantis_, iv. 5, and Arrian’s _Indika_, c. 11. Several
English poets have made it the subject of their verse—Ben Jonson, Milton,
Tickell, and Southey. Its stately stems rise in solemn grandeur like the
basaltic pillars of Fingal’s Cave, and with the over-arching boughs form
a vast and wondrous dome—
“Where as to shame the temples decked
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seems, would raise
A minster to her Maker’s praise.”
[259] Ailianos (_H. A._ xii. 32) says that while the Indians knew the
proper antidote against the bites of each kind of serpent, none of the
Greek physicians had discovered any such antidote. See Note Z, Indian
Serpents.
[260] See Note A_a_, Indian Peacocks.
[261] This must be the town which Arrian calls _Pimprama_, distant a
day’s march from Sangala. The accounts of the two historians are at
variance, however, since Arrian says that the place surrendered without
resistance.
[262] This place was Sangala, for which see Note M.
[263] Caesar’s men were similarly alarmed on seeing for the first time
the war chariots of the Britons: _perturbatis nostris novitate pugnae_
(_Bell. Gall._ iv. 34). See also Livy, x. 28.
[264] Arrian mentions gaps between the waggons, but does not state that
they were fastened together. Vegetius (_De re Militari_, iii. 10),
however, observes: “All barbarians fasten their chariots together in
a ring in the fashion of a camp, and thus keep themselves safe from
surprise during the night.”
[265] “It is impossible to compare the numbers given by Curtius and
Arrian, as neither gives the total of killed, and the details of the
numbers who fell in the separate operations of the siege are not so
stated as to admit of comparison” (_Alex. in India_, p. 130).
[266] The better form of the name is _Sôphytes_, which properly
transliterates the Sanskrit original _Saubhutu_, but see Biographical
Appendix, _s.v._ Sôphytes.
[267] According to Strabo the inspection was made when the child was two
months old. He notices that the practice of widow-burning was known here.
[268] “The Indians,” says Solinus (c. 55), “rub down the beryl into
hexagonal forms in order to impart vigour to the dull tameness of the
colour by the reflection from the angles. Of the beryl the varieties
are manifold.” Pliny, from whom Solinus no doubt drew this information,
states (xxxvii. 5) that beryls were seldom found elsewhere than in India,
and that the Indians had discovered how to make counterfeit gems and
especially beryls by staining crystal.
[269] See Note B_b_, Indian Dogs.
[270] The ordinary and correct reading is not _Phegeus_, as in the text
from which I translate, but _Phegelas_, which transliterates the Sanskrit
_Bhagala_. See Biog. Appendix, _s.v._ Phegelas.
[271] A sandy desert stretches from the southern borders of the Panjâb
almost to the Gulf of Kachh. The breadth of this desert from east to
west is about 400 miles. In some places it is altogether uninhabited; in
others villages and patches of cultivation are found thinly scattered. On
the east it gradually gives way to the fertile parts of India.
[272] For Gangaridae see Note C_c_, and for Prasii, Note D_d_. The common
reading of this name in the editions of Curtius is Pharasii.
[273] The name as given here seems less correct than the form in Diod.
_Xandrames_, which can be referred to the Indian word _Chandramas_,
meaning _moon-god_. See Biog. Appendix, _s.vv._ Xandrames and
Sandrokottos.
[274] On the contrary, elephants are easy to tame. Arrian in his _Indica_
(c. 13, 14) has described the manner both of trapping and taming them.
The same methods are still employed, with only slight variations. See
also Pliny, viii. 8-10; Diodôros, iii. 26; Ailianos, viii. 10 and 15, and
x. 10; and Tzetzes, _Chiliad_, iv. 122.
[275] There was no great disparity of numbers in the battle of the
Granîkos between the Greeks and Persians, 35,000 on Alexander’s side and
40,000 on the other.
[276] So Caesar, when his soldiers, terrified by the accounts they had
heard of the Germans, refused to advance against them, said, that if
nobody else would go with him he would set out with the Tenth Legion
alone (_Bell. Gall._ i. 40). Thirlwall is of opinion that Alexander’s
threat to throw himself on his Baktrian and Skythian auxiliaries, and
make the expedition with them alone, most likely misrepresents the tone
which he assumed.
[277] Cerealis addressed his men in similar terms: “Go, tell Vespasian,
or Civilis and Classicus who are nearer at hand, that you deserted your
leader on the field of battle” (Tacitus, _H._ iv. 77).
[278] “This speech, put into the mouth of Coenus, has a peculiar literary
interest beyond the ordinary run of orations written for their leading
characters by the rhetorical historians of antiquity. In the remaining
works of the elder Seneca we have a _suasoria_ or hortatory oration (see
Mayor on Juvenal, i. 16) on this very subject, in which are arranged all
the telling sentences that some of the most famous Roman rhetoricians
could compose to suit the situation. The remarkable parallels found in
this collection to the present speech of Curtius illustrates in a very
striking way the artificial nature of these harangues, and show what
a vast amount of labour this spirited and polished specimen probably
took to produce. The corresponding speech in Arrian, v. 27, though less
pointed than that in Curtius, is more natural and easy, and certainly far
superior to that put into the mouth of Alexander” (_Alexander in India_,
p. 140, n. 5).
[279] See Note N, Alexander’s Altars on the Hyphasis.
[280] Curtius is here in error as to the place of his death, for he died
at the Hydaspês, as will be seen by a reference to Arrian, vi. 2. He is
further in error, like Diodôros, in making the fleet start on its voyage
from the Akesinês instead of from the Hydaspês.
[281] “It is recorded,” said Colonel Chesney in his Simla lecture on
Alexander, “that he sent to Greece for 20,000 fresh suits of armour. A
suit of armour and arms probably weighed three-fourths of a maund (60
lbs.), and we may assume that with the arms a good many other articles
were indented for at the same time. Altogether we may take it that the
requisition was for not less than from 20,000 to 30,000 mule loads—30,000
laden mules to be despatched from Macedonia to the Satlej! A large order.
And this suggests another consideration. Alexander’s army on the Satlej
was 50,000 strong; how about his lines of communication? During the
late Afghan war over 50,000 men crossed the frontier, yet I believe the
general had never at any time more than 10,000 men in hand at the front;
the rest were swallowed up in holding obligatory posts and keeping up
the line of communication. Now if 40,000 men are needed for this purpose
to keep 10,000 effective in the front, when the distance to be covered
was only 200 miles, what would be the force required to secure the line
of communication between Macedonia and the army halted on the banks of
the Satlej? The answer is to be found in the system of war pursued by
Alexander’s Greek generals, and garrisons were left at certain points
on the road; and where complete submission was made, the enemy was left
in possession of his country and converted into an ally. But when the
resistance was obstinate Alexander left no enemies behind.” As Alexander
led into India 120,000 men, Colonel Chesney’s estimate that he had only
50,000 at the Hyphasis (which he calls the Satlej) must surely be far
below the mark.
[282] Yet Pliny (vi. 17) says that though Alexander sailed on the Indus
never less than 600 stadia per day, he took more than five months to
complete the navigation of it! This would give the Indus a length of
12,000 miles! Aristoboulos said the navigation occupied ten months, but
we may strike off a month from this estimate. The voyage began near the
end of October 326 B.C. The distance from the starting-point to the sea
by the course of the river is between eight and nine hundred British
miles.
[283] See Note E_e_, The Sibi.
[284] See Note F_f_, The Agalassians.
[285] Curtius has here confounded the junction of the Hydaspês and
Akesinês with that of the Indus and the combined stream of the Panjâb
rivers. The geography of the passage is inexplicable. Arrian has given
a vivid description of the confluence, but does not indicate that
Alexander’s life was in danger from its perilous navigation.
[286] This rhetorical passage will remind the readers of Virgil of his
description of the zones (_Georg._ i. 231-251): “Five zones comprise the
heaven ... of which two, the frozen homes of green ice and black storms,
stretch far away.... One pole is thrust down beneath the feet of murky
Styx ... where eternal night, wrapped in her pall of gloom, sits brooding
in unending silence.” The passage was probably, however, suggested by the
lines of the sixth book of the _Aeneid_, 794-796: “He (Augustus Caesar)
will stretch his sway beyond Garamantian and Indian. See, the land is
lying outside the stars, outside the sun’s yearly path.”
[287] Racine (_Alex._ v. i.), imitating the present passage, says: “_des
déserts que le ciel refuse d’éclairer, où la nature semble elle-même
expirer_” (_Alex. in Ind._ p. 148).
[288] From which they were yet some 600 miles distant!
[289] Called the Oxydrakai by Arrian. See Note P. Curtius here differs
from Diodôros, who says that the Syrakousai (Oxydrakai) and Malloi could
not agree as to the choice of a leader, and ceased in consequence to keep
the field together. Both these historians are silent as to the operations
conducted by Alexander during his march from the junction of the Hydaspês
and the Akesinês to the capital of the Malloi situated above the old
junction of the united stream of these two rivers with the Hydraôtês.
[290] But according to Arrian, Strabo, and Plutarch, the city where
Alexander was nearly wounded to death belonged to the Malloi.
[291] Thirlwall, with good reason, regards this incident as a mere
embellishment of the story. “It is certain,” he says, “that even if
Alexander believed in such things less than he appears to have done,
he was too prudent to disclose his incredulity, and so throw away an
instrument which a Greek general might so often find useful” (_Hist. of
Greece_, vii. c. 54). The story is found in Diodôros also. If a fiction,
it may have been suggested by the fact that Alexander on approaching
Babylon, where he died, was warned by Chaldaean soothsayers not to enter
that city. If true, Alexander had doubtless in his mind the words of
Hector (_Iliad_, xii. 237-243), where he expresses his contempt for omens
drawn from the flight of birds. Hannibal had a similar contempt, as
appears from Cicero, _de Div._ ii.
[292] Curtius, like Plutarch, represents Alexander to have been wounded
after he had scaled the _city_ wall, and thence leaped down into the
_city_. But this is a mistake. It was the wall of the _citadel_ he
scaled, and it was within the _citadel_ he was wounded, as we learn both
from Arrian and Diodôros.
[293] “Probably a piece of gratuitous padding put in by Curtius to
heighten the effect of his picture. Nothing of the kind is found in
Arrian or Diodôros” (_Alex. in India_, p. 151).
[294] Timaeus and Aristonus are mentioned only by Curtius as among those
who came first to Alexander’s rescue. It is supposed that the Timaeus of
Curtius is the same person as the Limnaios of Plutarch.
[295] Pliny (vii. 37) mentions a Critobulus who acquired great celebrity
by extracting an arrow from the eye of Philip, Alexander’s father.
Arrian again says that some authors assigned the credit of the operation
in Alexander’s case to Kritodêmos, a physician of Kôs, but others to
Perdikkas.
[296] So Marius in like circumstances forbade himself to be bound
(Cicero, _Tusc. Disput._ ii. 22).
[297] The Hydraôtês or Râvi, which in those days joined the Akesinês
below Multân.
[298] Arrian, on the contrary, states, on the authority of Nearchos, that
Alexander was annoyed by the remonstrances of his friends.
[299] A Thracian tribe whose country is mentioned in Ptolemy’s
_Geography_ as a _stratêgia_—that is, a province governed by a general of
the army.
[300] That is when he crossed the Tanaïs (Jaxartês) to attack the
Skythians. “Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis.”
[301] Referring to his descent from Achilleus, whose career was short but
glorious.
[302] Alexander here refers to the plot of Hermoläos and the pages
against his life.
[303] Philip was assassinated by Pausanias while entering the door of
a theatre. The Elzevir editor aptly quotes an epigram on Henry IV. of
France, to whom a saying was attributed _Duo protegit unus_:
“Gallorum Rex regna, inquis, duo protegit unus;
Protexêre tuum nec duo regna caput.”
[304] The incident is mentioned briefly by Diodôros (xvii. 99). The 3000
Greeks who left their colonies to return home suffered great hardships on
the way, and were slain by the Macedonians after Alexander’s death.
[305] The Sudracae and the Malli. They arrived while Alexander was still
in camp near the confluence of the Hydraôtês with the Akesinês, where he
had joined Hêphaistiôn and Nearchos.
[306] A statement, as Thirlwall observes, hardly consistent either
with the boasts of independence made by the two nations, or with their
recorded actions.