The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04

by Unknown

THE MARCH TO THE WEST

[326-325 B.C.]

The fleet, which was probably for the most part collected from the natives, numbered, according to Ptolemy, nearly two thousand vessels of various kinds, including eighty galleys of war. The command of the whole fleet was entrusted to Nearchus. Alexander divided his forces into four corps. The main body, with about two hundred elephants, was to advance along the eastern bank under the command of Hephæstion. Craterus was to lead a smaller division of infantry and cavalry on the opposite side of the river. Philippus, with the troops of his satrapy, was ordered to take a circuitous route towards the point where the two other generals were to wait for the fleet, in which the king himself was to embark with the hypaspists, the bowmen, and a division of his horse-guard—in all, eight thousand men. On the morning of the embarkation, Alexander himself, under the direction of his soothsayers, offered the libations and prayers which were deemed fittest to propitiate the powers of the Indian streams, Hydaspes and the impetuous Acesines, which was soon to join it, and the mighty Indus, which was afterwards to receive their united waters. Among the gods of the west, Hercules and Ammon were invoked with especial devotion; then, at the sound of the trumpet, the fleet began to drop down the river.

It was a spectacle such as the bosom of the Hydaspes had never before witnessed, nor has it since. Its high banks were crowded with the natives, who flocked from all quarters with eager curiosity to gaze, and accompanied the armament in its progress to some distance before they could be satiated with the sight of the stately galleys, the horses, the men, the mighty mass of vessels gliding down in unbroken order; and as the adjacent woods rang with the signals of the boatswains, the measured shouts of the rowers, and the plash of numberless oars, keeping time with perfect exactness, the Indians too testified their delight in strains of their national music.

Alexander, as he proceeded, landed his troops wherever he found a display of force necessary to extort submission from the neighbouring tribes, though it was with reluctance that he spent any time in these incursions; he was anxious, as soon as possible, to reach the frontiers of the Malli, a warlike race, from whom he expected a vigorous resistance, and whom he therefore wished to surprise before they had completed their preparations and had been joined by their allies, particularly their southern neighbours the Oxydracæ or Sudracæ. In five days he arrived at the second place of rendezvous, the confluence of the Hydaspes and the Acesines. His Indian pilots had warned him of the danger which the fleet would have to encounter at this point; yet it did not escape. The united rivers were at that time pent into a narrow space, where their conflicting waters roared and chafed in eddies and waves. Several of the long galleys lost a great part of their oars, and were much shattered; two were dashed against each other, and entirely wrecked, and many of the crews perished. According to some accounts, Alexander himself at one time thought his own galley so much in danger, that he was on the point of jumping overboard. As the stream widened, and spent its violence, a headland on the right bank afforded shelter to the fleet.

While it was undergoing the necessary repairs, Alexander made an expedition inland against the Sibas, or Sivaites, so called undoubtedly from the Indian deity, who was the chief object of their worship. On his return to the fleet, he was rejoined by his three generals, and immediately made his dispositions for the subjugation of the Malli.

There can be little doubt that the name of this people has been preserved in that of the modern city of Multan. The united forces of the Malli and the Sudracæ are estimated in the accounts of Diodorus and Curtius, on the most moderate calculation, at eighty thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and seven hundred chariots; and from the manner in which they are coupled together, we are led to presume that in this respect there was no inequality between them. But the two races were composed of widely different elements: for the name of the one appears to have been derived from that of the Sudra caste; and it is certain that the Brahmans were predominant in the other. As it was on the side of the desert that they might be expected to feel most secure, Alexander resolved to strike across it himself with one division of his army, into the heart of their country, while two other corps traversed it in other directions, to intercept the retreat of those whom he might drive before him.[b]

It was with a wonderful ease and enthusiasm that Alexander and his troops captured citadel after citadel and routed horde after horde, slaying ruthlessly those who fought and those who fled. But it is not with equal ease and enthusiasm that the modern reader peruses a catalogue of victories so long as to grow monotonous. We therefore omit the accounts of the various successes of the Macedonians, and hasten to the picturesque climax before the chief Mallian city as told by Arrian.[a]