Not they who bear the burden of the day,
But he who leads them reaps alone the praise.’
“‘What did he say?’ said the king, who guessed that this certainly was no flattery. No one answered. Then Cleitus spoke out. He, too, had drunk deeply. (What a curse this wine is! Do you remember that we heard of people among the Jews who never will taste it. Really I sometimes think that they are in the right.) He magnified Philip. ‘Whoever may have won the day at Chæronea,’ he said, ‘anyhow it was a finer thing than the burning of Thebes.’ I saw the king wince at this as if some one had struck him. Then turning directly to Alexander, Cleitus said, ‘Sir, we are all ready to die for you; but it is hard that when you are distributing the prizes of victory, you keep the best for those who pass the worst insults on the memory of your father.’ Then he went on to declare that Parmenio and Philotas were innocent—in fact, I do not know what he said. He was fairly beyond himself. The king certainly bore it very well for a long time. At last, when Cleitus scoffed at the oracle of Ammon—‘I tell you the truth better than your father Ammon did,’ were his words—the king’s patience came to an end. He jumped from his couch, caught hold of a spear, and would have run Cleitus through on the spot had not Ptolemy and Perdiccas caught him round the waist and held him back, while Lysimachus took away the lance from him. This made him more furious than ever. ‘Help, men,’ he cried to the soldiers on guard. ‘They are treating me as they treated Darius.’ At that they let go their hold. It would have been dangerous to touch him. He ran out into the porch and caught a spear from a sentinel. Just then Cleitus came out. ‘Who goes there?’ he said. Cleitus gave his name. ‘Go to your dear Philip and your dear Parmenio!’ shouted the king, and drove the spear into his heart.
“The king is better again, but he has suffered frightfully. Again and again he offered to kill himself. For three days and nights he lay upon the ground, and would neither eat nor drink. At last his bodyguard fairly forced him to do so. One curious reason for the king’s madness I heard. The fatal feast was held in honour of the Twin Brethren, and it was one of the sacred days of Bacchus! Hence the wrath of the neglected god. It is certainly strange how this wrath, be it fact or fancy, continues to haunt him.
“Thank the gods we are in the field, and Alexander is himself again. Nay, he is more than himself. Sometimes I scarcely wonder at the flatterers who say that he is more than man. There never was such energy, such skill, so much courage joined to so much prudence. His men will follow him anywhere; when he heads them they think nothing impossible. Since I last wrote he has done what no man has ever done before; he has tamed the Scythians. The great Cyrus, you know, met his end at their hands; Darius narrowly escaped with his life. And now this marvellous man first conquers them and then makes friends of them. A week ago he took in a couple of days a place which every one pronounced to be impregnable: the ‘Sogdian Rock,’ they called it. Never before had man entered it except with the good will of those who held it. It was a rock some two hundred cubits high, rising almost sheer on every side, though, of course, when one looked closely at it, there were ledges and jutting points on which an expert climber could put his foot. The king summoned the barbarians to surrender. If they would, he said, they should go away unharmed, and carry all their property with them. They laughed at him. ‘If you have any soldiers with wings, you should send them,’ they said, ‘we are not afraid of any others.’ The same day the king called an assembly of the soldiers. ‘You see that rock,’ he said, ‘we must have it. The man who first climbs to the top shall have twelve talents, the second eleven, the third ten, and so on. I give twelve prizes; twelve will be enough.’ That night three hundred men started for this strange race. They took their iron tent-pegs with them, to drive into the ice or the ground, as it might be, and ropes to haul themselves up by. Thirty fell and were killed. The rest reached the top, the barbarians not having the least idea that the attempt was being made. At dawn Alexander sent the herald again. ‘Alexander,’ he said, ‘has sent his soldiers with wings, and bids you surrender.’ They looked round, and the men were standing on the top. They did not so much as strike a single blow for themselves. It is true that others did this for the king. But this is the marvel of him. Not only does he achieve the impossible himself, but he makes others achieve it for him.
“We have fought and won a great battle, greater by far than Granīcus, or Issus, or Arbela. We had crossed the Indus—I talk, you see, familiarly of rivers of which a year or two ago scarcely any one had ever heard the name—and had come to the Hydaspes. There a certain Porus, king of the region that lies to the eastward of that river,[76] was encamped on the opposite bank. Our Indian allies—happily the tribes here have the fiercest feuds among themselves—said that he was by far the most powerful prince in the whole country. And indeed when we came to deal with his army we found it a most formidable force, not a few good troops with an enormous multitude of helpless creatures who did nothing but block up the way, but really well-armed, well-disciplined soldiers. The first thing was to get across the river. It was quite clear that Porus was not going to let us get over at our own time and in our own way, as Darius let us get across the Euphrates and the Tigris. You would have admired the magnificent strategy by which Alexander managed it. First, he put the enemy off their guard by a number of false alarms. Day after day he made feints of attempting the passage, till Porus did not think it worth while to take any notice of them. Then he gave out that he should not really attempt it till the river became fordable, that is, quite late in the summer. Meanwhile he was making preparations secretly. The place that he pitched upon was about seventeen miles above Porus’s camp. The river divides there, flowing round a thickly-wooded island. To get to this island—a thing which could be done without any trouble—was to get, you see, half across the river. We had had a number of large boats for the crossing of the Indus. These were taken to pieces, carried across the country, and then put together again. Besides these there was a vast quantity of bladders. Craterus was left with about a third of the army opposite to Porus’s camp. He was to make a feint of crossing, and convert it into a real attempt if he saw a chance of making good his landing. You see the real difficulty was in the enemy’s elephants. Horses will not face elephants. If Porus moved his elephants away, then Craterus was to make the attempt in earnest. Some other troops were posted half way between the camp and the island. These were to make another feint. The king himself was going to force a passage at all hazards. Then came in his good luck, which is really almost as astonishing as his skill. There was a violent thunderstorm in the night. In the midst of this, while there was so much noise from the thunder and the torrents of rain that nothing could be heard on the opposite bank, the king’s force got across to the island. Then, by a another stroke of good fortune, the rain ceased, and the rest of the crossing was finished without having to strike a blow.
“Meanwhile Porus had heard that something was going on higher up the river, and sent a detachment of cavalry under one of his sons to defend the bank. It was too late. If they had come while we were crossing, they might have made the work very difficult. As it was, they were simply crushed by our cavalry.