Alexander, with his own half of the army, undertook the reduction of the Aspasii, the Guræi, and the Assakeni, tribes occupying mountainous and difficult localities along the southern slopes of the Hindoo-Koosh; but neither they nor their various towns mentioned—Arigæon, Massaga, Bazira, Ora, Dyrta, etc., except perhaps the remarkable rock of Aornos,[535] near the Indus—can be more exactly identified. These tribes were generally brave, and seconded by towns of strong position as well as by a rugged country, in many parts utterly without roads.[536] But their defence was conducted with little union, no military skill, and miserable weapons; so that they were no way qualified to oppose the excellent combination and rapid movements of Alexander, together with the confident attack and very superior arms, offensive, as well as defensive, of his soldiers. All those who attempted resistance were successively attacked, overpowered and slain. Even those who did not resist, but fled to the mountains, were pursued, and either slaughtered or sold for slaves. The only way of escaping the sword was to remain, submit, and await the fiat of the invader. Such a series of uninterrupted successes, all achieved with little loss, it is rare in military history to read. The capture of the rock of Aornos was peculiarly gratifying to Alexander, because it enjoyed the legendary reputation of having been assailed in vain by Herakles—and indeed he himself had deemed it, at first sight, unassailable. After having thus subdued the upper regions (above Attock or the confluence of the Kabul river) on the right bank of the Indus, he availed himself of some forests alongside to fell timber and build boats. These boats were sent down the stream, to the point where Hephæstion and Perdikkas were preparing the bridge.[537]
Such fatiguing operations of Alexander, accomplished amidst all the hardships of winter, were followed by a halt of thirty days, to refresh the soldiers before he crossed the Indus, in the early spring of 326 B. C.[538] It is presumed, probably enough, that he crossed at or near Attock, the passage now frequented. He first marched to Taxila, where the prince Taxilus at once submitted, and reinforced the army with a strong contingent of Indian soldiers. His alliance and information was found extremely valuable. The whole neighboring territory submitted, and was placed under Philippus as satrap, with a garrison and depôt at Taxila. He experienced no resistance until he reached the river Hydaspes (Jelum), on the other side of which the Indian prince Porus stood prepared to dispute the passage; a brave man, with a formidable force, better armed than Indians generally were, and with many trained elephants; which animals the Macedonians had never yet encountered in battle. By a series of admirable military combinations, Alexander eluded the vigilance of Porus, stole the passage of the river at a point a few miles above, and completely defeated the Indian army. In spite of their elephants, which were skilfully managed, the Indians could not long withstand the shock of close combat, against such cavalry and infantry as the Macedonian. Porus, a prince of gigantic stature, mounted on an elephant, fought with the utmost gallantry, rallying his broken troops and keeping them together until the last. Having seen two of his sons slain, himself wounded and perishing with thirst, he was only preserved by the special directions of Alexander. When Porus was brought before him, Alexander was struck with admiration at his stature, beauty, and undaunted bearing.[539] Addressing him first, he asked, what Porus wished to be done for him. “That you should treat me as a king,” was the reply of Porus. Alexander, delighted with these words, behaved towards Porus with the utmost courtesy and generosity; not only ensuring to him his actual kingdom, but enlarging it by new additions. He found in Porus a faithful and efficient ally. This was the greatest day of Alexander’s life; if we take together the splendor and difficulty of the military achievement, and the generous treatment of his conquered opponent.[540]
Alexander celebrated his victory by sacrifices to the gods, and festivities on the banks of the Hydaspes; where he also gave directions for the foundation of two cities—Nikæa, on the eastern bank; and Bukephalia, on the western, so named in commemoration of his favorite horse, who died here of age and fatigue.[541] Leaving Kraterus to lay out and erect these new establishments, as well as to keep up communication, he conducted his army onward in an easterly direction towards the river Akesines (Chenab).[542] His recent victory had spread terror around; the Glaukæ, a powerful Indian tribe, with thirty-seven towns and many populous villages, submitted, and were placed under the dominion of Porus; while embassies of submission were also received from two considerable princes—Abisares, and a second Porus, hitherto at enmity with his namesake. The passage of the great river Akesines, now full and impetuous in its current, was accomplished by boats and by inflated hides, yet not without difficulty and danger. From thence he proceeded onward in the same direction, across the Punjab—finding no enemies, but leaving detachments at suitable posts to keep up his communications and ensure his supplies—to the river Hydraotes or Ravee; which, though not less broad and full than the Akesines, was comparatively tranquil, so as to be crossed with facility.[543] Here some free Indian tribes, Kathæans and others, had the courage to resist. They first attempted to maintain themselves in Sangala by surrounding their town with a triple entrenchment of waggons. These being attacked and carried, they were driven within the walls, which they now began to despair of defending, and resolved to evacuate by night. But the project was divulged to Alexander by deserters, and frustrated by his vigilance. On the next day, he took the town by storm, putting to the sword 17,000 Indians, and taking (according to Arrian) 70,000 captives. His own loss before the town was less than 100 killed, and 1200 wounded. Two neighboring towns, in alliance with Sangala, were evacuated by their terrified inhabitants. Alexander pursued, but could not overtake them, except 500 sick or weakly persons, whom his soldiers put to death. Demolishing the town of Sangala, he added the territory to the dominion of Porus, then present, with a contingent of 5000 Indians.[544]
Sangala was the easternmost of all Alexander’s conquests. Presently his march brought him to the river Hyphasis (Sutledge), the last of the rivers in the Punjab—seemingly at a point below its confluence with the Beas. Beyond this river, broad and rapid, Alexander was informed that there lay a desert of eleven days’ march, extending to a still greater river called the Ganges; beyond which dwelt the Gandaridæ, the most powerful, warlike, and populous, of all the Indian tribes, distinguished for the number and training of their elephants.[545] The prospect of a difficult march, and of an enemy esteemed invincible, only instigated his ardor. He gave orders for the crossing. But here for the first time his army, officers as well as soldiers, manifested symptoms of uncontrollable weariness; murmuring aloud at these endless toils, and marches they knew not whither. They had already over-passed the limits where Dionysus and Herakles were said to have stopped: they were travelling into regions hitherto unvisited either by Greeks or by Persians, merely for the purpose of provoking and conquering new enemies. Of victories they were sated; of their plunder, abundant as it was, they had no enjoyment;[546] the hardships of a perpetual onward march, often excessively accelerated, had exhausted both men and horses; moreover, their advance from the Hydaspes had been accomplished in the wet season, under rains more violent and continued than they had ever before experienced.[547] Informed of the reigning discontent, Alexander assembled his officers and harangued them, endeavoring to revive in them that forward spirit and promptitude which he had hitherto found not inadequate to his own.[548] But he entirely failed. No one indeed dared openly to contradict him. Kœnus alone hazarded some words of timid dissuasion; the rest manifested a passive and sullen repugnance, even when he proclaimed that those who desired might return, with the shame of having deserted their king, while he would march forward with the volunteers only. After a suspense of two days, passed in solitary and silent mortification—he still apparently persisted in his determination, and offered the sacrifice usual previous to the passage of a river. The victims were inauspicious; he bowed to the will of the gods; and gave orders for return, to the unanimous and unbounded delight of his army.[549]
To mark the last extremity of his eastward progress, he erected twelve altars of extraordinary height and dimension on the western bank of the Hyphasis, offering sacrifices of thanks to the gods, with the usual festivities, and matches of agility and force. Then, having committed all the territory west of the Hyphasis to the government of Porus, he marched back, repassed the Hydraotes and Akesines, and returned to the Hydaspes near the point where he had first crossed it. The two new cities—Bukephalia and Nikæa—which he had left orders for commencing on that river, had suffered much from the rains and inundations during his forward march to the Hyphasis, and now required the aid of the army to repair the damage.[550] The heavy rains continued throughout most of his return march to the Hydaspes.[551]
On coming back to this river, Alexander received a large reinforcement both of cavalry and infantry, sent to him from Europe, together with 25,000 new panoplies, and a considerable stock of medicines.[552] Had these reinforcements reached him on the Hyphasis, it seems not impossible that he might have prevailed on his army to accompany him in his farther advance to the Ganges and the regions beyond. He now employed himself, assisted by Porus and Taxilus, in collecting and constructing a fleet for sailing down the Hydaspes and thence down to the mouth of the Indus. By the early part of November, a fleet of nearly 2000 boats or vessels of various sizes having been prepared, he began his voyage.[553] Kraterus marched with one division of the army, along the right bank of the Hydaspes—Hephæstion on the left bank with the remainder, including 200 elephants; Nearchus had the command of the fleet in the river, on board of which was Alexander himself. He pursued his voyage slowly down the river, to the confluence of the Hydaspes with the Akesines—with the Hydraotes—and with the Hyphasis—all pouring, in one united stream, into the Indus. He sailed down the Indus to its junction with the Indian Ocean. Altogether this voyage occupied nine months,[554] from November 326 B. C. to August 325 B. C. But it was a voyage full of active military operations on both sides of the river. Alexander perpetually disembarked to attack, subdue, and slaughter all such nations near the banks as did not voluntarily submit. Among them were the Malli and Oxydrakæ, free and brave tribes, who resolved to defend their liberty, but, unfortunately for themselves, were habitually at variance, and could not now accomplish any hearty co-operation against the common invader.[555] Alexander first assailed the Malli with his usual celerity and vigor, beat them with slaughter in the field, and took several of their towns.[556] There remained only their last and strongest town, from which the defenders were already driven out and forced to retire to the citadel.[557] Thither they were pursued by the Macedonians, Alexander being among the foremost, with only a few guards near him. Impatient because the troops with their scaling-ladders did not come up more rapidly, he mounted upon a ladder that happened to be at hand, attended only by Peukestes and one or two others, with an adventurous courage even transcending what he was wont to display. Having cleared the wall by killing several of its defenders, he jumped down into the interior of the citadel, and made head for some time, nearly alone, against all within. He received however a bad wound from an arrow in the breast, and was on the point of fainting, when his soldiers burst in, rescued him, and took the place. Every person within, man, woman, and child, was slain.[558]
The wound of Alexander was so severe, that he was at first reported to be dead to the great consternation and distress of the army. However, he became soon sufficiently recovered to show himself, and to receive their ardent congratulations, in the camp established at the point of junction between the Hydraotes (Ravee) and Akesines (Chenab).[559] His voyage down the river, though delayed by the care of his wound, was soon resumed and prosecuted, with the same active operations by his land-force on both sides to subjugate all the Indian tribes and cities within accessible distance. At the junction of the river Akesines (Punjnud) with the Indus, Alexander directed the foundation of a new city, with adequate docks and conveniences for ship-building, whereby he expected to command the internal navigation.[560] Having no farther occasion now for so large a land-force, he sent a large portion of it, under Kraterus, westward (seemingly through the pass now called Bolan) into Karmania.[561] He established another military and naval post at Pattala, where the Delta of the Indus divided; and he then sailed, with a portion of his fleet, down the right arm of the river to have the first sight of the Indian Ocean. The view of ebbing and flowing tide, of which none had had experience on the scale there exhibited, occasioned to all much astonishment and alarm.[562]
The fleet was now left to be conducted by the admiral Nearchus, from the mouth of the Indus round by the Persian Gulf to that of the Tigris: a memorable nautical enterprise in Grecian antiquity. Alexander himself (about the month of August) began his march by land westward through the territories of the Arabitæ and the Oritæ, and afterwards through the deserts of Gedrosia. Pura, the principal town of the Gedrosians, was sixty days’ march from the boundary of the Oritæ.[563]
Here his army, though without any formidable opposing enemy, underwent the most severe and deplorable sufferings; their march being through a sandy and trackless desert, with short supplies of food and still shorter supplies of water, under a burning sun. The loss in men, horses, and baggage-cattle from thirst, fatigue, and disease was prodigious; and it required all the unconquerable energy of Alexander to bring through even the diminished number.[564] At Pura the army obtained repose and refreshment, and was enabled to march forward into Karmania, where Kraterus joined them with his division from the Indus, and Kleander with the division which had been left at Ekbatana. Kleander, accused of heinous crimes in his late command, was put to death or imprisoned: several of his comrades were executed. To recompense the soldiers for their recent distress in Gedrosia, the king conducted them for seven days in drunken bacchanalian procession through Karmania, himself and all his friends taking part in the revelry; an imitation of the jovial festivity and triumph with which the god Dionysus had marched back from the conquest of India.[565]
During the halt in Karmania Alexander had the satisfaction of seeing his admiral Nearchus,[566] who had brought the fleet round from the mouth of the Indus to the harbor called Harmozeia (Ormuz), not far from the entrance of the Persian Gulf; a voyage of much hardship and distress, along the barren coasts of the Oritæ, the Gedrosians, and the Ichthyophagi.[567] Nearchus, highly commended and honored, was presently sent back to complete his voyage as far as the mouth of the Euphrates; while Hephæstion also was directed to conduct the larger portion of the army, with the elephants and heavy baggage, by the road near the coast from Karmania into Persis. This road, though circuitous, was the most convenient, as it was now the winter season;[568] but Alexander himself, with the lighter divisions of his army, took the more direct mountain road from Karmania to Pasargadæ and Persepolis. Visiting the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire, he was incensed to find it violated and pillaged. He caused it to be carefully restored, put to death a Macedonian named Polymachus as the offender, and tortured the Magian guardians of it for the purpose of discovering accomplices, but in vain.[569] Orsines, satrap of Persis, was however accused of connivance in the deed, as well as of various acts of murder and spoliation: according to Curtius, he was not only innocent, but had manifested both good faith and devotion to Alexander;[570] in spite of which he became a victim of the hostility of the favorite eunuch Bagoas, who both poisoned the king’s mind with calumnies of his own, and suborned other accusers with false testimony. Whatever may be the truth of the story, Alexander caused Orsines to be hanged; naming as satrap Peukestes, whose favor was now high, partly as comrade and preserver of the king in his imminent danger at the citadel of the Malli,—partly from his having adopted the Persian dress, manners, and language more completely than any other Macedonian.[571]