Eumenes was a native of Kardia, a Greek colony situated in the Thracian Chersonese. He was private secretary to King Philip, and then to Alexander, whom he attended throughout his Asiatic expedition. It was one of his duties as royal secretary to keep a diary (Ephêmerides) in which the transactions of each day had to be recorded, and this work is quoted both by Arrian and Plutarch. He showed himself a man of consummate ability in the arts both of war and of politics. His alien origin, however, exposed him to the jealousy of the Macedonian officers. Hêphaistiôn in particular, Alexander’s chief favourite, sought by every means to compass his overthrow. Eumenes, however, by his prudence and tact frustrated all attempts made to undermine his influence with the king who had a just appreciation of his merits. Though his labours were chiefly those of the closet, he was sometimes employed in the field, more especially on occasions of unusual emergency. When Alexander, on returning to Sousa, celebrated his own nuptials and those of his companions with oriental brides, he gave, as Arrian tells us (vi. 4), to Ptolemy, and Eumenes, the royal secretary, the daughters of Artabazos; to the former Artikama, and to the latter Artonis. After the king’s death Eumenes obtained Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and Pontos, and after some delay was established in the government of these provinces. After the death of Perdikkas, to whom he owed this service, he was requested by Olympias and Polysperchon to undertake the supreme command throughout Asia on behalf of the king. He had in consequence to contend against the faction opposed to the royal family which was headed by Antigonos, and supported by Ptolemy, Peithôn, Seleukos, and Nearchos. After coping successfully for a considerable time against this powerful confederacy, he was delivered up by his own troops to Antigonos, who, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Nearchos, ordered him to be put to death, 316 B.C.
Gorgias, a commander of a division of the phalanx. He marched with Hêphaistiôn and Perdikkas by the Khaiber Pass to the Indus, and fought in the battle against Pôros.
Harpalos was of princely birth, and nephew of King Philip. He was educated along with Alexander, whom he accompanied into Asia in the capacity of superintendent of his treasury. Having betrayed his trust he fled to Greece, but was recalled by Alexander, who overlooked his offence and reinstated him in his office. Alexander, on setting out from Ekbatana to pursue Darius, left Harpalos in that stronghold in charge of the vast treasures which had been transported thither from Sousa and other plundered capitals. Harpalos removed thence to Babylon, where he ruled as satrap while the king was in India. Here his licentiousness and extravagance exceeded all bounds. On hearing that Alexander had returned to Sousa, and was punishing with the utmost severity all officers who had misgoverned in his absence, he set out for the coast, taking with him the vast sum of 5000 talents and a large escort of troops. He crossed over to Attica, but the Athenians would not permit him to land until he had disbanded his followers. When he was admitted into the city he employed his wealth in bribing the orators to gain over the people to his cause in opposition to Alexander. He was, however, obliged to take to flight, and having landed with his treasures in the island of Crete, was there assassinated.
Hêkataios, one of the earliest and most distinguished Greek historians and geographers, was a native of Milêtos, and lived about 520 B.C. He is the first Greek writer who distinctly mentions India. Some fragments of his works have been preserved.
Hêphaistiôn was a native of Pella, and in his childhood appears to have been brought up with Alexander, who was of the same age as he, and not only continued to be his friend through life, but lavished upon him when removed by death the most extravagant honours. In the Egyptian expedition he commanded the fleet, and he distinguished himself in the battle of Arbêla, where he was wounded in the arm. When Philôtas was put to death the command of the horse guards was divided between him and Kleitos. He conducted important operations in Sogdiana and Baktria, and throughout all the subsequent campaigns until the army returned to Sousa. He was not possessed of any striking share of ability, and would certainly not have risen to eminence through his own unaided exertions. At Sousa Alexander gave him to wife Drypatis, one of the daughters of Darius, and the sister of Stateira, whom he himself married. Hêphaistiôn was soon afterwards cut off by fever at Ekbatana.
Herakon, one of Alexander’s officers, was appointed with two others to command the army in Media on the death of Parmenion. During Alexander’s absence in the far east he committed many excesses, for which he was put to death on Alexander’s return from India.
Kalânos was a gymnosophist of Taxila, who left India with Alexander, and burned himself alive on a funeral pile at Sousa. His real name, Plutarch says, was Sphinês; but the Greeks called him Kalânos, because, in saluting those he met, he used the word kale! equivalent to hail! The Sanskrit adjective kalyâna means salutary, lucky, well, etc. If we except Sandrokottos, Taxilês, and Pôros, there is no other Indian with whose history, opinions, and personal characteristics the classical writers have made us so well acquainted as with those of Kalânos. For this reason, as well as because it falls properly within the scope of my undertaking to do so, I shall here present translations of all the passages I can find which relate to him, and to another gymnosophist who was a man of a very different stamp called Mandanes, and sometimes, but improperly, Dandamis. Arrian (VII. i. 5—iii.) thus writes:—i. 5. I commend the Indian sages of whom it is related that certain of them who had been caught by Alexander walking about according to their wont in the open meadow, did nothing else in sight of himself and his army but stamp upon the ground on which they were stepping. When he asked them through interpreters what they meant by so doing, they replied thus: O King Alexander, each man possesses as much of the earth as what we have stepped on; but you, being a man like the rest of us, except that you wickedly disturb the peace of the world, have come so far from home to plague yourself and every one else, and yet ere long when you die you will possess just so much of the earth as will suffice to make a grave to cover your bones. ii. Alexander praised what they had said, but nevertheless continued to act in opposition to their advice.... When he arrived at Taxila and saw the Indian gymnosophists, he conceived a great desire that one of their number should live with him, because he admired their patience in enduring hardships. But the oldest of the philosophers, Dandamis by name, with whom the others lived as disciples, not only refused to go himself, but forbade the others to go. He is said to have replied that he was also a son of Zeus, if Alexander was such,[414] and that he wanted nothing that was Alexander’s; for he was content with what he had, while he saw that the men with Alexander wandered over sea and land for no advantage, and were never coming to an end of their wanderings. He desired, therefore, nothing it was in Alexander’s power to give: nor did he fear being excluded from anything he possessed; for while he lived, India would suffice for him, yielding him her fruits in due season, and when he died he would be delivered from the body an unsuitable companion. Alexander accordingly did not attempt to compel him to go with him, considering him free to please himself. But Megasthenes has stated that Kalânos, one of the philosophers of this place, was persuaded to go since he had no power of self-control, as the philosophers themselves allowed, who upbraided him because he had deserted the happiness among them, and went to serve another master than the deity. iii. I have thus written, because in a History of Alexander it was necessary to speak of Kalânos; for when he was in the country of Persis he fell into delicate health, though he had never before had an illness. Accordingly, as he had no wish to lead the life of an invalid, he informed Alexander that, broken as he was in health, he thought it best to put an end to himself before he had experience of any malady that would oblige him to change his former mode of life. Alexander long and earnestly opposed his request; but when he saw that he was quite inflexible, and that if one mode of death was denied him he would find another, he ordered a funeral pyre to be piled up in accordance with the man’s own directions, and ordered Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, one of the bodyguards, to superintend all the arrangements. Some say that a solemn procession of horses and men advanced before him, some of the men being armed, while others carried all kinds of incense for the pyre. Others again say that they carried gold and silver bowls and royal apparel; also, that a horse was provided for him because he was unable to walk from illness. He was, however, unable to mount the horse, and he was therefore carried on a litter crowned with a garland, after the manner of the Indians, and singing in the Indian tongue. The Indians say that what he sang were hymns to the gods and the praises of his countrymen, and that the horse which he was to have mounted—a Nêsaian steed of the royal stud—he presented to Lysimachos who attended him for instruction in philosophy. On others who attended him he bestowed the bowls and rugs which Alexander, to honour him, had ordered to be cast into the pyre. Then mounting the pile, he lay down upon it in a becoming manner in full view of the whole army. Alexander deemed the spectacle one which he could not with propriety witness, because the man to suffer was his friend; but to those who were present Kalânos caused astonishment in that he did not move any part of his body in the fire. As soon as the men charged with the duty set fire to the pile, the trumpets, Nearchos says, sounded by Alexander’s order, and the whole army raised the war-shout as if advancing to battle. The elephants also swelled the noise with their shrill and warlike cry to do honour to Kalânos.
In a subsequent chapter (xviii.) Arrian records the following story of Kalânos: When he was going to the funeral pyre to die, he embraced all his other companions, but did not wish to draw near to Alexander to give him a parting embrace, saying he would meet him at Babylon and would there embrace him. This remark attracted no notice at the time; but afterwards, when Alexander died in Babylon, it came back to the memory of those who heard it, who then naturally took it to have been a prophecy of his death. Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, has another notice of Kalânos besides that which the reader will find translated in chapter 65. In chapter 69 he thus writes: “It was here (in Persepolis) that Kalânos, on being for a short time afflicted with colic, desired to have his funeral pile erected. He was conveyed to it on horseback, and after he had prayed and sprinkled himself with a libation, and cut off part of his hair to cast into the fire, he ascended the pile, after taking leave of the Macedonians, and recommending them to devote that day to pleasure and hard drinking with the king, whom, said he, I shall shortly see in Babylon. Upon this he lay down on the pyre and covered himself up with his robes. When the flames approached he did not move, but remained in the same posture as when he lay down until the sacrifice was auspiciously consummated, according to the custom of the sages of his country. Many years afterwards another Indian in the presence of Caesar (Augustus) at Athens did the same thing. His tomb is shown till this day, and is called the Indian’s tomb.—Alexander, on returning from the pyre, invited many of his friends and his generals to supper, where he proposed a drinking-bout, with a crown for the prize. Promachos, who drank most, reached four measures (14 quarts), and won the crown, which was worth a talent, but survived only for three days. The rest of the guests, Charês says, drank to such excess that forty-one of them died, the weather having turned excessively cold immediately after the debauch.” The Indian who burned himself at Athens was called Zarmanochegas, as we learn from Strabo (XV. i. 73), who states, on the authority of Nikolaös of Damascus, that he came to Syria in the train of the ambassadors who were sent to Augustus Caesar by a great Indian king called Pôros. “These ambassadors,” he says, “were accompanied by the person who burnt himself to death at Athens. This is the practice with persons in distress, who seek escape from existing calamities, and with others in prosperous circumstances, as was the case with this man. For as everything hitherto had succeeded with him, he thought it necessary to depart, lest some unexpected calamity should happen to him by continuing to live; with a smile, therefore, naked, anointed, and with the girdle round his waist, he leaped upon the pyre. On his tomb was this inscription: Zarmanochegas, an Indian, a native of Bargosa (Barygaza, Baroch), having immortalised himself according to the custom of his country, here lies.” Lassen takes the name Zarmanochegas to represent the Sanskrit Śramanachârya, teacher of the Śramanas, from which it would appear he was a Buddhist priest. Strabo writes at greater length than our historians about the gymnosophists. In Book XV. i. 61 we have the following notices: “Aristoboulos says that he saw at Taxila two sophists, both Brachmans, of whom the elder had his head shaved, while the younger wore his hair; disciples attended both. They spent their time generally in the market-place. They are honoured as public counsellors, and are free to take away without charge any article exposed for sale which they may choose. He who accosts them pours over them oil of jessamine in such quantities that it runs down from their eyes. They make cakes of honey and sesamum, of which large quantities are always for sale, and their food thus costs them nothing. At Alexander’s table they ate standing, and, to give a sample of their endurance, withdrew to a spot not far off, where the elder, lying down with his back to the ground, endured the sun and the rains which had set in as spring had just begun. The other stood on one leg, holding up with both his hands a bar of wood 3 cubits long; one leg being tired he rested his weight on the other, and did this throughout the day. The younger seemed to have far more self-command; for though he followed the king a short distance, he soon returned to his home. The king sent after him, but the king, he said, should come to him if he wanted anything from him. The other accompanied the king to the end of his life. During his stay he changed his dress and altered his mode of life, saying, when reproached for so doing, that he had completed the forty years of discipline which he had vowed to observe. Alexander gave presents to his children. (63) Onesikritos says that he himself was sent to converse with these sages.... He found at the distance of twenty stadia from the city fifteen men standing in different attitudes, sitting or lying down naked, and continuing in these positions till the evening, when they went back to the city. What was hardest to bear was the heat of the sun, which was so powerful that no one else could bear without pain to walk barefooted on the ground at mid-day. (64) He conversed with Kalânos, one of these sages, who accompanied the king to Persia, and burned himself after the custom of his country on a pile of wood. Onesikritos found him lying upon stones, and drawing near to address him, informed him that he had been sent by the king, who had heard the fame of his wisdom. As the king would require an account of the interview, he was prepared to listen to his discourse if he did not object to converse with him. When Kalânos saw the cloak, head-dress, and shoes of his visitor, he laughed and said: “Formerly there was abundance of corn and barley in the world, as there is now of dust; fountains then flowed with water, milk, honey, wine, and oil, but repletion and luxury made men turn proud and insolent. Zeus, indignant at this, destroyed all, and assigned to man a life of toil. When temperance and other virtues in consequence again appeared, then good things again abounded. But at present the condition of mankind tends to satiety and wantonness, and there is cause to fear lest the existing state of things should disappear.” When he had finished he proposed to Onesikritos, if he wished to hear his discourse, to strip off his clothes, to lie down naked beside him on the same stones, and in that manner to hear what he had to say. While he was uncertain what to do, Mandanes, the oldest and wisest of the sages, reproached Kalânos for his insolence—the very vice which he had been condemning. Mandanes then called Onesikritos to him, and said, I commend the king, because, although he governs so vast an empire, he is yet desirous of acquiring wisdom, for he is the only philosopher in arms that I ever saw.... (65) “The tendency of his discourse,” he said, “was this, that the best philosophy was that which liberated the mind from pleasure and grief; that grief differed from labour, in that the former was pernicious, the latter friendly, to men; for that men exercised their bodies with labour to strengthen the mental powers, whereby they would be able to end dissensions, and give every one good advice, both to the public and to private persons; that he should at present advise Taxilês to receive Alexander as a friend; for by entertaining a person better than himself he might be improved, while by entertaining a worse he might influence that person to be good.” After this Mandanes inquired whether such doctrines were taught among the Greeks. Onesikritos answered that Pythagoras taught a like doctrine, and instructed his disciples to abstain from whatever had life; that Sôkrates and Diogenês, whose discourses he had heard, held the same views. Mandanes replied, that in other respects he thought them to be wise; but that they were mistaken in preferring custom to nature, else they would not be ashamed to go naked as he did, and to live on frugal fare, for, said he, that is the best house that requires least repairs. He states further that they employ themselves much on natural subjects, as forecasting the future, rain, drought, and diseases. On going into the city they disperse themselves in the market-places.... Every wealthy house, even to the women’s apartments, is open to them. When they enter they converse with the inmates and share their meal. Disease of the body they regard as very disgraceful, and he who fears that it will attack him, prepares a pyre and lets the flames consume him. He anoints himself beforehand, and when he has placed himself upon the pile orders it to be lighted, and remains motionless while he is burning. (66) Nearchos gives the following account of the sages: The Brachmans engage in public affairs, and attend the kings as counsellors; the rest are occupied in the study of nature. Kalânos belonged to the latter class. Women study philosophy with them, and all lead an ascetic life.
Athênaios in his Gymnosophists (x. p. 437) quotes, like Plutarch, from Charês, the account of the drinking bout which followed the burning of Kalânos. He says that Alexander proposed the match on account of the bibulous propensities (philoinia) of the Indians. Other references to Kalânos are to be found in Ailianos, V. H. ii. 41 and v. 6; Lucian, De M. Pereg. 25; Cicero, Disp. Tusc. ii. 22, and De Divin. i. 23, 30. In the romance History of Alexander, by the Pseudo-Kallisthenes, six long chapters of Book iii. (11-17) are full of Kalânos, Mandanes, and the Brachmans.
St. Ambrose wrote a work, De Bragmanibus, in which the two gymnosophists are frequently mentioned.