[106] This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station himself opposite the enemy’s right, and not on the Macedonian extreme right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (Alexander in the Punjaub, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as, in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly and Rüstow, however, in their History of the Greek Military System, advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s rear.” This seems the preferable view.
[107] “To meet the double assault (of Alexander and Coenus) they resorted to one of those changes of front in which Indian cavalry are often so surprisingly rapid—facing partly to the front and partly to the rear. Yet Alexander was beforehand with them; and his renewed charge threw them into utter confusion before they could fully assume their new formation. Flying along the front of their own infantry, they took refuge in the spaces left between every two elephants, and (as it would seem in the absence, from Arrian’s account, of the full details) passed as soon as possible through the intervals of the foot regiments, so as to be for the moment quite outside the battle. As soon as they were out of the way the Indian elephants were sent on, supported by the infantry, but were at once met face to face by the Macedonian phalanx.”—v. Moberly’s Alexander in the Punjaub, Introd. p. 12.
[108] Diodôros gives the number of Indians killed at upwards of 12,000, and of the captured at more than 9000, besides 80 elephants.
[109] The Spitakês here mentioned as one of the slain is probably the same as Pittacus, who is recorded by Polyainos to have had an encounter with Alexander during the march of the latter from Taxila to the Hydaspês, as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in thinking.
[110] The hiatus is supposed to have contained the number of officers killed.
[111] This death-roll evidently greatly under-estimates the loss on Alexander’s side. Diodôros says that there fell of the Macedonians 280 cavalry and more than 700 infantry.
[112] Pôros was the first sovereign that Alexander had captured on the field of battle. Curtius and Diodôros relate somewhat differently from Arrian the story of his capture, representing him to have been protected to the last by his faithful elephant.
[113] See [Note R], Battle with Pôros.
[114] Diodôros says the battle occurred while Chremes was archon at Athens.
[115] Nikaia most probably occupied the site of the modern town of Mong, near the left bank. Nothing is known of its history. With respect to its sister city Boukephala, the ancient writers are not in agreement. Plutarch places it on the left or eastern bank of the Hydaspês, for he says that Boukephalas was killed in the battle, and that the city was built where he fell and was buried. According, however, to Strabo, Arrian, and Diodôros, it stood on the west bank; but while Strabo places it at the point where the troops embarked, Arrian places it farther down the stream on the site of the great camp at Jalâlpûr. It became a great emporium of commerce, as we find from the Periplûs of the Erythraian Sea, c. 47. In the Peutinger Tables it is called Alexandria Bucefalos.