[246] According to Arrian this force was commanded by the son of Pôros.
[247] See [Note Y], Battle with Pôros.
[248] Boukephalos was no doubt the horse to which Curtius here refers, but according to some accounts that famous steed was not in the battle. Curtius here follows Chares, as the following passage quoted from this writer by Aulus Gellius (Noct. Attic. v. 2) will show: “The horse of King Alexander was both by his head and by his name Bucephalas (i.e. ox-head). Cares has stated that he was bought for thirteen talents, and presented to King Philip.... Regarding this horse it seems worth recording that when caparisoned and armed for battle he would not suffer himself to be mounted by any one but the king. It is also told of this horse that in the Indian war when Alexander, mounted upon him, and performing noble deeds of bravery, had with too little heed for his own safety entangled himself amid a battalion of the enemy, where he was on all sides assailed with darts, his horse was stabbed with deep wounds in the neck and sides. Ready to expire, and drained of nearly all his blood, he nevertheless bore back the king from the midst of his foes at a most rapid pace; and when he had conveyed him beyond reach of spears, he straightway dropped down, and having no further fear for his master’s safety, he breathed his last as if with the consolation of human sensibility. Then King Alexander having gained the victory in this war, built a town on this spot, and in honour of his horse called it Bucephalon.”
[249] Arrian says that the first messenger sent was Taxilês himself.
[250] According to Arrian, Taxilês escaped by a hasty flight.
[251] Diodôros states, on the contrary, that Alexander checked the slaughter.
[252] This is scarcely probable. The incident is mentioned by no other writer.
[253] Curtius has here marred with his rhetoric and moral reflections the simple and dignified answer of Pôros, that he wished to be treated like a king. Lucan similarly has dilated into some twenty lines of rhetoric Caesar’s famous words to the boatmen in the storm: “Fear not, you carry Caesar and his fortunes.” Plutarch, both in his Life of Alexander and in his De Ira Cohibenda (c. 9), has stated the reply of Pôros in the same terms as Arrian.
[254] Cicero (pro Marcello) extols Alexander in the highest terms for acting thus towards his vanquished enemy; and Seneca in his De Clementia follows in a similar strain.
[255] Philostratos, in his life of Apollonios of Tyana, states that Alexander dedicated likewise to the sun one of the elephants of Pôros, the first of them that deserted to his side, and which he called Ajax, and also the altars which he reared on the banks of the Hyphasis to mark the limits of his advance. As the same author states that Apollonios saw Ajax still alive at Taxila some 370 years later, his veracity may be suspected.