When Alexander came to Nysa, the Nysaians sent out to him their president, whose name was Akouphis,[70] and along with him thirty deputies of their most eminent citizens, to entreat him to spare the city for the sake of the god. The deputies, it is said, on entering Alexander’s tent found him sitting in his armour, covered with dust from his journey, wearing his helmet and grasping his spear. They fell to the ground in amazement at the sight, and remained for a long time silent. But when Alexander had bidden them rise and to be of good courage, then Akouphis taking up speech thus addressed him.
“The Nysaians entreat you, O King! to permit them to be still free and to be governed by their own laws from reverence towards Dionysos; for when Dionysos after conquering the Indian nation was returning to the shores of Greece he founded with his war-worn soldiers, who were also his bacchanals, this very city to be a memorial to posterity of his wanderings and his victory, just as you have founded yourself an Alexandreia near Kaukasos, and another Alexandreia in the land of the Egyptians, not to speak of many others, some of which you have already founded, while others will follow in the course of time, just as your achievements exceed in number those displayed by Dionysos. Now Dionysos called our city Nysa, and our land the Nysaian, after the name of his nurse Nysa; and he besides gave to the mountain which lies near the city the name of Mêros, because according to the legend he grew, before his birth, in the thigh of Zeus. And from his time forth we inhabit Nysa as a free city, and are governed by our own laws, and are a well-ordered community. But that Dionysos was our founder, take this as a proof, that ivy which grows nowhere else in the land of the Indians, grows with us.”[71]
Chapter II.—Alexander permits the Nysaians to retain their Autonomy—Visits Mount Mêros
It gratified Alexander to hear all this, for he was desirous that the legends concerning the wanderings of Dionysos should be believed, as well as that Nysa owed its foundation to Dionysos, since he had himself reached the place to which that deity had come, and meant to penetrate farther than he; for the Macedonians, he thought, would not refuse to share his toils if he advanced with an ambition to rival the exploits of Dionysos. He therefore confirmed the inhabitants of Nysa in the enjoyment of their freedom and their own laws; and when he enquired about their laws, he praised them because the government of their state was in the hands of the aristocracy. He moreover requested them to send with him 300 of their horsemen, together with 100 of their best men selected from the governing body, which consisted of 300 members. He then asked Akouphis, whom he appointed governor of the Nysaian land, to make the selection. When Akouphis heard this, he is said to have smiled at the request, and when Alexander asked him why he laughed, to have replied, “How, O King! can a single city if deprived of a hundred of its best men continue to be well-governed? But if you have the welfare of the Nysaians at heart, take with you the 300 horsemen, or, if you wish, even more; but instead of the hundred of our best men you have asked me to select, take with you twice that number of our worst men, so that on your returning hither you may find the city as well governed as it is now.” By these words he persuaded Alexander, who thought he spoke sensibly, and who ordered him to send the horsemen without again asking for the hundred men who were to have been selected, or even for others to supply their place. He requested Akouphis, however, to send him his son and his daughter’s son to attend him on his expedition.
Alexander felt a strong desire to see the place where the Nysaians boasted to have certain memorials of Dionysos. So he went, it is said, to Mount Mêros with the companion cavalry and the body of foot-guards, and found that the mountain abounded with ivy and laurel and umbrageous groves of all manner of trees, and that it had also chases supplied with game of every description. The Macedonians, to whom the sight of the ivy was particularly welcome, as it was the first they had seen for a long time (there being no ivy in the land of the Indians, even where they have the vine), are said to have set themselves at once to weave ivy chaplets, and, accoutred as they were, to have crowned themselves with these, chanting the while hymns to Dionysos and invoking the god by his different names.[72] Alexander, they say, offered while there sacrifice to Dionysos and feasted with his friends. Some even go so far as to allege, if any one cares to believe such things, that many of his courtiers, Macedonians of no mean rank, while invoking Dionysos, and wreathed with ivy crowns, were seized with the inspiration of the god, raised in his honour shouts of Evoi, and revelled like Bacchanals celebrating the orgies.
Chapter III—How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus
Any one who hears these stories is free to believe them or disbelieve them as he chooses. For my own part, I do not altogether agree with Eratosthenes the Kyrênian, who says that all these references to the deity were circulated by the Macedonians in connection with the deeds of Alexander, to gratify his pride by grossly exaggerating their importance. For, to take an instance, he says that the Macedonians, on seeing a cavern among the Paropamisadai, and either hearing some local legend about it, or inventing one themselves, spread a report that this was beyond doubt the cave in which Promêtheus had been bound, and to which the eagle resorted to prey upon his vitals, until Heraklês, coming that way, slew the eagle and freed Promêtheus from his bonds.[73] And again, he says that the Macedonians transferred the name of Mount Kaukasos from Pontos to the eastern parts of the world and the land of the Paropamisadai adjacent to India (for they called Mount Paropamisos, Kaukasos), to enhance the glory of Alexander as if he had passed over Kaukasos. And again, he says that when the Macedonians saw in India itself oxen marked with a brand in the form of a club, they took this as a proof that Heraklês had gone as far as the Indians. Eratosthenes has likewise no belief in similar stories about the wanderings of Dionysos. Whether or not the accounts about them are true, I cannot decide, and so leave them.
When Alexander arrived at the river Indus he found a bridge already made over it by Hêphaistiôn, and two thirty-oared galleys, besides a great many small boats. He found also a present which had been sent by Taxilês the Indian, consisting of 200 talents of silver, 3000 oxen fattened for the shambles, 10,000 sheep or more, and 30 elephants. The same prince had also sent to his assistance a force of 700 horsemen, and these brought word that Taxilês surrendered into his hands his capital Taxila, the greatest of all the cities between the river Indus and the Hydaspês. Alexander there offered sacrifices to the gods to whom it was his custom to sacrifice, and entertained his army with gymnastic and equestrian contests on the banks of the river. The sacrifices proved to be favourable for his undertaking the passage.
Chapter IV.—General description of the Indus and of the people of India
That the Indus is the greatest of all the rivers of Asia, except the Ganges, which is itself an Indian river; that its sources lie on this side of the Paropamisos or Kaukasos;[74] that it falls into the great sea which washes the shores of India towards the south wind; that it has two mouths, both of which outlets abound with shallows, like the five mouths of the Ister; and that it forms a delta in the land of the Indians closely resembling the Egyptian Delta, and that this is called in the Indian tongue Pâtâla,[75] let this be my description of the Indus, setting forth those facts which can least be disputed, since the Hydaspês and the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês and the Hyphasis, which are also Indian rivers, are considerably larger than any other rivers in Asia, but are smaller, I may even say much smaller, than the Indus, just as also the Indus itself is smaller than the Ganges. Indeed, Ktêsias (if any one thinks him a proper authority) states that where the Indus is narrowest its banks are 40 stadia apart, and where broadest 100 stadia, while its ordinary breadth is the mean between these two distances.[76]