The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and Karmania

by John Watson McCrindle

Chapter XXIX.—Alexander erects altars on the banks of the Hyphasis to mark the limits of his advance, recrosses the Hydraôtês and Akesinês and regains the Hydaspês

Then they shouted, as a mixed multitude would shout when rejoicing, and many of them shed tears. Some of them even approached the royal pavilion, and invoked many blessings on Alexander, because by them and them only did he permit himself to be vanquished. He then divided the army into brigades, which he ordered to prepare twelve altars[140] to equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in point of breadth, to serve as thank-offerings to the gods who had led him so far as a conqueror, and also as a memorial of his own labours. When the altars had been constructed, he offered sacrifice upon them with the customary rites, and celebrated a gymnastic and equestrian contest. Having thereafter committed all the country west of the river Hyphasis to the government of Pôros, he marched back to the Hydraôtês. After crossing this river, he retraced his steps to the Akesinês, and on arriving there found the city which he had ordered Hêphaistiôn to fortify completely built.[141] Herein he settled as many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood as were willing to make it their domicile, and such also of the mercenary soldiers as were now unfit for further service. He then began to make preparations for the downward voyage to the Great Sea.

At this time Arsakês,[142] ruler of the country adjoining the dominions of Abisarês, together with the brother of Abisarês and his other relatives, came to him, bringing presents such as the Indians consider the most valuable, and some thirty elephants sent by Abisarês. They represented that Abisarês was prevented from coming in person by illness—a statement which the ambassadors sent by Alexander to Abisarês corroborated. Alexander, readily believing that such was the case, made Abisarês satrap of his own dominions, and moreover placed Arsakês under his jurisdiction. Having then fixed the amount which was to be paid as tribute, he again offered sacrifice near the river Akesinês. He then recrossed that river, and reached the Hydaspês, where he employed his army in repairing the damage caused by the rains to the cities of Nikaia and Boukephala, and set the other affairs of the country in order.

Sixth Book

Chapter I.—Alexander mistakes the Indus for the upper Nile—Prepares to sail down stream to the sea

When Alexander had got ready upon the banks of the Hydaspês a large number of thirty-oared galleys, and others of one bank and a half of oars, besides numerous horse transports and every other requisite for the easy conveyance of an army by river, he resolved to sail down the Hydaspês[143] to the Great Sea. As he had before this seen crocodiles in the river Indus, and in no other river but the Nile only, and had besides seen beans of the same species as those which Egypt produces[144] growing near the banks of the Akesinês, and as he had heard that this river falls into the Indus, he was led to think that he had discovered the sources of the Nile. His idea was that this river rose somewhere among the Indians and pursued its course through a vast tract of desert country, where it lost the name of the Indus, and that from the time when it began to flow through the inhabited parts of the world it was called the Nile both by the Aithiopians, who lived there and by the Egyptians, just as Homer also changed its name, calling it the river Egypt after Egypt, the country where at last it discharges itself into the Inner Sea.[145] Accordingly when he was writing to his mother Olympias about the country of the Indians, he mentioned, it is said, among other things that he thought he had discovered the sources of the Nile, actually basing on such slight and contemptible evidence his judgements respecting questions of so much importance. When, however, he investigated with special care the facts relating to the river Indus, he ascertained from the natives that the Hydaspês unites with the Akesinês, and the Akesinês with the Indus, to which the other two rivers lose both their waters and their names. He learned further that the Indus discharges itself into the Great Sea by two mouths, and that it has no connection with the Egyptian country. He is said to have then deleted what he had written about the Nile in the letter to his mother, and as he had set his mind on sailing down the rivers to the Great Sea he ordered a fleet for this purpose to be prepared for him. Adequate crews for the vessels were supplied by the Phoenicians, Cyprians, Karians, and Egyptians who accompanied the army.

Chapter II.—Description of the voyage down the Hydaspês

At this time Koinos, who was one of Alexander’s most faithful companions, took ill and died, and his master buried him with all the magnificence circumstances allowed. He then assembled the Companions and all the ambassadors of the Indians who had come to him, and in their presence appointed Pôros king of all the Indian territories already subjugated—seven nations in all, containing more than 2000 cities. He then made the following distribution of his army. He took in the ships along with himself all the hypaspists, and the archers, and the Agrianians, and the corps of horse-guards.[146] Krateros commanding a division of the infantry and cavalry, conducted it along the right bank of the Hydaspês, while Hêphaistiôn on the opposite bank advanced in command of the largest and best division of the army, to which the elephants, now about 200 in number, were attached. These generals were instructed to march with all possible speed to where the palace of Sôpeithês[147] was situated. Philippos, the satrap of the province lying west of the Indus in the direction of the Baktrians, received orders to follow them with his troops after an interval of three days, but the cavalry of the Nysaians he now sent back to Nysa. The command of the whole naval squadron was entrusted to Nearchos, while the pilot of Alexander’s own ship was Onêsikritos, who, in the narrative which he composed about the wars of Alexander, among his other lies, described himself as the commander of the fleet, although he was in reality only a pilot. According to Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, whose authority I principally follow, the ships numbered collectively eighty thirty-oared galleys, but the whole fleet, including the horse-transports and the small craft and other river boats consisting of those that formerly plied on the rivers and those recently built for the present service, did not fall much short of 2000.[148]