His country possesses a noble breed of dogs, used for hunting, and said to refrain from barking when they sight their game which is chiefly the lion.[269] Sopithes wishing to show Alexander the strength and mettle of these dogs, caused a very large lion to be placed within an enclosure where four dogs in all were let loose upon him. The dogs at once fastened upon the wild beast, when one of the huntsmen who was accustomed to work of this kind tried to pull away by the leg one of the dogs which with the others had seized the lion, and when the limb would not come away, cut it off with a knife. The dog could not even by this means be forced to let go his hold, and so the man proceeded to cut him in another place, and finding him still clutching the lion as tenaciously as before, he continued cutting away with his knife one part of him after another. The brave dog, however, even in dying kept his fangs fixed in the lion’s flesh; so great is the eagerness for hunting which nature has implanted in these animals, as testified by the accounts transmitted to us.
I must observe, however, that I copy from preceding writers more than I myself believe, for I neither wish to guarantee statements of the truth of which I am doubtful, nor yet to suppress what I find recorded. Alexander therefore leaving Sopithes in possession of his kingdom, advanced to the river Hyphasis, where he was rejoined by Hephaestion who had subdued a district situated in a different direction. Phegeus,[270] who was king of the nearest nation, having beforehand ordered his subjects to attend to the cultivation of their fields according to their wont, went forth to meet Alexander with presents and assurances that whatever he commanded he would not fail to perform.
Chapter II.—Alexander obtains information about the Ganges and the strength of the army kept by Agrammes, king of the Prasians—His speech to the soldiers to induce them to advance to the Ganges
The king made a halt of two days with this prince, designing on the third day to cross the river, the passage of which was difficult, not only from its great breadth, but also because its channel was obstructed with rocks. Having therefore requested Phegeus to tell him what he wanted to know, he learned the following particulars: Beyond the river lay extensive deserts which it would take eleven days to traverse.[271] Next came the Ganges, the largest river in all India, the farther bank of which was inhabited by two nations, the Gangaridae and the Prasii,[272] whose king Agrammes[273] kept in the field for guarding the approaches to his country 20,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry, besides 2000 four-horsed chariots, and, what was the most formidable force of all, a troop of elephants which he said ran up to the number of 3000.
All this seemed to the king to be incredible, and he therefore asked Porus, who happened to be in attendance, whether the account was true. He assured Alexander in reply that, as far as the strength of the nation and kingdom was concerned, there was no exaggeration in the reports, but that the present king was not merely a man originally of no distinction, but even of the very meanest condition. His father was in fact a barber, scarcely staving off hunger by his daily earnings, but who, from his being not uncomely in person, had gained the affections of the queen, and was by her influence advanced to too near a place in the confidence of the reigning monarch. Afterwards, however, he treacherously murdered his sovereign; and then, under the pretence of acting as guardian to the royal children, usurped the supreme authority, and having put the young princes to death begot the present king, who was detested and held cheap by his subjects, as he rather took after his father than conducted himself as the occupant of a throne.
The attestation of Porus to the truth of what he had heard made the king anxious on manifold grounds; for while he thought contemptuously of the men and elephants that would oppose him, he dreaded the difficult nature of the country that lay before him, and in particular, the impetuous rapidity of the rivers. The task seemed hard indeed, to follow up and unearth men removed almost to the uttermost bounds of the world. On the other hand, his avidity of glory and his insatiable ambition forbade him to think that any place was so far distant or inaccessible as to be beyond his reach. He did indeed sometimes doubt whether the Macedonians who had traversed all those broad lands and grown old in battlefields and camps, would be willing to follow him through obstructing rivers and the many other difficulties which nature would oppose to their advance. Overflowing and laden with booty, they would rather, he judged, enjoy what they had won than wear themselves out in getting more. They could not of course be of the same mind as himself, for while he had grasped the conception of a world-wide empire, and stood as yet but on the threshold of his labours, they were now worn out with toil, and longed for the time when, all their dangers being at length ended, they might enjoy their latest winnings. In the end ambition carried the day against reason; and, having summoned a meeting of the soldiers, he addressed them very much to this effect:
“I am not ignorant, soldiers, that during these last days the natives of this country have been spreading all sorts of rumours designed expressly to work upon your fears; but the falsehood of those who invent such lies is nothing new in your experience. The Persians in this sort of way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you crossed by a ford, and that by means of a bridge. Fame is never brought to a clearness in which facts can be seen as they are. They are all magnified when she transmits them. Even our own glory, though resting on a solid basis, is more indebted for its greatness to rumour than to reality. Who but till the other day believed that it was possible for us to bear the shock of those monstrous beasts that looked like so many ramparts, or that we could have passed the Hydaspes, or conquered other difficulties which after all were more formidable to hear of than they proved to be in actual experience. By my troth we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare us.
“Can you suppose that the herds of elephants are greater than of other cattle when the animal is known to be rare, hard to be caught, and harder still to tame?[274] It is the same spirit of falsehood which magnifies the number of horse and foot possessed by the enemy; and with respect to the river, why, the wider it spreads the liker it becomes to a placid pool. Rivers, as you know, that are confined between narrow banks and choked by narrow channels flow with torrent speed, while on the other hand the current slackens as the channel widens out. Besides, all the danger is at the bank where the enemy waits to receive us as we disembark; so that, be the breadth of the river what it may, the danger is all the same when we are in the act of landing. But let us suppose that these stories are all true, is it then, I ask, the monstrous size of the elephants or the number of the enemy that you dread? As for the elephants, we had an example of them before our eyes in the late battle when they charged more furiously upon their own ranks than upon ours, and when their vast bodies were cut and mangled by our bills and axes. What matters it then whether they be the same number as Porus had, or be 3000, when we see that if one or two of them be wounded, the rest swerve aside and take to flight. Then again, if it be no easy task to manage but a few of them, surely when so many thousands of them are crowded together, they cannot but hamper each other when their huge unwieldy bodies want room either to stand or run. For myself, I have such a poor opinion of the animals that, though I had them, I did not bring them into the field, being fully convinced they occasion more danger to their own side than to the enemy.
“But it is the number, perhaps, of the horse and foot that excites your fears! for you have been wont, you know, to fight only against small numbers, and will now for the first time have to withstand undisciplined multitudes! The river Granicus is a witness of the courage of the Macedonians unconquered in fighting against odds;[275] so too is Cilicia deluged with the blood of the Persians, and Arbela, where the plains are strewn with the bones of your vanquished foes. It is too late, now that you have depopulated Asia by your victories, to begin counting the enemy’s legions. When we were crossing the Hellespont, it was then we should have thought about the smallness of our numbers, for now Scythians follow us, Bactrian troops are here to assist us, Dahans and Sogdians are serving in our ranks. But it is not in such a throng I put my trust. It is to your hands, Macedonians, I look. It is your valour I take as the gage and surety of the deeds I mean to perform.
“As long as it is with you I shall stand in battle, I count not the number either of my own or the enemy’s army. Do ye only, I entreat, keep your minds full of alacrity and confidence. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise and our labours, but at their very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. Act not then like foolish husbandmen who, when their crops are ripe, loose them out of hand from sheer indolence to gather them. The prizes before you are greater than the risks, for the country to be invaded not only teems with wealth, but is at the same time feebly defended. So then I lead you not so much to glory as to plunder. You have earned the right to carry back to your own country the riches which that sea casts upon its shores; and it would ill become you if through fear you should leave anything unattempted or unperformed. I conjure you then by that glory of yours whereby ye soar above the topmost pinnacle of human greatness—I beseech you by my services unto you, and yours unto me (a strife in which we still contend unconquered), that ye desert not your foster-son, your fellow-soldier, not to say your king, just at the moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited world.