DIODÔROS SICULUS
BIBLIOTHECA HISTORICA OF DIODÔROS SICULUS
Seventeenth Book
Chapter LXXXIV.—Alexander at Massaga—His treachery towards the Indian mercenaries who had capitulated
When the capitulation on those terms had been ratified by oaths, the Queen [of Massaga], to show her admiration of Alexander’s magnanimity, sent out to him most valuable presents, with an intimation that she would fulfil all the stipulations. Then the mercenaries at once, in accordance with the terms of the agreement, evacuated the city, and after retiring to a distance of eighty stadia, pitched their camp unmolested without thought of what was to happen. But Alexander, who was actuated by an implacable enmity against the mercenaries, and had kept his troops under arms ready for action, pursued the barbarians, and falling suddenly upon them, made a great slaughter of their ranks. The barbarians at first loudly protested that they were attacked in violation of sworn obligations, and invoked the gods whom he had desecrated by taking false oaths in their name. But Alexander with loud voice retorted that his covenant merely bound him to let them depart from the city, and was by no means a league of perpetual amity between them and the Macedonians. The mercenaries, undismayed by the greatness of their danger, drew their ranks together in form of a ring, within which they placed the women and children to guard them on all sides against their assailants. As they were now desperate, and by their audacity and feats of valour, made the conflict in which they closed hot work for the enemy, while the Macedonians held it a point of honour not to be outdone in courage by a horde of barbarians, great was the astonishment and alarm which the peril of the crisis created. For as the combatants were locked together fighting hand to hand, death and wounds were dealt round in every variety of form. Thus the Macedonians, when once their long spikes had shattered the shields of the barbarians, pierced their vitals with the steel points of these weapons, and on the other hand the mercenaries never hurled their javelins without deadly effect against the near mark presented by the dense ranks of the enemy. When many were thus wounded and not a few killed, the women, taking the arms of the fallen, fought side by side with the men, for the imminence of the danger and the great interests at stake forced them to do violence to their nature, and to take an active part in the defence. Accordingly some of them who had supplied themselves with arms, did their best to cover their husbands with their shields, while others who were without arms did much to impede the enemy by flinging themselves upon them and catching hold of their shields. The defenders, however, after fighting desperately along with their wives, were at last overpowered by superior numbers, and met a glorious death which they would have disdained to exchange for a life with dishonour.[333] Alexander spared the unwarlike and unarmed multitude, as well as the women that still survived, but took them away under charge of the cavalry.
Chapter LXXXV.—Alexander captures the rock Aornos
He took many other cities, and put to death all who offered resistance to his arms. He then advanced to the rock called Aornos, unto which such of the inhabitants as survived had fled for refuge, because it was a stronghold of incomparable security.[334] Heraklês, it is said, had in the days of old assaulted this rock, but had abandoned the siege on the occurrence of violent earthquakes and signs from heaven. Now, when this story came to Alexander’s ears, it only whetted his eagerness to attack the stronghold, and match himself against the god in a contest for glory. The rock was 100 stadia in circuit, 16 stadia in height, and had a level surface, forming a complete circle. On its southern side it was washed by the Indus, the greatest of Indian rivers, but elsewhere it was all environed with deep ravines and inaccessible cliffs. When Alexander, who perceived the difficult nature of the ground, had given up all hope of taking the place by assault, there came to him an old man accompanied by his two sons. He was miserably poor, this man, and had lived a long time in that neighbourhood, inhabiting a cave with three lairs cut into the rock, which served as night-quarters for himself and his sons. He had thus a familiar knowledge of all that locality. This old man then, coming to the king, explained to him what his circumstances were, and undertook to guide his army up the difficult ascent, and take him to a position which commanded the barbarians in occupation of the rock. Alexander promised the man an ample recompense for this service, and in following his guidance seized in the first place the narrow pass which alone gave access to the rock, and, as there was no exit from it elsewhere, he so closely blocked up the enemy that no assistance could possibly reach them from any quarter. In the next place he set all his men to work to fill up with a mound the ravine which lay at the root of the rock. Having thus got nearer the place, he pushed the siege with all possible vigour, making assaults for seven days and as many nights without intermission, the troops taking duty by turns. The advantage, however, lay at first with the barbarians, who fought from a higher position, and killed many who pressed the attack too recklessly. But when the mound had been completed, and catapults which shot bolts to a great distance and other engines of war had been brought to bear against them, and when it became manifest besides that the king would by no means abandon the siege, the Indians were struck with despair. Alexander, whose sagacity foresaw what would occur, withdrew the guard which he had left at the pass, thus giving the men on the rock, if they wished to retire, a free passage out. So then the barbarians, dismayed alike by the valour of the Macedonians and the king’s fixed ambition to be master of the place, evacuated the rock by night.