Here he had at length reached the fated term of his progress towards the east. Alexander had, no doubt, long been undeceived as to the narrow limits which, according to the geography of his day, he had at first assigned to India, and to the eastern side of the earth. The ocean, which he had once imagined to be separated by no very vast tract from the banks of the Indus, had receded, as he advanced, to an immeasurable distance. He had discovered that, beyond the Hyphasis, a desert more extensive than any he had yet crossed parted the plains of the Five Streams from the region watered by the tributaries of the Ganges, a river mightier than the Indus: that the country east of the Ganges was the seat of a great monarchy, far more powerful than that of Porus, the land of the Gangarides and Prasians, whose king could bring into the field two hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand horse, and several thousands of elephants. That this information rather served to inflame Alexander’s curiosity and ambition than to deter him, could scarcely be doubted by any one who has fully entered into his character, even if it had not been expressly stated by the ancients.
But the accounts which kindled his ardour, plunged the Macedonians into sullen dejection, which at length broke out into open murmurs. It is possible that, if they had seen any distinct and certain goal before them, they would not have shrunk from the dangers and difficulties of a last enterprise, however arduous. But to set out from a region which had once appeared to them as the verge of the habitable world on a new series of conquests, to which they could foresee no termination, was enough to appal the most adventurous spirits.[32] Their thoughts began to revert with uncontrollable force to their homes in the distant west, as they had reason to fear that they were on the point of being torn from them forever. For even of those who might escape the manifold dangers of a fresh campaign, how many might be doomed to sit down as colonists, and to spend the rest of their lives in that strange land! India was a still more hopeless place of exile than Bactria and Sogdiana, where the Greeks, who had been planted by violence, were only detained by terror. The wish to return became universal, and was soon transformed into a firm resolution not to proceed.
It is difficult to guess how far the arguments by which Alexander endeavoured to overcome the repugnance of his troops, and to animate them with his own spirit, resembled any of those which are attributed to him by Arrian and Curtius. The threat which Curtius puts into his mouth, that, if the Macedonians would not follow him, he would throw himself on his Bactrian and Scythian auxiliaries and make the expedition with them alone, most likely misrepresents the tone which he assumed. But it may easily be supposed that he expressed his wishes, and urged the army to compliance, with passionate eloquence. Not only, however, the feelings of the troops, but the judgment of his officers was adverse to the proposed enterprise; and Cœnus, in a speech which has either been better written or more faithfully reported than the king’s, exhorted him to abandon his design. Alexander retired to his tent in displeasure.
The next day he again assembled the army, and made another attempt to overpower their reluctance, declaring that he would force no Macedonian to accompany him; he was sure that there would be volunteers enough among them for his purpose; the rest might return home and say that they had left their king in the midst of his enemies. But even this appeal produced no effect. For three days he kept within his tent, where not even his chief officers were admitted to his presence, waiting for a change in the disposition of the men. But the stillness which prevailed in the camp convinced him, more strongly than words could have done, that their determination was fixed. He then felt that it was time to yield—not perhaps without some pride in the reflection that there was not a man in the army who was capable of his own contempt for difficulties and dangers. He had however gone too far, it seems, to recede without some other pretext. The sacrifices easily supplied one. When they were found unpropitious to the passage of the river, he called his council and declared his resolution to retreat.
It was received with tears of joy and grateful shouts by the army. Before he quitted the Hyphasis, he ordered twelve colossal altars to be built on its banks, and dedicated to the gods who had led him thus far victorious; then, after a solemn sacrifice and games, he began to retrace his steps. On the Acesines he found the city, which Hephæstion had been ordered to build, ready to receive a colony; and there he left the disabled mercenaries, and as many natives of the neighbouring districts, as were willing to settle there.
The fleet on the Hydaspes was now nearly ready, but the two new cities had suffered so much from the rains that the army was for some time employed in restoring them. In the meanwhile, Alexander made his final arrangement of the affairs of the northern Punjab, by which Porus gained a fresh addition of territory, so that his dominions included, it is said, seven nations and above two thousand cities, with, it seems, a title which established his superiority over all the chiefs east of the Indus.
THE MARCH TO THE WEST
[326-325 B.C.]
The fleet, which was probably for the most part collected from the natives, numbered, according to Ptolemy, nearly two thousand vessels of various kinds, including eighty galleys of war. The command of the whole fleet was entrusted to Nearchus. Alexander divided his forces into four corps. The main body, with about two hundred elephants, was to advance along the eastern bank under the command of Hephæstion. Craterus was to lead a smaller division of infantry and cavalry on the opposite side of the river. Philippus, with the troops of his satrapy, was ordered to take a circuitous route towards the point where the two other generals were to wait for the fleet, in which the king himself was to embark with the hypaspists, the bowmen, and a division of his horse-guard—in all, eight thousand men. On the morning of the embarkation, Alexander himself, under the direction of his soothsayers, offered the libations and prayers which were deemed fittest to propitiate the powers of the Indian streams, Hydaspes and the impetuous Acesines, which was soon to join it, and the mighty Indus, which was afterwards to receive their united waters. Among the gods of the west, Hercules and Ammon were invoked with especial devotion; then, at the sound of the trumpet, the fleet began to drop down the river.
It was a spectacle such as the bosom of the Hydaspes had never before witnessed, nor has it since. Its high banks were crowded with the natives, who flocked from all quarters with eager curiosity to gaze, and accompanied the armament in its progress to some distance before they could be satiated with the sight of the stately galleys, the horses, the men, the mighty mass of vessels gliding down in unbroken order; and as the adjacent woods rang with the signals of the boatswains, the measured shouts of the rowers, and the plash of numberless oars, keeping time with perfect exactness, the Indians too testified their delight in strains of their national music.