The fight was now a general one. The Greek authorities paint this stage of the battle in superlative diction, describing how the elephants pressed through the thickly packed masses in front of them, rending and trampling the soldiers and horses as they went, while the engines on their backs scattered destruction far and wide. But the Macedonians finally won by striking down the elephants’ drivers and destroying the turrets they were in, and so wounded the beasts themselves that they ceased to attack. With the elephants rendered useless, the chance of victory for the Indians was gone. Their infantry was not sufficiently disciplined to make any use of the confusion caused in the Greek ranks by the work of the elephants. Besides, the Macedonian cavalry had in the first stage of the engagement got so far into the Indian lines, that they remained not only on the field of battle, but actually were, as the engagement advanced, behind both the enemy’s infantry and the elephants as well. When the Indian cavalry tried to take a hand in the fight and leave the part of the field where the elephants were in action, the Greek horse, having a superiority in numbers, forced them back.
The Greek infantry phalanx had been ordered by Alexander to keep its ground, but when the cavalry fight made it impossible for the Indians to move forward, the Greek foot soldiers drew away from their first position, where they were liable to a frontal attack by the elephants, and driving the elephants back, exposed the enemy to an attack by the Macedonian horse. Unprotected as the Indians were on both sides, they could not escape defeat, and at this point of the battle they suffered severely; most of the elephants and King Porus himself were taken prisoners.
The Greek historian, Arrian, says that the Macedonian loss was only 310 dead, mostly horsemen; but as other authorities add 700 foot soldiers, it seems likely that the battle was a stubborn one, for there were only 11,000 men engaged in Alexander’s army. The fact, too, that the use of elephants became customary in the wars fought by Alexander’s successors, some of whom were present at the battle of Hydaspes, proves that the fight with Porus must have made an impression on his opponents, and this places it in a different category from the easier victories over the Persians. Alexander treated his defeated antagonist with magnanimity and erected his kingdom into a vassal state; but as safeguards of his loyalty, directed that two garrison cities, Bucephala and Nicæa, should be established in his domains, one on either side of the Hydaspes near the site of the battle. A lieutenant, Crateros, was left to carry out these building plans, while Alexander turned to the conquest of the neighboring tribes. The only notable difficulty was the taking of the town of Sangala, the chief citadel of the free and warlike Cathæans, which had been strongly fortified and which had to be taken by storm.
The general result was that the Punjab was annexed to Alexander’s empire and placed in the hands of vassal princes. From this region the Greek army advanced to the river Hyphasis, reaching it at a point higher up than its junction with the Sutlej. This was the extreme limit of Alexander’s march. He would have gladly gone farther, for the whole of India might well have become a subject state; but the army had suffered from the discomforts of the rainy season, and they were weary of campaigning. The horses were worn out, the armor and accoutrements in bad condition. The temper of the troops, devoted though they were to their commander, left no doubt that they would mutiny if Alexander refused to turn back. He told the officers he would go on himself, and that they could return to Macedonia and let the Macedonians know that they had abandoned their king in a hostile land.
But appeals and threats alike failed to convince the army that their view of the situation was unreasonable. The sacrifices were found to be unfavorable, and persuaded by this intimation of the disfavor of the gods, the king consented to return. On the bank of the Hyphasis twelve altars were erected of large size, as lofty as the walls of a city, to mark the limits of Macedonian conquests, and as a thank-offering to the gods for their protection through the hazards of long-continued warfare in strange lands. The army then retired to the Hydaspes.
Alexander was an explorer as well as a conqueror, and his disappointment at this enforced withdrawal from the prosecution of his march must have been that of a man who was within reach of the goal and just failed to attain it. According to the geographical notions of his day, he was near the certain limit of the world; he knew nothing of the great Indian peninsula, and of course nothing of the vast extent of Siberia or the Chinese Empire. He supposed that the Ganges flowed into an eastern sea which was continuous with the Caspian and which washed the shores of Scythia and the base of the high mountains he had lately passed through. On the river Hydaspes, a fleet had already been under construction; as soon as it was ready he embarked on it a part of his best troops, while the mass of the army, in two divisions, moved down the stream. The route followed was along the Hydaspes to its confluence with the Akesines, then down this stream to the Indus and the Indus itself to the Delta.
From the military point of view, this concluding stage of the Indian expedition offers little of special interest. The inhabitants of the country either submitted to or fled from the Greek army, and various strongholds were taken by storm. In an assault on one of them, held by the Malians, who dwelt in the southern Punjab, the king, who had pressed forward in the midst of the enemy, found himself separated from the main body of his followers and was dangerously wounded. In the region the army traversed several colonies were founded; another Alexandria rose at the point where the Akesines flows into the Indus, and at Pattala a harbor and navy yard were built. The conquered portion of India was organized in three satrapies, one of which was under Porus, who had a free position as a vassal prince, for in his territory there were no Macedonian garrisons.
But the real subjugation of the country had not been effected by the spectacular march through it; as soon as the Greeks turned their backs, an uprising took place. Before the whole army reached Pattala, a part had been detached with directions to march west to Arachosia, and to wait in Caramania till it was joined there by the main division. The fleet was placed under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan, who was to take it along the coast of the Indian Ocean and finally into the Persian Gulf. Alexander, at the head of the rest of the army, took the road through Gedrosia.
The difficulties of the return were considerable. The men under Alexander suffered terribly in passing a desert country before they reached, after sixty days’ slow progress, the capital of Gedrosia, Pura. In the farther stretch to Caramania there was also exhausting work, but these trials marked the end of the expedition, for Crateros, who had led the rest of the troops by Arachosia, soon arrived, and news came of the landing of the fleet after a skilfully managed cruise of seventy-five days through unknown waters on the coasts of Caramania. A year had now passed (325 B.C.) since the beginning of the return home from India. During the course of the winter the army returned to Susa, thus concluding this remarkable adventure of Far Eastern conquest.