Chapter 27

[85]Regarding the Maiôtic Lake, now generally called the Sea of Azof, the ancients entertained very hazy and inaccurate notions. They supposed it to be situated in the remotest regions of the earth (Aisch.Prom.427), and to be almost equal in size to the Euxine (Herod, iv. 86). Arrian, who might have known better, seems here to have adopted the crude notion current in Alexander’s time that the Jaxartes (which they confounded with the Tanais or Don) entered by one arm the Hyrkanian or Kaspian Sea, and by another the Maiôtic Lake. The Kaspian itself was taken to be a gulf of the Great Eastern Ocean. Herodotos, however, is guiltless of this geographical heresy.[86]This does not mean that Megasthenes was sent on frequent embassies to Sandrakottos, but that during his embassy he had frequent interviews with him. The former interpretation, however, finds its advocates.[87]See Herodotos, ii. 5. Diodôros applies to Lower Egypt the epithet ποταμόχωστος,i.e.deposited by the river.[88]SeeOdyssey, iv. 477, 581.[89]Modern science confirms this theory. Thus Sir W. Hunter in hisBrief History of the Indian People, says: “In order to understand the Indian plains we must have a clear idea of the part played by these great rivers; for the rivers first create the land, then fertilize it, and finally distribute its produce. The plains were in many parts upheaved by volcanic action, or deposited in an aqueous aera long before man appeared on the earth.”[90]Arrian has named these in hisIndika, c. 4.[91]See Herod, vii. 33-36; iv. 83, 97, 133-141.[92]Diodôros says the passage was made by a bridge of boats.[93]There is a Rhenos in Italy—the Reno, a tributary of the Po, from which the great Rhine is distinguished as the Keltic. The famous bridge made by Caesar over the latter river is described in hisDe Bello Gallico, iv. 17.[94]SeeNote I, Taxila.[95]We learn from Curtius that Alexander, before taking hostile action against Pôros, demanded from him through an envoy called Cleochares that he should pay tribute and come to meet him on the frontiers of his dominions. To this Pôros replied that in compliance with the second request he would meet Alexander at the place appointed, but would attend in arms. Alexander was perhaps justified by the laws of war in exacting submission from the tribes west of the Indus, since these had been subject to Darius, whom he had overthrown, and to whose rights he had succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjâb, those at least that lay to the east of the Hydaspês, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian domination, and hence his invasion, according to modern ideas, was altogether indefensible. He could, however, justify himself on the ground of the principles held by the Greeks of his day, who considered that their superiority in wisdom and virtue to the rest of mankind gave them a natural right to attack, plunder, and enslave all barbarians except such only as were protected by a special treaty. Such a view, repugnant as it seems to every principle of justice, was held nevertheless by Aristotle, who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illustrious pupil. Hence Alexander, in attacking Pôros, was not conscious, like Caesar, when he invaded Britain, of perpetrating an unwarrantable aggression for which some kind of an excuse had to be trumped up.[96]The Hydaspês, now the Jhîlam, is called by the natives of Kâśmîr, where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of its Sanskrit name, the Vitastâ, which means “wide-spread.” In Ptolemy’s geography it appears as the Bidaspês—a form nearer the original thanHydaspês. It is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, along with other great Indian rivers: “Receive favourably this my hymn, O Gangâ, Yamunâ, Sarasvatî, Śutudrî, Parashni; hear O Marudvridhâ, with the Asiknî andVitastâ, and thou Arjîkîyâ with the Sushômâ.” In advancing from the Indus at Attak to the Hydaspês, Alexander followed the Râjapatha, that is, theking’s highway, called by Megasthenes the ὁδὸς βασιληίη. It is the route which has been taken by all foreign conquerors who have penetrated into India by the valley of the Kôphês. Elphinstone, who followed this route in returning from Kâbul, describes it thus: “The whole of our journey across the track between the Indus and Hydaspês was about 160 miles; for which space the country is among the strongest I have ever seen. The difficulty of our passage across it was increased by heavy rain. While in the hilly country our road sometimes lay through the beds of torrents” (Mission to Kâbul, p. 78). In another passage (p. 80) he says: “I was greatly struck with the difference between the banks of this river; the left bank had all the characteristics of the plains of India. The right bank, on the contrary, was formed by the end of the range of the Salt Hills, and had an air of extreme ruggedness and wildness that must inspire a fearful presentiment of the country he was entering into the mind of a traveller from the East.” General Chesney, in the lecture already cited, thus remarks on the advance of Alexander to the Hydaspês: “What is remarkable about this part of the advance is that it was not made direct on Jhelum, as would appear natural. True, that line is over what would be a very difficult country, as any traveller by the existing road knows. Still it would be the easiest line; nevertheless it appears certain that Alexander took a more southerly line, and threading his way through the intricate ravines of the upper part of the Salt range, and leaving Tilla and Rhotas on his left, penetrated that range by the gorge through which runs the Bhundar river, and struck the river Jhelum at Jalâlpûr, about thirty miles below Jhelum.”[97]SeeNote I, Site of Alexander’s camp on the Hydaspês.[98]The Greeks, for the first time, saw elephants used in war at the battle of Arbela.[99]Arrian, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, states that the battle with Pôros was fought in the Archonship of Hêgemôn at Athens, in the month of Mounychiôn,i.e.between the 18th of April and 18th of May, 326B.C.Here, however, according to the reading of all the MSS., he makes the battle take placeafterthe solstice of June 21st, μετὰ τροπάς. Editors remove the difficulty by substituting κατά for μετά, and I have translated accordingly. As the rainy season, however, does not set in till near the end of June, and it had set in, as Strabo informs us, during the march to the Hydaspês, the later date has probability in its favour.[100]Enyalios, an epithet of the war-god.[101]Curtius mentions that near the bluff there was a deep hollow or ravine which sufficed to screen both the infantry and the cavalry, and on this Cunningham remarks: “There is a ravine to the north of Jalâlpûr which exactly suits the descriptions of the historians. This ravine is the bed of the Kandar Nala, which has a course of six miles from its source down to Jalâlpûr, where it is lost in a waste of sand. Up this ravine there has always been a passable, but difficult road towards Jhelum. From the head of the Kandar this road proceeds for three miles in a northerly direction down another ravine called the Kasi, which then turns suddenly to the east for six and a half miles, and then again one and a half mile to the south, where it joins the river Jhelum immediately below Dilâwar, the whole distance from Jalâlpûr being exactly seventeen miles.” These seventeen miles are about the equivalent of the 150 stadia given by Arrian as the distance from the great camp to the bluff.[102]“Arrian,” says Cunningham, “records that Alexander placed running sentries along the bank of the river at such distances that they could see each other and communicate his orders. Now, I believe that this operation could not be carried out in the face of an observant enemy along any part of the river bank, excepting only that one part which lies between Jalâlpûr and Dilâwar. In all other parts the west bank is open and exposed, but in this part alone the wooded and rocky hills slope down to the river and offer sufficient cover for the concealment of single sentries.”—Geog. of Anc. India, pp. 170, 171.[103]With Alexander’s passage of the Hydaspês may be compared Hannibal’s passage of the Rhone made upwards of a century later. The Carthaginian general, whose education included a knowledge of Greek, was no doubt familiar with the history of Alexander’s wars, and from knowing how the Hydaspês was crossed may have laid his plans for crossing the Rhone.v.Livy, xxi. 26-28; Polyb. iii. 45, 46.[104]Here, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was fought, in 1849, the battle of Chilianwála. On this occasion the inferiority of the British commander as a strategist to Alexander was signally manifested.[105]The left wing of the Indian army was flanked by the river.[106]This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station himself oppositethe enemy’sright, and not on theMacedonianextreme right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (Alexander in the Punjaub, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as, in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly and Rüstow, however, in theirHistory of the Greek Military System, advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s rear.” This seems the preferable view.[107]“To meet the double assault (of Alexander and Coenus) they resorted to one of those changes of front in which Indian cavalry are often so surprisingly rapid—facing partly to the front and partly to the rear. Yet Alexander was beforehand with them; and his renewed charge threw them into utter confusion before they could fully assume their new formation. Flying along the front of their own infantry, they took refuge in the spaces left between every two elephants, and (as it would seem in the absence, from Arrian’s account, of the full details) passed as soon as possible through the intervals of the foot regiments, so as to be for the moment quite outside the battle. As soon as they were out of the way the Indian elephants were sent on, supported by the infantry, but were at once met face to face by the Macedonian phalanx.”—v.Moberly’sAlexander in the Punjaub, Introd. p. 12.[108]Diodôros gives the number of Indians killed at upwards of 12,000, and of the captured at more than 9000, besides 80 elephants.[109]The Spitakês here mentioned as one of the slain is probably the same as Pittacus, who is recorded by Polyainos to have had an encounter with Alexander during the march of the latter from Taxila to the Hydaspês, as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in thinking.[110]The hiatus is supposed to have contained the number of officers killed.[111]This death-roll evidently greatly under-estimates the loss on Alexander’s side. Diodôros says that there fell of the Macedonians 280 cavalry and more than 700 infantry.[112]Pôros was the first sovereign that Alexander had captured on the field of battle. Curtius and Diodôros relate somewhat differently from Arrian the story of his capture, representing him to have been protected to the last by his faithful elephant.[113]SeeNote R, Battle with Pôros.[114]Diodôros says the battle occurred while Chremes was archon at Athens.[115]Nikaia most probably occupied the site of the modern town of Mong, near the left bank. Nothing is known of its history. With respect to its sister city Boukephala, the ancient writers are not in agreement. Plutarch places it on the left or eastern bank of the Hydaspês, for he says that Boukephalas was killed in the battle, and that the city was built where he fell and was buried. According, however, to Strabo, Arrian, and Diodôros, it stood on the west bank; but while Strabo places it at the point where the troops embarked, Arrian places it farther down the stream on the site of the great camp at Jalâlpûr. It became a great emporium of commerce, as we find from thePeriplûs of the Erythraian Sea, c. 47. In the Peutinger Tables it is calledAlexandria Bucefalos.[116]“Schmieder says that Alexander could not have broken in the horse before he was sixteen years old. But since at this time he was in his twenty-ninth year he would have had him thirteen years. Consequently the horse must have been at least seventeen years old when he acquired him. Can any one believe this? Yet Plutarch also states that the horse was thirty years old at his death.”—Chinnock’sAnabasis of Alexander, p. 296, note 4.[117]This incident is referred by Plutarch to Hyrkania, and by Curtius to the land of the Mardians. The Ouxioi lived on the borders of Persis, between that province and Sousiana.[118]Alexander, according to Diodôros, halted to recruit his army for thirty days in the dominions of Pôros. He then advanced northwards with a part of his army to the fertile and populous regions that lay in the south of Kâśmîr (the Bhimber and Bajaur districts) between the upper courses of the Hydaspês and the Akesinês and Chenâb. The name of the inhabitants,GlausaiorGlaukanîkoi, has been identified by V. de Saint-Martin with that of the Kalaka, a tribe mentioned in theVarâha Sanhita, a work of the sixth century of our aera. In theMahâbhâratathe name is writtenKalaja, and in the Rajput ChroniclesKalacha, a form which justifies the GreekGlausai. The second part of the longer name,anîka, means a troop or army in Sanskrit.—v.Saint-Martin’sEtude, pp. 102, 103.[119]Conf. Strabo, XV. i. 3. “Other writers affirm that the Macedonians conquered nine nations situated between the Hydaspês and the Hypanis (Beas), and obtained possession of 500 cities, not one of which was less than Kos Meropis, and that Alexander, after having conquered all this country, delivered it up to Pôros.”[120]This was a second embassy. An earlier is mentioned in Chapter VIII. of this book.[121]Strabo (XV. i. p. 699) says this Pôros was a nephew of the Pôros whom Alexander had defeated, and that his country was called Gandaris. The Gandarai were a widely extended people, occupying a district stretching from the upper part of the Panjâb to the west of the Indus as far as Qandahar. They are the Gandhâra of Sanskrit.[122]The Akesinês, now the Chenâb, is called in the Vedic Hymns theAsikni,i.e.“dark-coloured.” It was called also, and more commonly, Chandrabhâgâ, which, being transliterated into Greek, becomes Sandrophagos. This word suggested to the soldiers of Alexander another of bad omen,Ale-xandrophagos, which meansdevourer of Alexander, and hence they adopted its other name, perhaps on account of the disaster which befell the Macedonian fleet at the turbulent junction of this river with the Hydaspês. In Ptolemy’sGeographyit is called Sandabala by an obvious error for Sandabaga. The Akesinês, though joined by the other great Panjâb rivers, retained its name until it fell into the Indus.[123]The Hydraôtês is called by Strabo (XV. i. 21) the Hyarôtis, and in Ptolemy’sGeographythe Adris or Rhouadis. It is now theRâvî, which is an abridged form of its Sanskrit name, the Airâvatî. It passes the city of Lahore, and joins the Chenâb about 30 milesaboveMultân. In former times, however, the junction occurred 15 milesbelowthat city. In Ptolemy’sGeographythe Rhouadis is erroneously made to join the Hydaspês, or, as Ptolemy calls it, the Bidaspês. Arrian in hisIndika(c. 4) describes the Hydraôtês as rising in the country of the Kambistholoi, and after receiving the Hyphasis among the Astrybai, and the Saranges from the Kêkeans (the Sekaya of Sanskrit), and the Neudros from the Attakênoi, falling into the Akesinês. The Hyphasis does not, however, join the Hydraôtês.[124]v.Note L, Kathaians.[125]The expressionindependentshows that the Greeks were cognisant of the Indian village system. Each of its rural units they took to be an independent republic.[126]v.Note M, Sangala.[127]The Adraïstai appear to be the people called in thePeriplûs of the Erythraean Sea, the Aratrioi. Lassen identifies them with the Aratta of theMahâbhârata. Diodôros calls them the Adrêstai, and Orosius in hisHistory(iii. 19) the Adrestae. Their capital, Pimprama, has not as yet been identified with certainty, but V. de Saint-Martin suggests that it may be represented byBhéranah, a place eight leagues distant from Lahore towards the south-east. The same author thinks that theAdrastaeare very probably theAïrâvatâorRaïvâtakaof Sanskrit.[128]Chinnock notes that Caesar’s troops were assailed in a similar manner by the Helvetians.—v.Caesar’sDe Bello Gallico, i. 26.[129]Curtius gives the loss of the Kathaians at 8000 killed. Arrian’s numbers here seem to be greatly exaggerated.[130]The Hyphasis, now the Beäs or Beias, is variously called by the classical writers the Bibasis, the Hypasis, and the Hypanis. Its Sanskrit name is theVipâsâ, which means “uncorded,” and it is said to have been so called because itdestroyed the cordwith which one of the Indian sages intended to hang himself. It joins the Satlej (not the Hydraôtês, as Arrian says in hisIndika) and the united stream is called in Sanskrit the Śatadru,i.e.“flowing in a hundred channels.” It marked the limit of Alexander’s advance eastward. In his time it flowed in a different channel, one by which it reached the Chenâb about 40 miles above Uchh. Curtius and Diodôros inform us that Alexander before reaching this river had entered the dominions of King Sôphites, who submitted without resistance, and was therefore left in possession of his sovereignty. Another chief (called Phêgeus by Diodôros, but more correctly Phegelas by Curtius), whose dominions adjoined the Hyphasis, entertained Alexander and his army for two days. By this time he had been rejoined by Hêphaistiôn, who had been conducting operations elsewhere, and he then proceeded to the bank of the river. The country beyond it Arrian represents as exceedingly fertile, whereas in Curtius and Diodôros we read how Alexander was informed that a desert lay beyond it which would occupy a journey of eleven days. Arrian’s statement holds true of the northern districts beyond the river, and the other statement of the southern districts. Thirlwall, following the latter statement, takes it that Alexander reached the Satlej after it had received the Hyphasis, but this is a very questionable view.[131]The name of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, had originally the digamma, and hence was written as Ivon. The Hebrew transcription of this digammated form isJavan, the name by whichGreeceis designated in the Bible. The Sanskrit transcription isYavana, the name applied in Indian works to Ionians or Greeks and foreigners generally.[132]The Tanais is properly the Don, but Alexander meant by it the Jaxartes, which formed the eastern boundary of the Persian empire, and which he had crossed to attack the nomadic Skythians, who had made threatening demonstrations against him on the right or northern bank (v.the 16th and 17th chapters of the fourth book).[133]It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that the Kaspian or Hyrkanian Sea was a gulf of the great ocean which encircles the earth, and not an inland sea.[134]Arrian (vii. 1) says: “When Alexander reached Pasargadai and Persepolis he conceived an ardent desire to sail down the Euphrates and Tigres to the Persian sea, and survey their mouths.... Some writers have stated that he had in contemplation a voyage round the greater portion of Arabia, the land of the Aethiopians, Lybia, and Numidia beyond Mount Atlas to Gadeira (Cadiz) inward into the Mediterranean.” One of the writers referred to is Plutarch, who says (Alexander, c. 68): “Nearchos joined him (Alexander) here (at the capital of Gedrosia), and he was so much delighted with the account of his voyage that he formed a design to sail in person from the Euphrates with a great fleet, circle the coast of Arabia and Africa, and enter the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules.” Herodotos (iv. 42) says that Nekô, king of the Egyptians, sent certain Phoenicians in ships with orders to sail back through the Pillars of Hercules into the Northern Sea (the Mediterranean that is), and so to return to Egypt. The pillars designated the twin rocks which guard the entrance to the Mediterranean at the eastern extremity of the Straits of Gibraltar, the one on the European side being calledKalpê, and that on the African side, where now stands the citadel of Ceuta,AbilaorAbyla.v.Pliny (iii. prooem.): “Proximis autem faucibus utrimque impositi montes coercent claustra, Abyla Africae, Europae Calpe, laborum Herculis metae, quam ob causam indigenae columnas ejus dei vocant.”[135]Arrian (iii. 30) informs us that in the opinion of some the Nile formed the boundary of Asia, but he writes here as if Lybia or Northern Africa were part of Asia.[136]The Macedonian kings claimed to be descended from Heraklês, who resided for some time at Tiryns, one of the most ancient cities in Greece, situated near Argos, and, like Argos, famous for its Cyclopean walls.[137]“Alexander,” says Arrian (iii. 19), “on reaching Ekbatana, sent back to the sea the Thessalian cavalry and the other Grecian allies, paying them the full amount of the stipulated hire, and giving them besides a donative of 2000 talents.” Was Baktra a slip of memory on the part of Koinos?[138]The drenching rains to which the Macedonian soldiers were continually exposed during their march from Taxila to the Hyphasis must have had a considerable effect in exhausting their strength and depressing their spirits.[139]Karchêdon is Carthage. The name is said to be a corruption ofKereth-HadeshothorCarth-hadtha,i.e.“new city,” in contra-distinction to Utica, which either signifies in Phoenician “old city,” or is derived, as Olshausen thinks, from a root signifying “a colony.”[140]SeeNote N, Alexander’s altars on the Hyphasis.[141]“This city,” says Lassen, “lay probably where Wazirâbâd now stands. Here the great road to the Hydaspês parts into two, one leading to Jalâlpûr, and the other to Jhelam. It is the sixth of the Alexandreias mentioned in Stephanos Byz.”v. Ind. Alt.ii. 165, n. The Chenab here has a width of about a mile and a half.[142]Arsakês, to judge from his name and what is here said of him, was probably the king of Uraśa. This district, the Arsa of Ptolemy, the W-la-shi of Hwen Thsiang, and now Rash in Dantâwar, included all the hill country between the Indus and Kaśmîr as far south as Attak.[143]v.Strabo (XV. i. 29). Between the Hydaspês and Akesinês ... is the forest in the neighbourhood of the Emodoi mountains, in which Alexander cut down a large quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other trees fit for shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the Hydaspês. With this he constructed a fleet on the Hydaspês near the cities which he built on each side of the river where he had crossed it and conquered Pôros. “The timber,” says Sir A. Burnes, “of which the boats of the Panjâb are constructed is chiefly floated downby the Hydaspêsfrom the Indian Caucasus, which most satisfactorily explains the selection of its banks by Alexander in preference to the other rivers.” Bunbury, citing this passage, adds: “The navigation of the Indus itself for a considerable part of its course below Attock is so dangerous on account of rapids as to render it wholly unsuitable for the descent of a flotilla such as that of Alexander.”[144]This is thenelumbum speciosum, or Cyathus Smithii, the sacred Egyptian or Pythagorean bean. The use of its fruit was forbidden to the Egyptian priests (v.Herod. ii. 37).[145]“It is remarkable to see how in this respect the geographical information of the Greeks seems to have retrograded since the time of Herodotus. No allusion is found to the voyage of Scylax related by that historian, while the just conclusions derived from it by Herodotus had fallen into the same oblivion. But absurd as was this identification (of the Indus with the Nile), the general resemblance between these rivers, which are constantly brought into comparison by the Greek geographers (Strabo, XV. p. 692, etc.), is certainly such as to justify their observations. The resemblance of the lower valley of the Indus from the time it has received the waters of the Panjab with Egypt is dwelt upon by modern travellers. One description (says Mr. Elphinstone) might serve for both. A smooth and fertile plain is bounded on one side by mountains, and on the other by a desert. It is divided by a large river, which forms a Delta as it approaches the sea, and annually inundates and enriches the country near its banks. The climate of both is hot and dry, and rain is of rare occurrence in either country.”—v.Bunbury’sHist. of Anc. Geo.p. 510.[146]Arrian in the 19th chapter of theIndikastates that the number of men conveyed in the fleet was 8000, and that the whole strength of his army was 120,000 soldiers, including those whom he brought from the shores of the Mediterranean, as well as recruits drawn from various barbarous tribes armed in their own fashion. In the preceding chapter he gives a list of the great officers whom Alexander appointed to be in temporary command of the triremes. Of these, thirty-three in number, twenty-four were Macedonians, eight were Greeks, and one a Persian. Seleukos is the only officer of note whose name does not appear in this list.[147]Diodôros and Curtius, as has been pointed out (inNote M), place the dominions of Sôpeithês between the upper Hydraôtês and the Hyphasis, but here we find them transferred to a more western position. Strabo was unable to decide where they lay. “Some writers (he says) place Kathaia and the country of Sôpeithês, one of the monarchs, in the tract between the rivers (Hydaspês and Akesinês); some on the other side of the Akesinês and of the Hyarotis, on the confines of the territory of the other Pôros, the nephew of Pôros who was taken prisoner by Alexander, and call the country subject to him Gandaris.... It is said that in the territory of Sôpeithês there is a mountain composed of fossil salt sufficient for the whole of India. Valuable mines, also, both of gold and silver, are situated, it is said, not far off among other mountains, according to the testimony of Gorgos the miner.” Strabo then describes (as do also Diodôros and Curtius) the fight between a lion and four dogs which Sôpeithês exhibited to Alexander. To account for the discrepancy in these statements one is almost tempted to believe that as there were two princes of the name of Pôros, each ruling dominions of his own, so there were also two chiefs of the name of Sôpeithês or (as Curtius more correctly transcribes it) Sôphytês. General Cunningham would identifyGandariswith the present district ofGundulbârorGundurbâr, and fixes the capital of Sôphytês on the western bank of the Hydaspês atOld Bhira, a place near Ahmedabad, with a very extensive mound of ruins, and distant from Nikaia (now Mong) three days by water. His rule must have extended westward to the Indus, since the mountain of rock-salt which Strabo includes in his territory can only refer to the salt range (the Mount Oromenus of Pliny, xxxi. 39) which extends from the Indus to the Hydaspês. The transcription of the nameSôphytêswill be found discussed elsewhere.[148]Arrian in hisIndika, where he apparently follows Nearchos instead of Ptolemy as here, gives the whole number of ships at only 800, including both ships of war and transports. Schmieder and some other editors would correct this to 1800, but it seems more probable, Bunbury thinks, that the basis of the two calculations was different. Ptolemy, he says, distinctly includes the ordinary river boats which would doubtless have been collected in large numbers to assist in transporting so great an army and its supplies; while the terms of Nearchos would seem to imply only ships of war or regular transports. Krüger would correct the 2000 of the text to 1000, which is the number of the vessels as given by Diodôros and Curtius. The fleet began the downward voyage at the end of October 326B.C.[149]Alexander deduced his pedigree from Ammôn, just as the legend traced the pedigree of Heraklês and Perseus to Zeus. He accordingly made an expedition to the oasis in the Libyan desert where Ammôn had his oracle for the purpose of more certainly learning his origin. His mother, Olympias, according to Plutarch, used to complain that Alexander was for ever embroiling her with Juno.[150]“The Indians (says Arrian in hisIndika, c. 7) worship the other gods, and especially Dionysos, with cymbals and drums, which he had taught them to use. He taught them also the Satyric dance, called by the GreeksKordax.”[151]SeeNote O, Voyage down the Hydaspês and Akesinês to the Indus.[152]This halting-place was at Bhira or Bheda, if Cunningham is right in fixing the capital of Sôphytês in its neighbourhood.[153]Diodôros carelessly represents these rapids as occurring at the confluence of the two rivers with the Indus. The dangers of their navigation seem to have been exaggerated by the ancient writers, though their accounts have some foundation in fact. Sir A. Burnes, the first European known to have visited the spot, says there are no eddies and no rocks, nor is the channel confined, while the ancient character is only supported by the noise of the confluence, which is greater than that of any of the other rivers. The boatmen of the locality, however, still regard the passage as a perilous one during the season when the river is swollen (v.Travels, i. p. 109). Thirlwall thinks the principal obstructions have been worn away. According to Curtius, Alexander’s own ship was here in imminent danger of being wrecked.[154]These barbarians were probably the Sibi (v.Diodôros, xvii. 96).[155]Hêphaistiôn by this arrangement would beset the banks of the Hydraôtês, Ptolemy those of the Akesinês. The former probably marched to the Hydraôtês by way of Shorkote, which Cunningham thinks may be the Sôrianê of Stephanos Byz.[156]The Hydaspês loses its name as well as its waters to the Akesinês. The junction of the latter with the Hydraôtês (Râvi) occurs at present at a point more than thirty miles above Multân, but in Alexander’s time it occurred some miles below that city.[157]SeeNote P, The Malloi and Oxydrakai.[158]General Cunningham has identified this place with Kot-Kamâlia, a small but ancient town situated on an isolated mound on the right or northern bank of the Râvi, marking the extreme limit of the river’s fluctuations on that side. The small rivulet on which Alexander encamped at the end of his first march he believes to be the lower course of the Ayek river which rises in the outer range of hills and flows past Syâlkot towards Sâkala, below which the bed is still traceable for some distance. It appears again, he says, eighteen miles to the east of Jhang, and is finally lost about two miles to the east of Shorkot. Now somewhere between these two points Alexander must have crossed the Ayek, as the desert country which he afterwards traversed lies immediately beyond it. If he had marched to the south he would have arrived at Shorkot, but he would not have encountered any desert, as his route would have been over the Khâdar, or low-lying lands in the valley of the Chenâb. A march of forty-six miles in a southerly direction would have carried him also right up to the bank of the Hydraôtês or Râvi, a point which Alexander only reached after another night’s march. As this march lasted from the first watch until daylight, it cannot have been less than eighteen or twenty miles, which agrees exactly with the distance of the Râvi opposite Tulamba from Kot-Kamâlia. The direction of Alexander’s march must therefore have been to the south-east; first to the Ayek river, and thence across the hard, clayey, and waterless tract called Sandar-bâr, that is the bâr, a desert of the Sandar or Chandra river. Thus the position of the rivulet, the description of the desolate country, and the distance of the city from the confluence of the rivers, all agree in fixing the site of the fortress assaulted by Alexander with Kot-Kamâlia.—Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 208-210.[159]The city to which Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander, Cunningham has identified with Harapa. “The mention of marshes (he says) shows that it must have been near the Râvi, and, as Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander, it must also have beenbeyondKot-Kamâlia, that is to the east or south-east of it. Now this is exactly the position of Harapa, which is situated sixteen miles to the east-south-east of Kot-Kamâlia, and on the opposite high bank of the Râvi. There are also several marshes in the low ground in its immediate vicinity.” Cunningham then gives a description of Harapa as it now exists. He had encamped at the place on three different occasions. It had been visited previously and described both by Burnes and Masson. Its ruined mound forms an irregular square of half a mile on each side, or two miles in circuit (Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 210, 211). It seems to me a serious objection to this identification that Kot-Kamâlia and Harapa (Harup, in Ainsworth’s large map) lie onoppositesides of the Râvi, while Arrian’s narrative leads us to suppose that they both lay to the west of that river. No mention is made of Perdikkas crossing it, and had the fortress he attacked lain beyond it, he could easily have intercepted the inhabitants in their flight to the marshes of the river.

[86]This does not mean that Megasthenes was sent on frequent embassies to Sandrakottos, but that during his embassy he had frequent interviews with him. The former interpretation, however, finds its advocates.

[87]See Herodotos, ii. 5. Diodôros applies to Lower Egypt the epithet ποταμόχωστος,i.e.deposited by the river.

[88]SeeOdyssey, iv. 477, 581.

[89]Modern science confirms this theory. Thus Sir W. Hunter in hisBrief History of the Indian People, says: “In order to understand the Indian plains we must have a clear idea of the part played by these great rivers; for the rivers first create the land, then fertilize it, and finally distribute its produce. The plains were in many parts upheaved by volcanic action, or deposited in an aqueous aera long before man appeared on the earth.”

[90]Arrian has named these in hisIndika, c. 4.

[91]See Herod, vii. 33-36; iv. 83, 97, 133-141.

[92]Diodôros says the passage was made by a bridge of boats.

[93]There is a Rhenos in Italy—the Reno, a tributary of the Po, from which the great Rhine is distinguished as the Keltic. The famous bridge made by Caesar over the latter river is described in hisDe Bello Gallico, iv. 17.

[94]SeeNote I, Taxila.

[95]We learn from Curtius that Alexander, before taking hostile action against Pôros, demanded from him through an envoy called Cleochares that he should pay tribute and come to meet him on the frontiers of his dominions. To this Pôros replied that in compliance with the second request he would meet Alexander at the place appointed, but would attend in arms. Alexander was perhaps justified by the laws of war in exacting submission from the tribes west of the Indus, since these had been subject to Darius, whom he had overthrown, and to whose rights he had succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjâb, those at least that lay to the east of the Hydaspês, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian domination, and hence his invasion, according to modern ideas, was altogether indefensible. He could, however, justify himself on the ground of the principles held by the Greeks of his day, who considered that their superiority in wisdom and virtue to the rest of mankind gave them a natural right to attack, plunder, and enslave all barbarians except such only as were protected by a special treaty. Such a view, repugnant as it seems to every principle of justice, was held nevertheless by Aristotle, who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illustrious pupil. Hence Alexander, in attacking Pôros, was not conscious, like Caesar, when he invaded Britain, of perpetrating an unwarrantable aggression for which some kind of an excuse had to be trumped up.

[96]The Hydaspês, now the Jhîlam, is called by the natives of Kâśmîr, where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly altered form of its Sanskrit name, the Vitastâ, which means “wide-spread.” In Ptolemy’s geography it appears as the Bidaspês—a form nearer the original thanHydaspês. It is mentioned in one of the hymns of the Rig-Veda, along with other great Indian rivers: “Receive favourably this my hymn, O Gangâ, Yamunâ, Sarasvatî, Śutudrî, Parashni; hear O Marudvridhâ, with the Asiknî andVitastâ, and thou Arjîkîyâ with the Sushômâ.” In advancing from the Indus at Attak to the Hydaspês, Alexander followed the Râjapatha, that is, theking’s highway, called by Megasthenes the ὁδὸς βασιληίη. It is the route which has been taken by all foreign conquerors who have penetrated into India by the valley of the Kôphês. Elphinstone, who followed this route in returning from Kâbul, describes it thus: “The whole of our journey across the track between the Indus and Hydaspês was about 160 miles; for which space the country is among the strongest I have ever seen. The difficulty of our passage across it was increased by heavy rain. While in the hilly country our road sometimes lay through the beds of torrents” (Mission to Kâbul, p. 78). In another passage (p. 80) he says: “I was greatly struck with the difference between the banks of this river; the left bank had all the characteristics of the plains of India. The right bank, on the contrary, was formed by the end of the range of the Salt Hills, and had an air of extreme ruggedness and wildness that must inspire a fearful presentiment of the country he was entering into the mind of a traveller from the East.” General Chesney, in the lecture already cited, thus remarks on the advance of Alexander to the Hydaspês: “What is remarkable about this part of the advance is that it was not made direct on Jhelum, as would appear natural. True, that line is over what would be a very difficult country, as any traveller by the existing road knows. Still it would be the easiest line; nevertheless it appears certain that Alexander took a more southerly line, and threading his way through the intricate ravines of the upper part of the Salt range, and leaving Tilla and Rhotas on his left, penetrated that range by the gorge through which runs the Bhundar river, and struck the river Jhelum at Jalâlpûr, about thirty miles below Jhelum.”

[97]SeeNote I, Site of Alexander’s camp on the Hydaspês.

[98]The Greeks, for the first time, saw elephants used in war at the battle of Arbela.

[99]Arrian, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, states that the battle with Pôros was fought in the Archonship of Hêgemôn at Athens, in the month of Mounychiôn,i.e.between the 18th of April and 18th of May, 326B.C.Here, however, according to the reading of all the MSS., he makes the battle take placeafterthe solstice of June 21st, μετὰ τροπάς. Editors remove the difficulty by substituting κατά for μετά, and I have translated accordingly. As the rainy season, however, does not set in till near the end of June, and it had set in, as Strabo informs us, during the march to the Hydaspês, the later date has probability in its favour.

[100]Enyalios, an epithet of the war-god.

[101]Curtius mentions that near the bluff there was a deep hollow or ravine which sufficed to screen both the infantry and the cavalry, and on this Cunningham remarks: “There is a ravine to the north of Jalâlpûr which exactly suits the descriptions of the historians. This ravine is the bed of the Kandar Nala, which has a course of six miles from its source down to Jalâlpûr, where it is lost in a waste of sand. Up this ravine there has always been a passable, but difficult road towards Jhelum. From the head of the Kandar this road proceeds for three miles in a northerly direction down another ravine called the Kasi, which then turns suddenly to the east for six and a half miles, and then again one and a half mile to the south, where it joins the river Jhelum immediately below Dilâwar, the whole distance from Jalâlpûr being exactly seventeen miles.” These seventeen miles are about the equivalent of the 150 stadia given by Arrian as the distance from the great camp to the bluff.

[102]“Arrian,” says Cunningham, “records that Alexander placed running sentries along the bank of the river at such distances that they could see each other and communicate his orders. Now, I believe that this operation could not be carried out in the face of an observant enemy along any part of the river bank, excepting only that one part which lies between Jalâlpûr and Dilâwar. In all other parts the west bank is open and exposed, but in this part alone the wooded and rocky hills slope down to the river and offer sufficient cover for the concealment of single sentries.”—Geog. of Anc. India, pp. 170, 171.

[103]With Alexander’s passage of the Hydaspês may be compared Hannibal’s passage of the Rhone made upwards of a century later. The Carthaginian general, whose education included a knowledge of Greek, was no doubt familiar with the history of Alexander’s wars, and from knowing how the Hydaspês was crossed may have laid his plans for crossing the Rhone.v.Livy, xxi. 26-28; Polyb. iii. 45, 46.

[104]Here, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was fought, in 1849, the battle of Chilianwála. On this occasion the inferiority of the British commander as a strategist to Alexander was signally manifested.

[105]The left wing of the Indian army was flanked by the river.

[106]This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station himself oppositethe enemy’sright, and not on theMacedonianextreme right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (Alexander in the Punjaub, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as, in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly and Rüstow, however, in theirHistory of the Greek Military System, advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s rear.” This seems the preferable view.

[107]“To meet the double assault (of Alexander and Coenus) they resorted to one of those changes of front in which Indian cavalry are often so surprisingly rapid—facing partly to the front and partly to the rear. Yet Alexander was beforehand with them; and his renewed charge threw them into utter confusion before they could fully assume their new formation. Flying along the front of their own infantry, they took refuge in the spaces left between every two elephants, and (as it would seem in the absence, from Arrian’s account, of the full details) passed as soon as possible through the intervals of the foot regiments, so as to be for the moment quite outside the battle. As soon as they were out of the way the Indian elephants were sent on, supported by the infantry, but were at once met face to face by the Macedonian phalanx.”—v.Moberly’sAlexander in the Punjaub, Introd. p. 12.

[108]Diodôros gives the number of Indians killed at upwards of 12,000, and of the captured at more than 9000, besides 80 elephants.

[109]The Spitakês here mentioned as one of the slain is probably the same as Pittacus, who is recorded by Polyainos to have had an encounter with Alexander during the march of the latter from Taxila to the Hydaspês, as Droysen and Thirlwall agree in thinking.

[110]The hiatus is supposed to have contained the number of officers killed.

[111]This death-roll evidently greatly under-estimates the loss on Alexander’s side. Diodôros says that there fell of the Macedonians 280 cavalry and more than 700 infantry.

[112]Pôros was the first sovereign that Alexander had captured on the field of battle. Curtius and Diodôros relate somewhat differently from Arrian the story of his capture, representing him to have been protected to the last by his faithful elephant.

[113]SeeNote R, Battle with Pôros.

[114]Diodôros says the battle occurred while Chremes was archon at Athens.

[115]Nikaia most probably occupied the site of the modern town of Mong, near the left bank. Nothing is known of its history. With respect to its sister city Boukephala, the ancient writers are not in agreement. Plutarch places it on the left or eastern bank of the Hydaspês, for he says that Boukephalas was killed in the battle, and that the city was built where he fell and was buried. According, however, to Strabo, Arrian, and Diodôros, it stood on the west bank; but while Strabo places it at the point where the troops embarked, Arrian places it farther down the stream on the site of the great camp at Jalâlpûr. It became a great emporium of commerce, as we find from thePeriplûs of the Erythraian Sea, c. 47. In the Peutinger Tables it is calledAlexandria Bucefalos.

[116]“Schmieder says that Alexander could not have broken in the horse before he was sixteen years old. But since at this time he was in his twenty-ninth year he would have had him thirteen years. Consequently the horse must have been at least seventeen years old when he acquired him. Can any one believe this? Yet Plutarch also states that the horse was thirty years old at his death.”—Chinnock’sAnabasis of Alexander, p. 296, note 4.

[117]This incident is referred by Plutarch to Hyrkania, and by Curtius to the land of the Mardians. The Ouxioi lived on the borders of Persis, between that province and Sousiana.

[118]Alexander, according to Diodôros, halted to recruit his army for thirty days in the dominions of Pôros. He then advanced northwards with a part of his army to the fertile and populous regions that lay in the south of Kâśmîr (the Bhimber and Bajaur districts) between the upper courses of the Hydaspês and the Akesinês and Chenâb. The name of the inhabitants,GlausaiorGlaukanîkoi, has been identified by V. de Saint-Martin with that of the Kalaka, a tribe mentioned in theVarâha Sanhita, a work of the sixth century of our aera. In theMahâbhâratathe name is writtenKalaja, and in the Rajput ChroniclesKalacha, a form which justifies the GreekGlausai. The second part of the longer name,anîka, means a troop or army in Sanskrit.—v.Saint-Martin’sEtude, pp. 102, 103.

[119]Conf. Strabo, XV. i. 3. “Other writers affirm that the Macedonians conquered nine nations situated between the Hydaspês and the Hypanis (Beas), and obtained possession of 500 cities, not one of which was less than Kos Meropis, and that Alexander, after having conquered all this country, delivered it up to Pôros.”

[120]This was a second embassy. An earlier is mentioned in Chapter VIII. of this book.

[121]Strabo (XV. i. p. 699) says this Pôros was a nephew of the Pôros whom Alexander had defeated, and that his country was called Gandaris. The Gandarai were a widely extended people, occupying a district stretching from the upper part of the Panjâb to the west of the Indus as far as Qandahar. They are the Gandhâra of Sanskrit.

[122]The Akesinês, now the Chenâb, is called in the Vedic Hymns theAsikni,i.e.“dark-coloured.” It was called also, and more commonly, Chandrabhâgâ, which, being transliterated into Greek, becomes Sandrophagos. This word suggested to the soldiers of Alexander another of bad omen,Ale-xandrophagos, which meansdevourer of Alexander, and hence they adopted its other name, perhaps on account of the disaster which befell the Macedonian fleet at the turbulent junction of this river with the Hydaspês. In Ptolemy’sGeographyit is called Sandabala by an obvious error for Sandabaga. The Akesinês, though joined by the other great Panjâb rivers, retained its name until it fell into the Indus.

[123]The Hydraôtês is called by Strabo (XV. i. 21) the Hyarôtis, and in Ptolemy’sGeographythe Adris or Rhouadis. It is now theRâvî, which is an abridged form of its Sanskrit name, the Airâvatî. It passes the city of Lahore, and joins the Chenâb about 30 milesaboveMultân. In former times, however, the junction occurred 15 milesbelowthat city. In Ptolemy’sGeographythe Rhouadis is erroneously made to join the Hydaspês, or, as Ptolemy calls it, the Bidaspês. Arrian in hisIndika(c. 4) describes the Hydraôtês as rising in the country of the Kambistholoi, and after receiving the Hyphasis among the Astrybai, and the Saranges from the Kêkeans (the Sekaya of Sanskrit), and the Neudros from the Attakênoi, falling into the Akesinês. The Hyphasis does not, however, join the Hydraôtês.

[124]v.Note L, Kathaians.

[125]The expressionindependentshows that the Greeks were cognisant of the Indian village system. Each of its rural units they took to be an independent republic.

[126]v.Note M, Sangala.

[127]The Adraïstai appear to be the people called in thePeriplûs of the Erythraean Sea, the Aratrioi. Lassen identifies them with the Aratta of theMahâbhârata. Diodôros calls them the Adrêstai, and Orosius in hisHistory(iii. 19) the Adrestae. Their capital, Pimprama, has not as yet been identified with certainty, but V. de Saint-Martin suggests that it may be represented byBhéranah, a place eight leagues distant from Lahore towards the south-east. The same author thinks that theAdrastaeare very probably theAïrâvatâorRaïvâtakaof Sanskrit.

[128]Chinnock notes that Caesar’s troops were assailed in a similar manner by the Helvetians.—v.Caesar’sDe Bello Gallico, i. 26.

[129]Curtius gives the loss of the Kathaians at 8000 killed. Arrian’s numbers here seem to be greatly exaggerated.

[130]The Hyphasis, now the Beäs or Beias, is variously called by the classical writers the Bibasis, the Hypasis, and the Hypanis. Its Sanskrit name is theVipâsâ, which means “uncorded,” and it is said to have been so called because itdestroyed the cordwith which one of the Indian sages intended to hang himself. It joins the Satlej (not the Hydraôtês, as Arrian says in hisIndika) and the united stream is called in Sanskrit the Śatadru,i.e.“flowing in a hundred channels.” It marked the limit of Alexander’s advance eastward. In his time it flowed in a different channel, one by which it reached the Chenâb about 40 miles above Uchh. Curtius and Diodôros inform us that Alexander before reaching this river had entered the dominions of King Sôphites, who submitted without resistance, and was therefore left in possession of his sovereignty. Another chief (called Phêgeus by Diodôros, but more correctly Phegelas by Curtius), whose dominions adjoined the Hyphasis, entertained Alexander and his army for two days. By this time he had been rejoined by Hêphaistiôn, who had been conducting operations elsewhere, and he then proceeded to the bank of the river. The country beyond it Arrian represents as exceedingly fertile, whereas in Curtius and Diodôros we read how Alexander was informed that a desert lay beyond it which would occupy a journey of eleven days. Arrian’s statement holds true of the northern districts beyond the river, and the other statement of the southern districts. Thirlwall, following the latter statement, takes it that Alexander reached the Satlej after it had received the Hyphasis, but this is a very questionable view.

[131]The name of Ion, the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians, had originally the digamma, and hence was written as Ivon. The Hebrew transcription of this digammated form isJavan, the name by whichGreeceis designated in the Bible. The Sanskrit transcription isYavana, the name applied in Indian works to Ionians or Greeks and foreigners generally.

[132]The Tanais is properly the Don, but Alexander meant by it the Jaxartes, which formed the eastern boundary of the Persian empire, and which he had crossed to attack the nomadic Skythians, who had made threatening demonstrations against him on the right or northern bank (v.the 16th and 17th chapters of the fourth book).

[133]It was a prevalent belief in antiquity that the Kaspian or Hyrkanian Sea was a gulf of the great ocean which encircles the earth, and not an inland sea.

[134]Arrian (vii. 1) says: “When Alexander reached Pasargadai and Persepolis he conceived an ardent desire to sail down the Euphrates and Tigres to the Persian sea, and survey their mouths.... Some writers have stated that he had in contemplation a voyage round the greater portion of Arabia, the land of the Aethiopians, Lybia, and Numidia beyond Mount Atlas to Gadeira (Cadiz) inward into the Mediterranean.” One of the writers referred to is Plutarch, who says (Alexander, c. 68): “Nearchos joined him (Alexander) here (at the capital of Gedrosia), and he was so much delighted with the account of his voyage that he formed a design to sail in person from the Euphrates with a great fleet, circle the coast of Arabia and Africa, and enter the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules.” Herodotos (iv. 42) says that Nekô, king of the Egyptians, sent certain Phoenicians in ships with orders to sail back through the Pillars of Hercules into the Northern Sea (the Mediterranean that is), and so to return to Egypt. The pillars designated the twin rocks which guard the entrance to the Mediterranean at the eastern extremity of the Straits of Gibraltar, the one on the European side being calledKalpê, and that on the African side, where now stands the citadel of Ceuta,AbilaorAbyla.v.Pliny (iii. prooem.): “Proximis autem faucibus utrimque impositi montes coercent claustra, Abyla Africae, Europae Calpe, laborum Herculis metae, quam ob causam indigenae columnas ejus dei vocant.”

[135]Arrian (iii. 30) informs us that in the opinion of some the Nile formed the boundary of Asia, but he writes here as if Lybia or Northern Africa were part of Asia.

[136]The Macedonian kings claimed to be descended from Heraklês, who resided for some time at Tiryns, one of the most ancient cities in Greece, situated near Argos, and, like Argos, famous for its Cyclopean walls.

[137]“Alexander,” says Arrian (iii. 19), “on reaching Ekbatana, sent back to the sea the Thessalian cavalry and the other Grecian allies, paying them the full amount of the stipulated hire, and giving them besides a donative of 2000 talents.” Was Baktra a slip of memory on the part of Koinos?

[138]The drenching rains to which the Macedonian soldiers were continually exposed during their march from Taxila to the Hyphasis must have had a considerable effect in exhausting their strength and depressing their spirits.

[139]Karchêdon is Carthage. The name is said to be a corruption ofKereth-HadeshothorCarth-hadtha,i.e.“new city,” in contra-distinction to Utica, which either signifies in Phoenician “old city,” or is derived, as Olshausen thinks, from a root signifying “a colony.”

[140]SeeNote N, Alexander’s altars on the Hyphasis.

[141]“This city,” says Lassen, “lay probably where Wazirâbâd now stands. Here the great road to the Hydaspês parts into two, one leading to Jalâlpûr, and the other to Jhelam. It is the sixth of the Alexandreias mentioned in Stephanos Byz.”v. Ind. Alt.ii. 165, n. The Chenab here has a width of about a mile and a half.

[142]Arsakês, to judge from his name and what is here said of him, was probably the king of Uraśa. This district, the Arsa of Ptolemy, the W-la-shi of Hwen Thsiang, and now Rash in Dantâwar, included all the hill country between the Indus and Kaśmîr as far south as Attak.

[143]v.Strabo (XV. i. 29). Between the Hydaspês and Akesinês ... is the forest in the neighbourhood of the Emodoi mountains, in which Alexander cut down a large quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other trees fit for shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the Hydaspês. With this he constructed a fleet on the Hydaspês near the cities which he built on each side of the river where he had crossed it and conquered Pôros. “The timber,” says Sir A. Burnes, “of which the boats of the Panjâb are constructed is chiefly floated downby the Hydaspêsfrom the Indian Caucasus, which most satisfactorily explains the selection of its banks by Alexander in preference to the other rivers.” Bunbury, citing this passage, adds: “The navigation of the Indus itself for a considerable part of its course below Attock is so dangerous on account of rapids as to render it wholly unsuitable for the descent of a flotilla such as that of Alexander.”

[144]This is thenelumbum speciosum, or Cyathus Smithii, the sacred Egyptian or Pythagorean bean. The use of its fruit was forbidden to the Egyptian priests (v.Herod. ii. 37).

[145]“It is remarkable to see how in this respect the geographical information of the Greeks seems to have retrograded since the time of Herodotus. No allusion is found to the voyage of Scylax related by that historian, while the just conclusions derived from it by Herodotus had fallen into the same oblivion. But absurd as was this identification (of the Indus with the Nile), the general resemblance between these rivers, which are constantly brought into comparison by the Greek geographers (Strabo, XV. p. 692, etc.), is certainly such as to justify their observations. The resemblance of the lower valley of the Indus from the time it has received the waters of the Panjab with Egypt is dwelt upon by modern travellers. One description (says Mr. Elphinstone) might serve for both. A smooth and fertile plain is bounded on one side by mountains, and on the other by a desert. It is divided by a large river, which forms a Delta as it approaches the sea, and annually inundates and enriches the country near its banks. The climate of both is hot and dry, and rain is of rare occurrence in either country.”—v.Bunbury’sHist. of Anc. Geo.p. 510.

[146]Arrian in the 19th chapter of theIndikastates that the number of men conveyed in the fleet was 8000, and that the whole strength of his army was 120,000 soldiers, including those whom he brought from the shores of the Mediterranean, as well as recruits drawn from various barbarous tribes armed in their own fashion. In the preceding chapter he gives a list of the great officers whom Alexander appointed to be in temporary command of the triremes. Of these, thirty-three in number, twenty-four were Macedonians, eight were Greeks, and one a Persian. Seleukos is the only officer of note whose name does not appear in this list.

[147]Diodôros and Curtius, as has been pointed out (inNote M), place the dominions of Sôpeithês between the upper Hydraôtês and the Hyphasis, but here we find them transferred to a more western position. Strabo was unable to decide where they lay. “Some writers (he says) place Kathaia and the country of Sôpeithês, one of the monarchs, in the tract between the rivers (Hydaspês and Akesinês); some on the other side of the Akesinês and of the Hyarotis, on the confines of the territory of the other Pôros, the nephew of Pôros who was taken prisoner by Alexander, and call the country subject to him Gandaris.... It is said that in the territory of Sôpeithês there is a mountain composed of fossil salt sufficient for the whole of India. Valuable mines, also, both of gold and silver, are situated, it is said, not far off among other mountains, according to the testimony of Gorgos the miner.” Strabo then describes (as do also Diodôros and Curtius) the fight between a lion and four dogs which Sôpeithês exhibited to Alexander. To account for the discrepancy in these statements one is almost tempted to believe that as there were two princes of the name of Pôros, each ruling dominions of his own, so there were also two chiefs of the name of Sôpeithês or (as Curtius more correctly transcribes it) Sôphytês. General Cunningham would identifyGandariswith the present district ofGundulbârorGundurbâr, and fixes the capital of Sôphytês on the western bank of the Hydaspês atOld Bhira, a place near Ahmedabad, with a very extensive mound of ruins, and distant from Nikaia (now Mong) three days by water. His rule must have extended westward to the Indus, since the mountain of rock-salt which Strabo includes in his territory can only refer to the salt range (the Mount Oromenus of Pliny, xxxi. 39) which extends from the Indus to the Hydaspês. The transcription of the nameSôphytêswill be found discussed elsewhere.

[148]Arrian in hisIndika, where he apparently follows Nearchos instead of Ptolemy as here, gives the whole number of ships at only 800, including both ships of war and transports. Schmieder and some other editors would correct this to 1800, but it seems more probable, Bunbury thinks, that the basis of the two calculations was different. Ptolemy, he says, distinctly includes the ordinary river boats which would doubtless have been collected in large numbers to assist in transporting so great an army and its supplies; while the terms of Nearchos would seem to imply only ships of war or regular transports. Krüger would correct the 2000 of the text to 1000, which is the number of the vessels as given by Diodôros and Curtius. The fleet began the downward voyage at the end of October 326B.C.

[149]Alexander deduced his pedigree from Ammôn, just as the legend traced the pedigree of Heraklês and Perseus to Zeus. He accordingly made an expedition to the oasis in the Libyan desert where Ammôn had his oracle for the purpose of more certainly learning his origin. His mother, Olympias, according to Plutarch, used to complain that Alexander was for ever embroiling her with Juno.

[150]“The Indians (says Arrian in hisIndika, c. 7) worship the other gods, and especially Dionysos, with cymbals and drums, which he had taught them to use. He taught them also the Satyric dance, called by the GreeksKordax.”

[151]SeeNote O, Voyage down the Hydaspês and Akesinês to the Indus.

[152]This halting-place was at Bhira or Bheda, if Cunningham is right in fixing the capital of Sôphytês in its neighbourhood.

[153]Diodôros carelessly represents these rapids as occurring at the confluence of the two rivers with the Indus. The dangers of their navigation seem to have been exaggerated by the ancient writers, though their accounts have some foundation in fact. Sir A. Burnes, the first European known to have visited the spot, says there are no eddies and no rocks, nor is the channel confined, while the ancient character is only supported by the noise of the confluence, which is greater than that of any of the other rivers. The boatmen of the locality, however, still regard the passage as a perilous one during the season when the river is swollen (v.Travels, i. p. 109). Thirlwall thinks the principal obstructions have been worn away. According to Curtius, Alexander’s own ship was here in imminent danger of being wrecked.

[154]These barbarians were probably the Sibi (v.Diodôros, xvii. 96).

[155]Hêphaistiôn by this arrangement would beset the banks of the Hydraôtês, Ptolemy those of the Akesinês. The former probably marched to the Hydraôtês by way of Shorkote, which Cunningham thinks may be the Sôrianê of Stephanos Byz.

[156]The Hydaspês loses its name as well as its waters to the Akesinês. The junction of the latter with the Hydraôtês (Râvi) occurs at present at a point more than thirty miles above Multân, but in Alexander’s time it occurred some miles below that city.

[157]SeeNote P, The Malloi and Oxydrakai.

[158]General Cunningham has identified this place with Kot-Kamâlia, a small but ancient town situated on an isolated mound on the right or northern bank of the Râvi, marking the extreme limit of the river’s fluctuations on that side. The small rivulet on which Alexander encamped at the end of his first march he believes to be the lower course of the Ayek river which rises in the outer range of hills and flows past Syâlkot towards Sâkala, below which the bed is still traceable for some distance. It appears again, he says, eighteen miles to the east of Jhang, and is finally lost about two miles to the east of Shorkot. Now somewhere between these two points Alexander must have crossed the Ayek, as the desert country which he afterwards traversed lies immediately beyond it. If he had marched to the south he would have arrived at Shorkot, but he would not have encountered any desert, as his route would have been over the Khâdar, or low-lying lands in the valley of the Chenâb. A march of forty-six miles in a southerly direction would have carried him also right up to the bank of the Hydraôtês or Râvi, a point which Alexander only reached after another night’s march. As this march lasted from the first watch until daylight, it cannot have been less than eighteen or twenty miles, which agrees exactly with the distance of the Râvi opposite Tulamba from Kot-Kamâlia. The direction of Alexander’s march must therefore have been to the south-east; first to the Ayek river, and thence across the hard, clayey, and waterless tract called Sandar-bâr, that is the bâr, a desert of the Sandar or Chandra river. Thus the position of the rivulet, the description of the desolate country, and the distance of the city from the confluence of the rivers, all agree in fixing the site of the fortress assaulted by Alexander with Kot-Kamâlia.—Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 208-210.

[159]The city to which Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander, Cunningham has identified with Harapa. “The mention of marshes (he says) shows that it must have been near the Râvi, and, as Perdikkas was sent in advance of Alexander, it must also have beenbeyondKot-Kamâlia, that is to the east or south-east of it. Now this is exactly the position of Harapa, which is situated sixteen miles to the east-south-east of Kot-Kamâlia, and on the opposite high bank of the Râvi. There are also several marshes in the low ground in its immediate vicinity.” Cunningham then gives a description of Harapa as it now exists. He had encamped at the place on three different occasions. It had been visited previously and described both by Burnes and Masson. Its ruined mound forms an irregular square of half a mile on each side, or two miles in circuit (Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 210, 211). It seems to me a serious objection to this identification that Kot-Kamâlia and Harapa (Harup, in Ainsworth’s large map) lie onoppositesides of the Râvi, while Arrian’s narrative leads us to suppose that they both lay to the west of that river. No mention is made of Perdikkas crossing it, and had the fortress he attacked lain beyond it, he could easily have intercepted the inhabitants in their flight to the marshes of the river.

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