CHAP. XCIV.]

STOPPAGE AT THE HYPHASIS.

311

the Hy

(Sutledge),

of the rivers

His army

march

in the Punjab seemingly at a point below its con- He reaches fluence with the Beas. Beyond this river, broad phasis and rapid, Alexander was informed that there lay the farthest a desert of eleven days' march, extending to a still of the greater river called the Ganges; beyond which Punjab. dwelt the Gandaridæ, the most powerful, warlike, refuses to and populous, of all the Indian tribes, distinguished farther. for the number and training of their elephants'. The prospect of a difficult march, and of an enemy esteemed invincible, only instigated his ardour. He gave orders for the crossing. But here for the first time his army, officers as well as soldiers, manifested symptoms of uncontrolable weariness; murmuring aloud at these endless toils, and marches they knew not whither. They had already overpassed the limits where Dionysus and Herakles were said to have stopped: they were travelling into regions hitherto unvisited either by Greeks or by Persians, merely for the purpose of provoking and conquering new enemies. Of victories they were sated; of their plunder, abundant as it was, they had no enjoyment; the hardships of a perpetual onward march, often excessively accelerated, had exhausted both men and horses; moreover, their advance from the Hydaspes had been accomplished in the wet season, under rains more violent and continued than they had ever before experienced 3.

1 Curtius, ix. 2, 3; Diodor. xvii. 93; Plutarch, Alex. 62.

2 Curtius, ix. 3, 11 (speech of Koenus). "Quoto cuique lorica est? Quis equum habet? Jube quæri, quam multos servi ipsorum persecuti sint, quid cuique supersit ex prædâ. Omnium victores, omnium inopes sumus."

3 Aristobulus ap. Strabo. xv. p. 691-697. veodai ouvex@s. Arrian, ν. 29, 8; Diodor. xvii. 93. χειμώνες ἄγριοι κατεῤῥάγησαν ἐφ' ἡμέρας ἑβδομήκοντα, καὶ βρονταὶ συνεχεῖς καὶ κεραυνοὶ κατέσκηπτον, &c,

Informed of the reigning discontent, Alexander assembled his officers and harangued them, endeavouring to revive in them that forward spirit and promptitude which he had hitherto found not inadequate to his own'. But he entirely failed. No one indeed dared openly to contradict him. Koenus alone hazarded some words of timid dissuasion; the rest manifested a passive and sullen repugnance, even when he proclaimed that those who desired might return, with the shame of having deserted their king, while he would march forward with the volunteers only. After a suspense of two days, passed in solitary and silent mortification-he still apparently persisted in his determination, and offered the sacrifice usual previous to the passage of a river. The victims were inauspicious; he bowed to the will of the Gods; and gave orders for return, to the unanimous and unbounded delight of his army 2.

1 In the speech which Arrian (v. 25, 26) puts into the mouth of Alexander, the most curious point is, the geographical views which he promulgates. "We have not much farther now to march (he was standing on the western bank of the Sutledge) to the river Ganges, and the great Eastern Sea which surrounds the whole earth. The Hyrkanian (Caspian) Sea joins on to this great sea on one side, the Persian Gulf on the other; after we have subdued all those nations which lie before us eastward towards the Great Sea, and northward towards the Hyrkanian Sea, we shall then sail by water first to the Persian Gulf, next round Libya to the pillars of Herakles; from thence we shall march back all through Libya, and add it to all Asia as parts of our empire." (I here abridge rather than translate.)

It is remarkable, that while Alexander made so prodigious an error in narrowing the eastern limits of Asia, the Ptolemaic geography, recognised in the time of Columbus, made an error not less in the opposite direction, stretching it too far to the East. It was upon the faith of this last mistake, that Columbus projected his voyage of circumnavigation from Western Europe, expecting to come to the eastern coast of Asia from the West, after no great length of voyage.

2 Arrian, v. 28, 7. The fact that Alexander, under all this insuperable repugnance of his soldiers, still offered the sacrifice preliminary to

CHAP. XCIV.]

VOYAGE DOWN THE INDUS.

313

Alexander

returns to

daspes.

To mark the last extremity of his eastward progress, he erected twelve altars of extraordinary the Hyheight and dimension on the western bank of the Hyphasis, offering sacrifices of thanks to the Gods, with the usual festivities, and matches of agility and force. Then, having committed all the territory west of the Hyphasis to the government of Porus, he marched back, repassed the Hydraotes and Akesines, and returned to the Hydaspes near the point where he had first crossed it. The two new cities-Bukephalia and Nikæa-which he had left orders for commencing on that river, had suffered much from the rains and inundations during his forward march to the Hyphasis, and now required the aid of the army to repair the damage'. The heavy rains continued throughout most of his return march to the Hydaspes2.

autumn.

He constructs a sails down the Hydaspes and

fleet, and

the Indus.

On coming back to this river, Alexander received B.C.326, a large reinforcement both of cavalry and infantry, sent to him from Europe, together with 25,000 new panoplies, and a considerable stock of medicines 3. Had these reinforcements reached him on the Hyphasis, it seems not impossible that he might have prevailed on his army to accompany him in his farther advance to the Ganges and the regions in attackbeyond. He now employed himself, assisted by Malli. Porus and Taxilus, in collecting and constructing a fleet for sailing down the Hydaspes and thence

crossing is curious as an illustration of his character, and was specially attested by Ptolemy.

1 Arrian, v. 29, 8; Diodor. xvii. 95.

2 Aristobulus ap. Strab. xv. p. 691-until the rising of Arkturus. Diodorus says, 70 days (xvii. 93), which seems more probable. 3 Diodor. xvii. 95; Curtius, ix. 3, 21.

Dangerous wound of

Alexander

ing the

down to the mouth of the Indus. By the early part of November, a fleet of nearly 2000 boats or vessels of various sizes having been prepared, he began his voyage'. Kraterus marched with one division of the army, along the right bank of the Hydaspes-Hephæstion on the left bank with the remainder, including 200 elephants; Nearchus had the command of the fleet in the river, on board of which was Alexander himself. He pursued his voyage slowly down the river, to the confluence of the Hydaspes with the Akesines-with the Hydraotes-and with the Hyphasis-all pouring, in one united stream, into the Indus. He sailed down the Indus to its junction with the Indian Ocean. Altogether this voyage occupied nine months2, from November 326 B.c. to August 325 B.C. But it was a voyage full of active military operations on both sides of the river. Alexander perpetually disembarked, to attack, subdue, and slaughter all such nations near the banks as did not voluntarily submit. Among them were the Malli and Oxydrakæ, free and brave tribes, who resolved to defend their liberty, but, unfortunately for themselves, were

1 The voyage was commenced a few days before the setting of the Pleiades (Aristobulus ap. Strab. xv. p. 692).

For the number of the ships, see Ptolemy ap. Arrian. vi. 2, 8. On seeing crocodiles in the Indus, Alexander was at first led to suppose that it was the same river as the Nile, and that he had discovered the higher course of the Nile, from whence it flowed into Egypt. This is curious, as an illustration of the geographical knowledge of the time (Arrian, vi. 1, 3).

2 Aristobulus ap. Strab. xv. p. 692. Aristobulus said that the downward voyage occupied ten months; this seems longer than the exact reality. Moreover Aristobulus said that they had no rain during all the voyage down, through all the summer months: Nearchus stated the contrary (Strabo, l. c.).

CHAP. XCIV.] DANGEROUS WOUND OF ALEXANDER.

315

habitually at variance, and could not now accomplish any hearty cooperation against the common invader1. Alexander first assailed the Malli with his usual celerity and vigour, beat them with slaughter in the field, and took several of their towns. There remained only their last and strongest town, from which the defenders were already driven out and forced to retire to the citadel3. Thither they were pursued by the Macedonians, Alexander himself being among the foremost, with only a few guards near him. Impatient because the troops with their scaling-ladders did not come up more rapidly, he mounted upon a ladder that happened to be at hand, attended only by Peukestes and one or two others, with an adventurous courage even transcending what he was wont to display. Having cleared the wall by killing several of its defenders, he jumped down into the interior of the citadel, and made head for some time, nearly alone, against all within. He received however a bad wound from an arrow in the breast, and was on the point of fainting, when his soldiers burst in, rescued him, and took the place. Every person within, man, woman, and child, was slain1.

The wound of Alexander was so severe, that he B.c.325.

1 Curtius, ix. 4, 15; Diodor. xvii. 98.

2 Arrian, vi. 7, 8.

3 This last stronghold of the Malli is supposed, by Mr. Cunningham and others, to have been the modern city of Multan. The river Ravee or Hydraotes is said to have formerly run past the city of Multan into the Chenab or Akesines.

Arrian, vi. 9, 10, 11. He notices the great discrepancy in the various accounts given of this achievement and dangerous wound of Alexander. Compare Diodor. xvii. 98, 99; Curtius, ix. 4, 5; Plutarch, Alex. 63.