Book 5

BOOK V

1.1. In this country, which Alexander traversed between the rivers Cophen and Indus, the city of Nysa also is said to have been founded; and the founding of it was the work of Dionysus, who built Nysa at the time when he had subdued the Indians—whenever that was, and from whatever point he set out against them.

1.2. For I cannot determine who this Dionysus was, nor whether it was the Theban Dionysus who, setting out from Thebes, or from Tmolus in Lydia, came against the Indians at the head of an army, passing through so many warlike nations unknown to the Greeks of that day, yet subduing none of them by force save only the Indians. But this much may be said: a man ought not to be too exacting an examiner of the ancient tales told concerning the divine. For things which, judged by mere probability, seem incredible, do not appear wholly incredible once one has added the working of the divine to the account.

1.3. When Alexander came up to Nysa, the people of Nysa sent out to him the foremost man among them, whose name was Acuphis, and with him thirty of their most reputable envoys, to beg Alexander to leave the city free for the sake of the god.

1.4. The envoys, it is said, entered Alexander's tent and found him seated, still covered with dust from the march and still in his armour, with his helmet on his head and his spear in his hand; and they were astonished at the sight, and falling to the ground they kept silence for a long while. But when Alexander raised them up and bade them take heart, then at last Acuphis began to speak thus:

1.5. "O king, the people of Nysa beseech you to leave them free and self-governing, out of reverence for Dionysus. For when Dionysus, having subdued the Indian nation, was returning toward the Greek sea, he founded this city from those of his soldiers who were no longer fit for war—men who had also been his Bacchants—to be a memorial of his wandering and of his victory for those who should come after; just as you yourself have founded an Alexandria by Mount Caucasus, and another Alexandria in the land of Egypt, and many others which you have founded already, and others still that you will found in time to come, having displayed more works than Dionysus did.

1.6. "Dionysus named the city Nysa after his nurse Nysa, and the country Nysaea; and the mountain that lies near the city he named Meros (the Thigh), because according to the legend he was reared in the thigh of Zeus. And from that time we have dwelt in Nysa as a free people, ourselves self-governing and ordering our affairs in good order. And let this also be a proof to you of the city's foundation by Dionysus: ivy grows nowhere else in the land of the Indians, but grows among us." And all this was agreeable to Alexander's spirit—

2.1. for he wished to hear, and wished it to be believed, the legends told of Dionysus' wandering; and he wished Nysa to be a foundation of Dionysus, so that he himself might already have come where Dionysus came, and might even advance beyond Dionysus; nor, he thought, would the Macedonians refuse to share his further toils out of emulation of the deeds of Dionysus.

2.2. So he granted that the inhabitants of Nysa should be free and self-governing. And when he had also inquired into their laws, and learned that their constitution was held in the hands of the best men, he praised this, and required of them that they should send with him about three hundred of their horsemen, and from the men who presided over the constitution—who were themselves three hundred—a hundred chosen as the best; and that Acuphis should be the one to make the choice, the man whom he himself appointed governor of the Nysaean country.

2.3. Acuphis, on hearing this, is said to have smiled at the proposal; and when Alexander asked why he laughed, Acuphis answered: "And how, O king, could a single city, robbed of a hundred of its good men, still be well governed? But you, if you have a care for the Nysaeans, take the three hundred horsemen, and more than these if you wish; but instead of the hundred whom you bid me choose as the best, take twice as many of the others, the bad ones, so that when you come back here again the city may appear to you in this same good order."

2.4. By this speech—for he seemed to speak with good sense—he persuaded Alexander. So Alexander bade them send the horsemen with him, but no longer asked for the hundred chosen men, nor for others in their place; yet Acuphis sent with him his own son and his daughter's son.

2.5. A longing seized Alexander to see the place where the Nysaeans boasted of certain memorials of Dionysus. He went to the mountain Meros with the Companion cavalry and the foot guard, and saw the mountain thick with ivy and laurel and groves of every kind; and he saw it well shaded, and that within it there was hunting of beasts of all sorts.

2.6. The Macedonians, delighted to see the ivy—since they had not seen it for a long while (for there is no ivy in the country of the Indians, not even where they have vines)—eagerly made garlands of it, and crowned themselves, singing hymns to Dionysus and calling upon the surnames of the god. And Alexander sacrificed there to Dionysus and feasted together with the Companions.

2.7. Some have also recorded this—if indeed this too is to be believed—that many of the Macedonians of his suite, men of no low rank, crowned themselves with the ivy, and under the invocation of the god were seized by Dionysus, and raised the cry to him, and fell into Bacchic frenzy.

3.1. Let these things be accepted as each man pleases, and let him disbelieve or believe them. For I myself do not altogether agree with Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who says that everything which is referred to the divine was, by the Macedonians, ascribed to excess in order to gratify Alexander.

3.2. For he says that the Macedonians, when they saw a cave among the Paropamisadae, and heard some native legend, or themselves invented it, gave out that this was the cavern of Prometheus where he had been bound, and that the eagle was wont to come there to feast on the entrails of Prometheus, and that Heracles, coming there, killed the eagle and released Prometheus from his bonds.

3.3. He says too that the Macedonians transferred in their account the mountain Caucasus from Pontus to the eastern parts of the earth and the country of the Paropamisadae, applying to it the name Caucasus though the mountain was really Paropamisus, for the sake of Alexander's glory, so that Alexander might be said to have passed beyond the Caucasus.

3.4. And he says that in India itself, when they saw oxen branded with the mark of a club, they took this as evidence that Heracles had come to the Indians. In like manner Eratosthenes disbelieves the story of Dionysus' wandering. But let the accounts of these matters lie between us undecided.

3.5. When Alexander came to the river Indus, he found a bridge already built across it by Hephaestion, and many vessels, the smaller sort, and two thirty-oared galleys; and there had come gifts from Taxiles the Indian—about two hundred talents of silver, and for sacrifice three thousand oxen, more than ten thousand sheep, and about thirty elephants;

3.6. and seven hundred Indian horsemen came to him from Taxiles as allies; and Taxiles handed over to him the city of Taxila, the greatest city between the river Indus and the Hydaspes. There Alexander sacrificed to the gods to whom it was his custom, and held a contest of athletics and horsemanship by the river; and the sacrifices proved favourable to him for the crossing.

4.1. That the river Indus is the greatest of the rivers in Asia and Europe except the Ganges (and this too is an Indian river); that its sources lie on the near side of the mountain Paropamisus or Caucasus; that it discharges into the great sea by the Indians toward the south wind; that the Indus is double-mouthed, and both its outlets are marshy, like the five mouths of the Ister; that it too forms a Delta in the land of the Indians, like the Egyptian Delta, and this is called in the Indian tongue Patala—let these things, as the matters least disputed concerning the Indus, be set down by me also.

4.2. For the Hydaspes also, and the Acesines, and the Hydraotes, and the Hyphasis, which are likewise Indian rivers, far surpass the other rivers of Asia in magnitude, but are smaller than the Indus, and indeed much smaller, just as the Indus itself is smaller than the Ganges. Ctesias—if Ctesias too be a sufficient authority for proof—says that where the Indus is narrowest its banks are forty stades apart, and where widest a hundred; and that for the most part its width is between these two.

4.3. This river, the Indus, Alexander crossed at dawn with his army into the land of the Indians. Concerning these Indians I have not recorded in this history either what laws they use, nor what strange animals, if any, the country produces, nor what fish or sea-monsters, in number or kind, the Indus or Hydaspes or Ganges or the other Indian rivers bear; nor the ants that work gold for them, nor the gold-guarding griffins, nor whatever else has been composed rather for delight than for the narration of facts—since whatever absurdities men tell concerning the Indians will not be refuted by anyone.

4.4. But Alexander and those who campaigned with him refuted most of these things, save where they themselves invented falsehoods. They proved that the Indians possess no gold—those at least whom Alexander overran with his army, and he overran many—and that they live in no way luxuriously, but are great of body, the greatest of the peoples of Asia, most of them five cubits in height or little short of it, and darker than other men except the Ethiopians, and in war by far the most valiant of the dwellers in Asia of that time.

4.5. For as to the Persians of old, with whom Cyrus son of Cambyses set out and took from the Medes the empire of Asia, subduing some other nations and holding others that came over to him willingly, I cannot accurately compare them with the Indians. For the Persians of that day were poor and inhabitants of a rugged country, and their customs were as near as could be to the Spartan discipline. And the disaster that befell the Persians in the land of the Scythians—this too I cannot accurately judge, whether it happened because they were caught in difficult ground, or through some other fault of Cyrus, or because the Persians were inferior in war to the Scythians of those parts.

5.1. But concerning the Indians I shall write separately, setting down whatever is most trustworthy for a narrative—what was recorded both by those who campaigned with Alexander and by Nearchus, who sailed round the part of the great sea that lies by the Indians, and besides whatever Megasthenes and Eratosthenes, men of repute, set down in writing—both what customs the Indians have, and whether any strange animals are bred there, and the coastal voyage itself along the outer sea.

5.2. But for the present let only so much be recorded by me as seemed sufficient for the deeds of Alexander. The mountain Taurus shuts off Asia, beginning from Mycale, the mountain opposite the island Samos, and cutting off the land of the Pamphylians and Cilicians; thence it extends as far as Armenia, and from the Armenians toward Media past the Parthians and Chorasmians, and at the Bactrians it joins the mountain Paropamisus—

5.3. which the Macedonians who campaigned with Alexander called Caucasus, as is said in order to magnify Alexander's deeds, that Alexander might be held to have come, conquering by arms, even beyond the Caucasus. But perhaps this mountain does in fact run continuously with the other, the Scythian Caucasus, just as the Taurus does with this same range. And I myself have on an earlier occasion called this mountain Caucasus on these grounds, and it shall be called by this name hereafter also;

5.4. and this Caucasus extends as far as the great sea toward the east and the Indians. Now the rivers of Asia that are worthy of mention, rising from the Taurus and the Caucasus, some have their waters turned northward, and of these some discharge into the lake Maeotis, and others into the sea called Hyrcanian, which is itself a gulf of the great sea;

5.5. and others turn toward the south wind—such are the Euphrates and the Tigris and the Indus and the Hydaspes and Acesines and Hydraotes and Hyphasis, and all those rivers between these and the Ganges, which likewise empty into the sea, or, spreading out into marshes, disappear, just as the river Euphrates disappears.

6.1. For one who holds that Asia is thus divided by the Taurus and the Caucasus from the west wind toward the east, two greatest portions of Asia are made by this very Taurus: the one inclining toward midday and the south wind, the other toward the north and the wind Boreas.

6.2. And as to the part of Asia toward the south, which is again divided into four parts, Eratosthenes and Megasthenes make the greatest portion the land of the Indians—Megasthenes, who lived with Sibyrtius the satrap of Arachosia, and who says he often visited Sandracottus the king of the Indians—and the smallest the part that the river Euphrates shuts off toward our inner sea. The two parts shut off between the river Euphrates and the Indus, the two taken together, are scarcely worth comparing with the land of the Indians.

6.3. The country of the Indians is bounded toward the east and the east wind, as far as the south, by the great sea; on its northern side the mountain Caucasus bounds it as far as its junction with the Taurus; and on the west, toward the wind Iapyx and as far as the great sea, the river Indus cuts it off. The greater part of it is plain, and this, as men conjecture, has been silted up by the rivers. For indeed,

6.4. in other lands too, those plains which lie not far from the sea are for the most part the work of the rivers in each region; and so from of old the country has taken its name from the rivers, just as there is said to be a plain of the Hermus, which, rising in Asia from the mountain of the Mother Dindymene, empties into the sea by the Aeolian city of Smyrna; and another, of the Cayster, a Lydian plain named from a Lydian river; and another of the Caicus in Mysia; and the Carian plain of the Maeander, as far as the Ionian city of Miletus.

6.5. As for Egypt, Herodotus and Hecataeus the chroniclers—or, if the work on the land of Egypt is by someone other than Hecataeus—both alike name it a gift of the river; and that this is so has been shown by Herodotus by no obscure proofs, so that the very land may perhaps be named after the river. For that the river was anciently called Aegyptus, the river which now both the Egyptians and men outside Egypt name the Nile, Homer is a sufficient witness, saying that Menelaus moored his ships at the mouth of the river Aegyptus.

6.6. If, then, a single river in each region, and these no great rivers, are able to make much land as they pour into the sea, when they carry down mud and silt from the upper places where their sources are, then surely it is not worth disbelieving concerning the land of the Indians that its greater part is plain, and that it holds this plain silted up by the rivers.

6.7. For the Hermus and the Cayster and the Caicus and the Maeander, and all the many rivers of Asia that empty into this inner sea, are not, even all taken together, worth comparing with one of the Indian rivers for the abundance of their water—still less with the Ganges, the greatest, with which neither the water of the Egyptian Nile nor the Ister that flows in Europe is worthy to be compared;

6.8. nay, not even all those rivers together, mingled into one, come to equal the river Indus, which rises great straightway from its sources, and after receiving fifteen rivers, all greater than the rivers of Asia, and prevailing over them in name, so empties into the sea. Let this much be said by me for the present concerning the country of the Indians; the rest shall be reserved for my Indian treatise. But as to how the bridge over the river Indus

7.1. was made by Alexander, neither Aristobulus nor Ptolemy—whom I chiefly follow—tells; nor can I myself accurately conjecture whether the passage was bridged with boats, as the Hellespont was by Xerxes, and the Bosporus and the Ister by Darius, or whether a continuous bridge was built across the river. But it seems to me that it was rather bridged with boats; for the depth of the water would not have admitted a bridge, nor could so strange a work have been completed in so short a time.

7.2. But if the passage was bridged with boats, whether the ships were lashed together with cables and moored in a row to make the bridge, as Herodotus says the Hellespont was bridged, or in the manner in which a bridge is made by the Romans over the river Ister and over the Celtic Rhine, and as often as necessity compelled them they bridged the Euphrates and the Tigris—this too I cannot determine.

7.3. Yet the swiftest bridging that I know of is that made by the Romans by means of ships, and this I will describe in the present passage, since it is worthy of mention. The ships are let go downstream at a signal, not bows foremost, but as though backing water. These the current, as is natural, carries down, but a light vessel under oars holds each one until it is set in its appointed place; and there at once wicker baskets of withies, pyramid-shaped and full of selected stones, are let down from the prow of each ship, to hold the ship against the current.

7.4. As soon as one of the ships has been held fast, another, distant from it just so far as is proportionate to the strength of the timbers to be laid across, is moored with its bows facing the stream; and from both, beams are quickly laid in a straight line, and planks athwart to bind them together. And so the work proceeds through all the ships, as many as are sufficient to bridge the passage.

7.5. On either side of the bridge ladders are thrust forward and fixed down, so that the approach may be safer for the horses and the teams, and at the same time so that they may serve as a binding for the bridge. The whole is completed in a short time and amid much uproar; yet good order is not absent from what is done, and the encouragements, as they happen, ship by ship, and the rebukes for slackness, take nothing away either from the hearing of the commands or from the swiftness of the work.

8.1. By the Romans, then, these things have from of old been thus practised. But how the river Indus was bridged by Alexander I cannot say, since even those who campaigned with him did not say. But it seems to me that it was bridged as nearly as possible in this fashion; or, if by some other contrivance, let it stand thus.

8.2. When he had crossed beyond the river Indus, there too Alexander again sacrificed according to custom. Setting out from the Indus he came to Taxila, a great and prosperous city, the greatest of those between the river Indus and the Hydaspes. Taxiles the governor of the city, and the Indians of those parts themselves, received him in friendly fashion; and Alexander added to them as much of the bordering territory as they desired.

8.3. There too there came to him envoys from Abisares, king of the mountain Indians, namely the brother of Abisares and others with him, the most reputable men, and others from Doxares the local ruler, bearing gifts. And again Alexander sacrificed at Taxila as was his custom, and held a contest of athletics and horsemanship. And appointing Philip son of Machatas satrap of the Indians of those parts, he left a garrison at Taxila and the soldiers who were no longer fit for war through sickness; and he himself led on toward the river Hydaspes.

8.4. For it was reported to him that beyond the Hydaspes Porus was awaiting him with his whole army, resolved either to bar him from the passage or to fall upon him as he crossed. When Alexander learned this, he sent Coenus son of Polemocrates back to the river Indus, with orders to cut up the boats which had been prepared for him at the crossing of the Indus, and to carry them to the river Hydaspes.

8.5. So the boats were cut up and brought to him—the shorter ones cut into two pieces, the thirty-oared galleys into three—and the pieces were carried on wagons to the bank of the Hydaspes, and there put together again, so that a fleet was once more seen assembled on the Hydaspes. And he himself, taking up the force with which he had come to Taxila, and five thousand of the Indians whom Taxiles and the governors of those parts led, marched toward the river Hydaspes.

9.1. So Alexander encamped on the bank of the Hydaspes, and Porus was seen on the opposite bank with his whole army and his throng of elephants. At the point where he saw Alexander encamped, Porus himself stayed and guarded the crossing; but to the other places of the river that were more easily fordable he sent off detachments, setting commanders over each, and so planned to bar the Macedonians from the passage.

9.2. Seeing this, Alexander thought that he too must keep his army moving about in many directions, so that Porus might be left in doubt. Dividing the army into many parts, he himself led some of them now this way and now that through the country, plundering what was hostile and observing where the river might appear more easily passable for him; others he assigned to different commanders and sent about in many directions.

9.3. Grain was brought together to the camp from every part of the country on the near side of the Hydaspes, so that it should be plain to Porus that Alexander was resolved to hold persistently to the bank until the water of the river, growing less in winter, should in many places yield him the passage. His boats too, sailing along now here, now there, and the skins stuffed with chaff, and the whole bank seen to be full, in one place of cavalry, in another of infantry, did not allow Porus to rest, nor to fix upon any one point as suitable for guarding and prepare to defend that out of all.

9.4. Besides, at that time all the Indian rivers ran with much turbid water and a swift current; for it was the season of the year when the sun turns most after the summer solstice. At this season torrents of water are carried down from heaven upon the Indian land, and the snows of the Caucasus, where the sources of most of the rivers are, melting, swell their water greatly; but in winter, on the contrary, they hold back and become small, and clear to look upon, and in places fordable, except the Indus and the Ganges and perhaps some other; but the Hydaspes at least becomes passable.

10.1. This season of the year, then, Alexander openly declared that he would wait for, if he were barred in the meantime; but none the less he stayed lying in wait, in case he might somewhere secretly snatch the passage swiftly. At the point where Porus himself had encamped beside the bank of the Hydaspes, he recognised that he was unable to cross, because of the multitude of the elephants and because a great army, itself drawn up and accurately armed, was likely to fall upon his men as they came ashore;

10.2. and he thought that the horses would not consent even to set foot on the farther bank, the elephants at once pressing upon them and frightening them both by their sight and by their cry, nor even to stay before that upon the skins during the passage, but, catching sight of the elephants across the river, would leap into the water and become frenzied.

10.3. He therefore planned to steal the crossing, acting in this way. By night he led the greater part of his cavalry now to one part of the bank, now to another, and made a shouting and raised the war-cry to Enyalius, and made every kind of uproar such as men make when preparing to cross. And Porus would move along opposite the shouting, bringing up his elephants; and Alexander accustomed him to this counter-marching.

10.4. When this had gone on for a long time, and there was only shouting and the war-cry, Porus no longer moved in answer to the sallies of the cavalry, but, recognising the alarm to be empty, stayed in his place at the camp; yet he had set scouts at many points of the bank. And Alexander, when he had made Porus' mind fearless concerning the nightly attempts, contrived something of this sort.

11.1. There was a headland jutting out from the bank of the Hydaspes, where the river bent round in a marked fashion; the headland itself was thickly wooded with all kinds of trees, and over against it there was an island in the river, woody and untrodden because of its desolation. Marking this island opposite the headland—both places wooded, and such as to conceal the attempt at crossing—he resolved to take his army across at that point.

11.2. The headland and the island are about a hundred and fifty stades distant from the great camp. Along the whole bank he had set guards, at intervals just sufficient for them to see one another and easily to hear from what quarter any order was passed; and from every side, for many nights, there were shoutings by night and fires were kindled.

11.3. When he had resolved to attempt the passage, in the camp itself his preparations for the crossing were made openly. Craterus had been left behind at the camp, having his own hipparchy and the horsemen from the Arachotians and Paropamisadae, and of the phalanx of the Macedonians the battalions of Alcetas and Polyperchon, and the local rulers of the Indians on the near side, and with them the five thousand.

11.4. Craterus had been ordered not to cross the passage until Porus had moved off with his force against Alexander, or until he should learn that Porus was in flight and that they themselves were victorious. "But if Porus take part of his army and lead it against me, while part is left behind with him at the camp, and elephants, then do you all the same stay in your place. But if Porus lead all the elephants with him against me, and leave some part of the rest of his army at the camp, then do you cross with all speed; for the elephants alone," he said, "are hard to deal with against horses coming ashore, but the rest of the army is easy."

12.1. These were his orders to Craterus. In the space between the island and the great camp, where Craterus had been left, Meleager and Attalus and Gorgias had been posted with the mercenary horse and foot; and these were ordered to cross by detachments, dividing the army, whenever they should see the Indians already engaged in the battle.

12.2. He himself, choosing the guard of the Companions and the hipparchy of Hephaestion and that of Perdiccas and Demetrius, and the horsemen from Bactria and Sogdiana and the Scythian horse, and the Daae mounted archers, and of the phalanx the shield-bearers and the battalion of Clitus and Coenus, and the archers and the Agrianians, led them secretly far from the bank, so as not to be seen leading them toward the island and the headland, whence he had resolved to cross.

12.3. There, during the night, the skins were filled with chaff—they had been brought up long before—and were sewn together with care; and a violent rain came on by night. By this the more was his preparation and his attempt at the crossing kept from being apparent, since the clash of arms and the uproar from the words of command were answered by the noise of the thunder and the downpour.

12.4. Most of the boats, cut up, had been carried to this place, and were again secretly put together and hidden in the wood, the thirty-oared galleys among them. Toward dawn both the wind and the rain were lulled. And the rest of his army, the cavalry, having gone aboard the skins, and as many of the infantry as the boats would hold, crossed over by the island, so as not to be seen by the scouts set by Porus before they had passed the island and were now little distant from the bank.

13.1. He himself, going aboard a thirty-oared galley, crossed over, and with him Ptolemy and Perdiccas and Lysimachus the bodyguards, and Seleucus of the Companions, who afterward became king, and half of the shield-bearers; the other shield-bearers other thirty-oared galleys carried. When the army had passed the island, they now made openly for the bank; and the scouts, catching sight of their movement, rode off to Porus as fast as each man's horse could carry him.

13.2. Meanwhile Alexander, having himself first landed and taken up the men from the other galleys, drew up the horsemen as they continually came ashore. For the cavalry had been ordered to land first; and leading these forward he advanced in order. But it escaped his notice, through ignorance of the ground, that he had landed not on solid land, but upon an island—itself a large one, by which very fact it more readily escaped his notice that it was an island—cut off from the rest of the land by no great depth of water.

13.3. And meanwhile the rain, violent and lasting for much of the night, had swollen the water, so that his cavalry could not find the ford, and there was fear that he would need yet another effort for the crossing, equal to the first. But when at length the ford was found, he led across by it with difficulty; for the water, where it was deepest, was above the breasts of the infantry, and of the horses only the heads rose above the river.

13.4. When this water too had been passed, he led to the right wing the guard of the cavalry and the best men chosen from the other hipparchies; the mounted archers he posted in front of all the horse; of the infantry he placed first the royal shield-bearers, whom Seleucus led, next to the cavalry; after these the royal guard; next to these the other shield-bearers, as the several commands then fell out; and at the wings of the phalanx the archers and the Agrianians and the javelin-men stood on either side. Having thus drawn up his foot-soldiers in order,

14.1. he ordered them to follow at a walk, being not much short of six thousand; and he himself, since he thought himself superior in cavalry, took only the horsemen and led on at speed, being about five thousand. And he ordered Tauron the captain of the archers to bring up the bowmen too in support of the cavalry, and that with speed.

14.2. He had formed this judgement: that if Porus' men should engage him with their whole force, he would either overcome them without difficulty by charging with the cavalry, or at least fight them off until the infantry should come up in the action; but if the Indians, dismayed at the daring of the crossing—which had proved so strange—should flee, he would press them close in their flight, so that, the slaughter in their retreat being the greater, but little of the work would still be left for him.

14.3. Aristobulus says that the son of Porus came up with about sixty chariots before Alexander made his last crossing from the small island; and that he could have barred Alexander from the crossing, difficult as it was even with none to bar it, had the Indians leaped down from their chariots and attacked the first of those coming ashore; but that he passed by with his chariots and made the crossing safe for Alexander; and that Alexander sent the mounted archers against them, and they were routed without difficulty, taking wounds.

14.4. Others say that there was even a battle at the landing between the Indians who had come with the son of Porus and Alexander with the horsemen with him; that the son of Porus came up with a larger force, and that Alexander himself was wounded by him, and that his horse Bucephalas was killed, the horse most dear to Alexander, this too wounded by the son of Porus. But Ptolemy son of Lagus, with whom I too agree, tells it otherwise.

14.5. For he too says that the son was sent out by Porus, but not leading only sixty chariots. For it was not likely that Porus, hearing from his scouts that either Alexander himself had crossed the passage of the Hydaspes or some part at least of the army, should send out his own son with only sixty chariots;

14.6. these, regarded as sent for reconnaissance, were too many and not light enough for retreat, but regarded as for barring those of the enemy not yet across and for attacking those already landed, were by no means a match in battle. But he says that the son of Porus came up leading two thousand horsemen and a hundred and twenty chariots; and that Alexander had already crossed even the last passage from the island before he arrived.

15.1. Against these Ptolemy too says that Alexander at first sent out the mounted archers, and himself led on the horsemen, thinking that Porus was advancing with his whole force, and that this cavalry, posted in front, was advancing before the rest of the army.

15.2. But when he learned accurately the number of the Indians, then he fell sharply upon them with the cavalry about him; and they gave way, when they saw Alexander himself and the throng of horsemen about him charging not in line but by squadrons. Of these about four hundred horsemen fell, and the son of Porus also fell; and the chariots, horses and all, were taken, having become heavy in the retreat, and in the action itself made useless by the mud.

15.3. Porus, when those of his horsemen who escaped from the rout reported to him that Alexander himself had crossed with the strongest part of his army, and that his son had perished in the battle, became even so divided in mind, because the men left behind with Craterus opposite the great camp were seen attempting the crossing;

15.4. but he chose, none the less, to march against Alexander himself with his whole army, and to fight it out against the strongest part of the Macedonians and the king himself. Yet even so he left a few of the elephants with a small force there at the camp, to frighten the cavalry of Craterus from the bank. He himself, taking up all his cavalry, about four thousand horsemen, and all his chariots, three hundred in number, and two hundred of his elephants, and of the infantry whatever was serviceable, about thirty thousand, marched against Alexander.

15.5. When he came upon a place where there seemed to him no mud, but the whole was level and firm ground, by reason of the sand, for the charges and wheelings of the horses, there he drew up his army: first the elephants in front, each elephant distant from the next not less than a plethron, so that the elephants might be extended in front of the whole phalanx of the infantry and might everywhere strike fear into the cavalry of Alexander.

15.6. Besides, he did not suppose that any of the enemy would venture to push into the intervals between the elephants—neither with horses, because of the horses' fear, nor still less on foot; for they would be checked in front by the men-at-arms charging, and trampled when the elephants turned upon them.

15.7. Next to these his infantry had been posted, not holding a front equal to the beasts, but in a second front behind the elephants, the companies thrust forward a little into the intervals. And he had infantry stationed at the wings too, beyond the elephants; and on either side of the infantry his cavalry was posted, and in front of this the chariots on either side.

16.1. Such was Porus' array. Alexander, when he now saw the Indians drawing up, halted his cavalry from advancing further, so as to take up the infantry as they continually came on. When the phalanx too, having joined him at a run, was now together, he did not at once draw it up and lead it on, so as not to deliver it, worn out and panting, to the barbarians who were fresh, but, riding round in circles, he rested the foot-soldiers until their spirit was restored to them.

16.2. When he had observed the array of the Indians—in the centre, where the elephants had been thrust forward and the dense phalanx had been posted in the intervals between them, he resolved not to advance, shrinking from those very things which Porus, reckoning, had arranged there; but he himself, since he was superior in cavalry, took up the greater part of the horse and rode along toward the left wing of the enemy, intending to attack there.

16.3. Coenus he sent toward the right, with the hipparchy of Demetrius and his own, ordering him, as soon as the barbarians, seeing the body of cavalry opposite them, should ride out to meet it, to keep close behind them. The phalanx of the infantry he ordered Seleucus and Antigenes and Tauron to lead, but not to engage in the action before they saw both the phalanx of the infantry and the cavalry thrown into confusion by the horse about himself.

16.4. He was now within bowshot, and let loose against the left wing of the Indians the mounted archers, about a thousand in number, to throw into confusion those of the enemy stationed there by the density of the arrows and the charge of the horses. And he himself, with the Companion cavalry, rode sharply along toward the left of the barbarians, making haste to fall upon them in the flank while still confused, before their cavalry could be deployed into line.

17.1. Meanwhile the Indians, having gathered their horsemen together from every quarter, rode along beside Alexander, moving out to meet his charge; and Coenus' men, as had been ordered, appeared behind them. Seeing this, the Indians were forced to make their cavalry array double-fronted, the greater and stronger part toward Alexander, while the rest wheeled toward Coenus and those with him.

17.2. This at once threw the ranks and the resolution of the Indians into confusion; and Alexander, seeing his opportunity in the very wheeling of their cavalry to the other side, fell upon those facing him, so that the Indians did not even await the charge of Alexander's horsemen, but were driven back upon the elephants as upon some friendly wall.

17.3. And at this the keepers of the elephants brought the beasts up against the cavalry, and the phalanx itself of the Macedonians advanced against the elephants, hurling javelins at their riders and striking the beasts themselves all round, standing about them on every side. And the action was like none of the former battles; for the beasts, charging out into the ranks of the infantry, wherever they turned, made havoc, dense though the Macedonian phalanx was; and the Indian horsemen, seeing the action of the infantry locked together, wheeled about again and themselves too charged the cavalry.

17.4. But when Alexander's men again mastered them, being far superior in strength and in skill, they were once more driven back upon the elephants. And by this time all Alexander's cavalry was gathered into a single squadron—not by order, but having in the very contest fallen into this formation—and wherever it fell upon the ranks of the Indians, these were broken with great slaughter.

17.5. The beasts being by now penned into a narrow space, their friends were harmed by them no less than their enemies, trampled in the wheelings and the thrustings. Of the cavalry, then, crowded as they were in the narrow space about the elephants, there was great slaughter; and the leaders of the elephants had for the most part been struck down with javelins; and the elephants themselves, some wounded, others through their toils and the lack of leaders, were no longer kept apart in the battle,

17.6. but, frenzied as it were by their suffering, bearing down alike on friends and foes, in every way thrust and trampled and slew. But the Macedonians, being in open ground and dealing with the beasts according to their own judgement, gave way wherever they charged, and held to them, hurling javelins, when they turned away; while the Indians, retreating among them, were now for the most part harmed by these very beasts.

17.7. When the beasts were worn out, and their charges no longer vigorous, but, using only a shrill trumpeting, they backed away like ships backing water, then Alexander himself threw his cavalry in a ring round the whole array, and signalled to the infantry, locking shields into the closest possible formation, to bring up the phalanx. And thus the cavalry of the Indians, save a few, were cut down in the action; and the infantry too were being cut down, the Macedonians now pressing upon them from every side. And at this, wherever Alexander's cavalry opened a way, all turned to flight.

18.1. At the same time Craterus and the other commanders who had been left behind of Alexander's army on the bank of the Hydaspes, when they saw Alexander winning a brilliant victory, crossed the passage themselves also. And these made no less slaughter in the retreat of the Indians, coming up fresh, in place of Alexander's wearied men, for the pursuit.

18.2. Of the Indians there died of the infantry little short of twenty thousand, and of cavalry about three thousand; all the chariots were cut to pieces; and two sons of Porus died, and Spitaces the local ruler of the Indians of those parts, and the commanders of the elephants and chariots, and the cavalry-leaders and the generals of Porus' army, all of them. And the elephants were taken, as many of them as did not die on the spot.

18.3. Of Alexander's men there died of the infantry, out of the six thousand who were in the first attack, about eighty at most; of cavalry, of the mounted archers, who indeed first began the action, ten; of the Companion cavalry about twenty; and of the other horsemen about two hundred.

18.4. Porus, having performed great deeds in the battle, not as a general only but as a noble soldier, when he saw the slaughter of his cavalry, and his elephants, some fallen on the spot, others wandering troublesome and bereft of their leaders, and most of his infantry destroyed, did not retire, as Darius the great king led off in flight those about him, but, so long as any body of the Indians held together in the battle, he kept up the fight to the end;

18.5. but being wounded in the right shoulder, which alone he kept bare in the battle as he moved about—for from the rest of his body the breastplate warded off the missiles, being extraordinary both in its strength and in its fitting, as those who afterward saw it could perceive—then at last he too retired, turning his elephant about.

18.6. And Alexander, having seen him a great and noble man in the battle, desired to save him. So he first sent to him Taxiles the Indian; and Taxiles, riding up as near as seemed safe to the elephant that carried Porus, begged him to halt the beast, since it was no longer possible for him to flee, and to hear the words from Alexander.

18.7. But Porus, seeing in Taxiles a man who was his enemy of old, wheeled round and made ready to throw his javelin; and perhaps he would have killed him, had not the other forestalled him and driven his horse away from Porus. Yet not even at this was Alexander harsh toward Porus, but he sent others in turn, and in particular Meroes, an Indian, since he had learned that Meroes was a friend of old to Porus. And Porus, when he heard the message from Meroes, and was at the same time overcome by thirst, halted his elephant and dismounted from it; and when he had drunk and revived, he bade Meroes lead him with all speed to Alexander.

19.1. So he was led; and Alexander, when he learned that he was approaching, rode out before his lines with a few of the Companions and met Porus. Halting his horse, he marvelled at his stature—being above five cubits, it would seem—and at the beauty of Porus, and that he appeared not enslaved in spirit, but came forward as a brave man might to a brave man, having fought nobly for his own kingdom against another king.

19.2. Then indeed Alexander, addressing him first, bade him say what he wished to be done with him. Porus, the story goes, answered: "Treat me, O Alexander, as a king." And Alexander, pleased with the word, said: "This shall be done for you, Porus, for my own sake; but for your own sake ask whatever is dear to you." But Porus said that all was contained in that one thing.

19.3. And Alexander, pleased still more with this word, both gave Porus the rule over these same Indians, and added still another country to the one he had of old, larger than the former; and thus he himself had dealt royally with a brave man, and from that time used him as faithful in all things. This was the end that befell, for Alexander, the battle against Porus and the Indians beyond the river Hydaspes, in the archonship of Hegemon at Athens, in the month Munychion.

19.4. Where the battle took place, and whence he had set out to cross the river Hydaspes, Alexander founded cities. The one he named Nicaea, after his victory over the Indians; the other Bucephala, in memory of the horse Bucephalas, which died there, struck down by no one,

19.5. but worn out by heat and old age—for he was about thirty years old—having shared many toils and dangers with Alexander, and mounted by Alexander alone (this Bucephalas), since he disdained all other riders; great in size and noble in spirit. He had as a mark the head of an ox engraved upon him, on account of which they say he bore this name; but others say that he had a white mark on his head, being himself black, very like the head of an ox.

19.6. This horse was lost to Alexander in the country of the Uxians, and Alexander proclaimed throughout the country that he would put all the Uxians to death if they did not bring back the horse to him; and the horse was at once brought back upon the proclamation. So great was Alexander's regard for him, and so great the barbarians' fear of Alexander. And let this Bucephalas be honoured so far by me, for Alexander's sake.

20.1. When Alexander had laid out with fitting honour those who had died in the battle, he sacrificed to the gods the customary thank-offerings for victory, and held a contest of athletics and horsemanship there on the bank of the Hydaspes, at the place where he had first crossed with his army.

20.2. Craterus, then, with part of the army, was left behind to raise up and wall round the cities which he was founding in those parts; and Alexander himself marched against the Indians bordering on the realm of Porus. The name of the nation was the Glauganicae, as Aristobulus says, or, as Ptolemy says, the Glausae. In which way the name stands does not concern me.

20.3. Alexander overran their country, taking half of the Companion cavalry, and picked men of the infantry from each phalanx, and all the mounted archers, and the Agrianians and the bowmen; and they all came over to him by agreement.

20.4. And he took as many as thirty-seven cities, of which those that had the fewest inhabitants had not fewer than five thousand, and many had even more than ten thousand; and he took villages many in number and well-peopled, no less than the cities. And the rule of this country he gave to Porus. He also reconciled Porus with Taxiles, and sent Taxiles back to his own home.

20.5. Meanwhile envoys came from Abisares, surrendering Abisares himself to Alexander and the country he ruled. And yet before the battle against Porus, Abisares had purposed to range himself together with Porus; but now he sent his own brother with the other envoys to Alexander, bringing money and forty elephants as a gift to Alexander.

20.6. There came too envoys from the independent Indians to Alexander, and from another Porus, a governor of the Indians. Alexander bade Abisares come to him with all speed, threatening that, if he did not come, he should see him coming with his army where he would not be glad to see him.

20.7. Meanwhile Phrataphernes, the satrap of the Parthians and of Hyrcania, came to Alexander leading the Thracians who had been left with him; and there came messengers from Sisicottus the satrap of the Assacenians, that the Assacenians had killed their governor and revolted from Alexander. Against these Alexander sent out Philip and Tyriespis with an army, to set in order and arrange the affairs of the Assacenian country.

20.8. He himself advanced toward the river Acesines. Of this Acesines alone among the Indian rivers Ptolemy son of Lagus recorded the size: he says that where Alexander crossed it on the boats and the skins with his army, the current of the Acesines was swift among great and sharp rocks, over which the water, borne down violently, swelled and foamed; and that its breadth measured fifteen stades.

20.9. For those crossing on the skins the passage was easy, but of those crossing in the boats not a few perished there in the water, many boats running aground upon the rocks and being dashed to pieces.

20.10. From this account, then, one might in reasoning conclude that the size of the river Indus has not been recorded far from the truth—by those who hold the Indus to be forty stades in breadth where it is of middling width, but where it is narrowest and, by its narrowness, deepest, to be contracted to fifteen; and that this is so in many places of the Indus. For I infer too that Alexander chose to cross the Acesines where its passage was widest, so as to use a slower current.

21.1. Having crossed the river, he left Coenus there with his own battalion on the bank, with orders to take charge of the crossing of the part of the army left behind, who were to bring across to him the grain from the country of the Indians already subject, and the other supplies.

21.2. Porus he sent back to his own home, bidding him pick out the most warlike of the Indians, and any elephants he had with him, and, taking these up, come to him. He himself purposed to pursue, with the lightest part of his army, the other Porus, the bad one, since it was reported that he had fled, abandoning the country he ruled.

21.3. For this Porus, so long as he was at war with Alexander on the side against the other Porus, had sent envoys to Alexander surrendering both himself and the country under him to Alexander—rather out of enmity toward Porus than friendship toward Alexander; but when he learned that the other had been released and was ruling, in addition to his own, over much other territory, then indeed, taking fright, not so much at Alexander as at that namesake Porus, he fled, taking up his own people, as many of the warriors as he could persuade to share his flight.

21.4. Marching against this man, Alexander came to the river Hydraotes, another of the Indian rivers, in breadth not less than the Acesines, but less in swiftness of current. Over as much of the country as he advanced up to the Hydraotes, he left garrisons in the most important places, so that Craterus and Coenus might pass through the country in safety, foraging over the greater part of it.

21.5. There he sent off Hephaestion, giving him part of the army—two battalions of infantry, and of cavalry his own hipparchy and that of Demetrius, and half of the bowmen—into the country of the Porus who had revolted, bidding him hand it over to the other Porus, and, if any independent nations of the Indians dwelt by the banks of the river Hydraotes, to bring these too over and put them into Porus' charge to rule. He himself crossed the river Hydraotes, not with difficulty as he had the Acesines.

21.6. As he advanced beyond the bank of the Hydraotes, it fell out that the most part came over by agreement, but already some met him in arms; and others who tried to escape he took by force and subdued.

22.1. Meanwhile it was reported to Alexander that of the independent Indians certain others, and those called the Cathaeans in particular, were themselves preparing for battle, in case Alexander should advance against their country, and that they were calling to the same enterprise such of the neighbouring nations as were likewise independent;

22.2. and that the city beside which they purposed to fight was strong—Sangala was the city's name—and that the Cathaeans themselves were reckoned most daring and best in war; and like to them in this were the Oxydracae, another Indian nation, and the Malli, another also; since but a little while before, when Porus and Abisares had campaigned against them with their own forces, and had stirred up many other nations of the independent Indians, it fell out that they departed having done nothing worthy of their preparation.

22.3. When this was reported to Alexander, he marched with all speed against the Cathaeans. On the second day from the river Hydraotes he came to a city whose name was Pimprama; the nation of these Indians were called the Adraïstae. These came over to Alexander by agreement.

22.4. And Alexander, having rested the army on the next day, on the third advanced to Sangala, where the Cathaeans and the others, their neighbours, having come together, were drawn up in battle order before the city upon a hill not everywhere precipitous; and round the hill they had set wagons in a circle, and encamped within them, so that a triple stockade was thrown up before the wagons.

22.5. Alexander, seeing the multitude of the barbarians and the nature of the ground, drew up his men as seemed to him most suited to the circumstances; and the mounted archers he sent out at once against them, just as they were, bidding them ride along and skirmish, so that the Indians might make no sally before the army was drawn up for him, and that they might suffer blows even before the battle within their stronghold.

22.6. He himself set on the right wing of the cavalry the guard and the hipparchy of Clitus, next to these the shield-bearers, and upon these the Agrianians; on the left Perdiccas had been posted for him, having his own hipparchy and the battalions of the foot-companions; and on either wing his bowmen, divided in two, were stationed.

22.7. As he was drawing up, the infantry and cavalry from the rear-guard also came up. Of these he divided the cavalry to the wings and led them out; and from the foot-soldiers who had come up he made the close formation of the phalanx denser, and himself, taking up the cavalry stationed on the right, led it round to the wagons on the left of the Indians. For there the ground seemed to him more easy of approach, and the wagons were not stationed so densely.

23.1. When, the cavalry advancing, the Indians did not run out beyond the wagons, but mounting upon them skirmished from above, Alexander, recognising that this was no work for cavalry, leaped down from his horse and led on the phalanx of the infantry on foot.

23.2. From the first wagons the Macedonians forced the Indians without difficulty; but before the second line the Indians, drawn up, defended themselves more easily, being posted more densely in a smaller circle, and the Macedonians not advancing against them with the same room as before; for the Indians were drawing off the first wagons, and through the gaps between them attacked, in disorder, as each found opening. But from these too the Indians were thrust out, forced by the phalanx.

23.3. They no longer stood by the third line, but, as fast as they could, fled and shut themselves up in the city. And Alexander on that day encamped his infantry round the city, so far as the phalanx was able to encompass it; for the wall extended too far for him to be able to ring it round with his camp.

23.4. But at the gaps in it, where there was a lake not far from the wall, he posted the cavalry round the lake, recognising that the lake was not deep, and at the same time conjecturing that the Indians, grown fearful from their former defeat, would abandon the city in the night.

23.5. And it fell out as he conjectured; for about the second watch the most of them, slipping out from the wall, ran into the outposts of the cavalry; and the first of them were cut down by the horsemen, but those behind, perceiving that the lake was guarded round about, withdrew again into the city.

23.6. Alexander then surrounded the city with a double stockade where the lake did not bar it, and set more careful guards round the lake. He himself purposed to bring up engines against the wall, to shake it down. But some deserters from the city told him that the Indians had it in mind, that very night, to slip out of the city by the lake, where the gap in the stockade was.

23.7. He thereupon stationed Ptolemy son of Lagus at that point, giving him three chiliarchies of the shield-bearers and all the Agrianians and one battalion of the bowmen, and pointing out the place where he most conjectured the barbarians would force their way. "And do you," he said, "when you perceive them forcing their way there, yourself with your force bar the barbarians from going forward, and bid the trumpeter give the signal; and you, gentlemen commanders, when the signal is given, go each with your own men, drawn up, to the uproar, wherever the trumpet calls. Nor will I myself hold back from the action."

24.1. Such were his orders. Ptolemy, gathering together as many as he could of the wagons left behind in the first flight, set them across at that point, so that many obstacles might appear in the night to those fleeing; and he ordered the stockade that had been cut but not driven in to be heaped up here and there in the space between the lake and the wall. And these things his soldiers accomplished for him in the night.

24.2. It was now about the fourth watch, and the barbarians, just as had been reported to Alexander, opening the gates toward the lake, ran down toward it at speed. But they did not escape the notice of the guards there, nor of Ptolemy who had been set over them; but at that moment the trumpeters gave him the signal, and he himself, with his force armed and drawn up, advanced against the barbarians.

24.3. To them both the wagons were in the way and the stockade thrown down between. And when the trumpet sounded and Ptolemy's men pressed upon them, cutting down those who continually came out through the wagons, then indeed they turned back again to the city. And there died of them in the retreat about five hundred.

24.4. Meanwhile Porus too arrived, leading the rest of his elephants with him, and about five thousand of the Indians; and the engines had been put together for Alexander, and were already being brought up to the wall. But the Macedonians, before any part of the wall was shaken down, undermining it themselves—for it was of brick—and setting the ladders against it on every side, took the city by storm.

24.5. There died in the capture about seventeen thousand of the Indians, and there were taken more than seventy thousand, and three hundred chariots and five hundred horses. Of Alexander's army there died little short of a hundred in the whole siege, but the wounded were not in proportion to the number of the dead, but more than twelve hundred; and among these were commanders, in particular Lysimachus the bodyguard.

24.6. Having buried the dead as was his custom, Alexander sent Eumenes the secretary to the two cities that had revolted along with Sangala, giving him about three hundred of the cavalry, to tell those who held the cities both of the capture of Sangala, and that nothing harsh would befall them from Alexander if they remained and received Alexander in friendly fashion; for indeed no harm had come to any others of the independent Indians who had given themselves up willingly.

24.7. But they—for it had already been reported to them that Sangala had been taken by storm by Alexander—grown fearful, fled, abandoning the cities. And Alexander, when their flight was reported to him, pursued with all speed; but the most of them got away in flight, since the pursuit was made over a long distance, while those who through weakness were left behind in the retreat, being caught by the army, perished, about five hundred at most.

24.8. When he gave up pursuing the fugitives further, he returned to Sangala and razed the city, but the country of the Indians he added to those who had of old been independent and now had willingly come over. And Porus, with the force about him, he sent off to the cities which had come over, to bring garrisons into them; while he himself with the army advanced toward the river Hyphasis, so as to subdue the Indians beyond it also. Nor did any limit of the war appear to him so long as any enemy was left.

25.1. The country beyond the Hyphasis was reported to be prosperous, and the men good workers of the soil, noble in war, and ordering their own private affairs in good order—for the many were ruled by the best, and these directed nothing outside of fairness; and the people of those parts had a multitude of elephants far above the other Indians, and these greatest in size and in courage.

25.2. These reports spurred Alexander to a longing to go further; but the Macedonians were now worn out in spirit, seeing their king take up toils upon toils and dangers upon dangers; and there were gatherings throughout the camp, of some lamenting their own lot—those most reasonable—and of others stoutly affirming that they would not follow, not even if Alexander led them. When Alexander learned this, before the disturbance and the despondency should advance still further among the soldiers, he called together the commanders of the battalions and spoke thus:

25.3. "Seeing you, men of Macedon and allies, no longer following me into dangers with the same spirit, I have gathered you together, that I may either persuade you and lead you forward, or be persuaded by you and turn back. If you find fault with the toils undergone up to this point, and with me as your leader, then there is nothing further for me to say.

25.4. But if through these toils Ionia is held by us, and the Hellespont, and both the Phrygias, and the Cappadocians, and the Paphlagonians, and the Lydians, and the Carians, and the Lycians; and Pamphylia too, and Phoenicia, and Egypt with Greek Libya; and parts of Arabia, and Syria, both the Hollow and that between the rivers;

25.5. and Babylon is held, and the nation of the Susians, and the Persians and the Medes, and all whom the Persians and Medes ruled, and all whom they did not rule—the lands beyond the Caspian Gates, the lands beyond the Caucasus, the Tanais, the lands still further beyond the Tanais, the Bactrians, the Hyrcanians, the Hyrcanian Sea; and we have driven back the Scythians as far as the desert—and besides all this the river Indus flows through our land, and the Hydaspes through our land, and the Acesines, and the Hydraotes—why do you shrink from adding the Hyphasis too, and the nations beyond the Hyphasis, to our empire of the Macedonians? Or do you fear that any other barbarians will not receive you as you advance?

25.6. Of whom some come over willingly, others are taken in flight, and others, escaping, hand over to us their country empty—which then is added to our allies and to those who have willingly come over.

26.1. "As for a limit of toils, to a noble man I myself think there is none, except the toils themselves, so far as they lead to fair deeds. But if anyone longs to hear, even in the matter of warring itself, what shall be the limit, let him learn that not much of the way remains for us, as far as the river Ganges and the eastern sea; and to this, I tell you, the Hyrcanian Sea will be seen to be joined; for the great sea flows round the whole earth.

26.2. And I will show to the Macedonians and the allies that the Indian gulf is one water with the Persian, and the Hyrcanian Sea with the Indian; and from the Persian gulf our fleet shall sail round to Libya, as far as the Pillars of Heracles; and from the Pillars all the inner Libya becomes ours, and so all Asia; and the boundaries of the empire there will be those which the god has made the boundaries of the earth.

26.3. But if we turn back now, many warlike nations are left behind, beyond the Hyphasis as far as the eastern sea, and many from these still further toward the Hyrcanian sea toward the north wind, and the Scythian nations not far from these; so that there is fear lest, if we go back, the lands now held, being not secure, may be roused to revolt by those not yet held.

26.4. And then our many toils will have been profitless, or there will be need of other toils and dangers from the beginning. But stand fast, men of Macedon and allies. To those who toil and dare belong fair deeds; it is sweet both to live with valour and to die leaving behind immortal renown.

26.5. Or do you not know that our ancestor came to such renown as to become a god from a man, or to be thought one, not by staying in Tiryns or Argos—nay, nor in the Peloponnese or Thebes? Nor were the toils of Dionysus few, though he is a more delicate god than Heracles. Yet we have come even beyond Nysa, and the rock Aornos, which was unassailable to Heracles, is held by us.

26.6. Do you then add the still-remaining parts of Asia to what is already won, and the few to the many. For what great and fair thing would have been accomplished by us, if, sitting in Macedonia, we had thought it enough without toil to keep safe our own home, beating back the Thracians on our borders, or the Illyrians, or the Triballians, or those of the Greeks who are not well-disposed toward us?

26.7. If, then, while you toiled and dared, I myself, leading you without toil and danger, had led you, not without reason would you have flagged in spirit beforehand, the toils being yours alone, while you won the prizes of them for others. But as it is, the toils are common to us, and we share equally in the dangers, and the prizes lie open for all.

26.8. The country is yours, and you are its satraps. And of the treasure the greater part comes now to you; and when we have traversed all Asia, then—not merely having filled you, by Zeus, but having surpassed whatever good things each man hopes shall be his—I will send home those who wish to depart to their own land, or will myself lead them back; and those who stay here I will make objects of envy to those who depart."

27.1. When Alexander had said this and the like, there was for a long time silence, the men neither daring to contradict the king outright, nor willing to consent. Meanwhile Alexander again and again bade whoever wished to speak, if any held views contrary to what he had said; yet even so the silence continued for a long while; until at length, taking courage, Coenus son of Polemocrates spoke thus:

27.2. "Since you yourself, O king, are unwilling to lead the Macedonians by command, but say that you will lead them by persuasion, and, if persuaded otherwise, will not use force, I will not make my speech on behalf of us here present, who, both being honoured above the rest and having for the most part already received the prizes of our toils, and being foremost above the others, are eager for you in all things; but on behalf of the army at large.

27.3. Yet not even on its behalf will I say what is pleasing to those men, but what I believe to be both expedient for you in present circumstances and most safe for the future. It is right that, both by reason of my age I should not hide what seems best, and by reason of the esteem in which I stand with you and among the rest, and by reason of the daring, unflinching to this day, which I have shown in toils and dangers.

27.4. For by how much the most and the greatest things have been accomplished by you as leader and by those who set out with you from home, by so much the more does it seem to me expedient to set some limit to the toils and dangers. For you yourself see how many of the Macedonians and Greeks set out with you, and how few of us are left.

27.5. Of these, the Thessalians you sent home from Bactra at once, perceiving them no longer eager for the toils, and you did well; of the other Greeks, some, settled in the cities founded by you, do not even all of them remain there willingly; others, still sharing the toils and dangers, both themselves and the Macedonian army, have lost some in the battles, while others, made unfit for war by their wounds, are left behind here and there in Asia,

27.6. and the greater part have perished by disease; and few are left out of many, and these no longer sound in body as before, and far more worn down in spirit. And all these have a longing for their parents, as many as are yet preserved, a longing for their wives and children, a longing too for the very land of their home, which—returning, by the help of the wealth furnished them by you, great instead of small and rich instead of poor—they may be pardoned for longing to look upon again.

27.7. Do you then now not lead unwilling men; for you will not find them like the same men in dangers, when the willing element is absent from their contests. But, returning yourself, if it seems good, to your home, and seeing your own mother, and setting in order the affairs of the Greeks, and bringing these many and great victories to your father's house, so then begin afresh, fit out another expedition—if you will, against these very Indian nations settled toward the east; or, if you will, to the Euxine sea; or, if you will, against Carthage and the parts of Libya beyond the Carthaginians. This it is now yours to direct.

27.8. And other Macedonians will follow you, and other Greeks, young men in place of old, and fresh in place of wearied, and men to whom the matters of war, through their inexperience of it, are not for the present fearful, and who, in hope of the future, will be eager; whom it is likely will follow you even the more readily on this account, when they see those who toiled and dared with you before returned to their own homes rich instead of poor, and famous instead of obscure as of old.

27.9. A fair thing, O king, if anything is, is self-restraint in good fortune. For to you yourself, leading and commanding such an army, there is nothing to fear from enemies; but the dealings of the divine are unforeseen, and against them men have no guard." When Coenus had spoken thus, there arose an uproar

28.1. from those present at his words; and many, indeed, shedding tears, showed still more plainly both their unwillingness of mind toward further dangers and that the retreat was to their liking. Alexander then, vexed both at Coenus' freedom of speech and at the hesitation of the other commanders, broke up the gathering;

28.2. but on the next day, calling together the same men again in anger, he said that he himself would go forward, but would force no Macedonian to follow against his will; that he would have men to accompany their king willingly; and that for those who wished to depart home, it should be permitted to depart and to report to their kinsmen that they had returned, leaving their king in the midst of his enemies.

28.3. Having said this, he withdrew to his tent and admitted none of the Companions, on that very day and as far as the third day from it, waiting in case some change of mind should fall upon the Macedonians and the allies—such as is wont for the most part to come about in a crowd of soldiers—and render them more compliant.

28.4. But when again there was deep silence throughout the camp, and the men were plainly vexed at his anger, yet not changed by it, then indeed, Ptolemy son of Lagus says, he sacrificed none the less for the crossing, but as he sacrificed the omens did not prove favourable to him.

28.5. Then at last, gathering together the eldest of the Companions and those most familiar to him, since everything pointed for him toward the retreat, he made known to the army that he had resolved to turn back.

29.1. And they raised such a shout as a mingled multitude would raise in its joy, and most of them wept; and some, drawing near to the royal tent, called down many blessings upon Alexander, because by them alone he had suffered himself to be conquered. Then, dividing the army into battalions, he ordered twelve altars to be built, in height like the greatest towers, and in breadth even greater than towers, as thank-offerings to the gods who had led him thus far in victory, and as memorials of his own toils.

29.2. When the altars had been built for him, he sacrificed upon them as was his custom, and held a contest of athletics and horsemanship. And the country as far as the river Hyphasis he gave to Porus to rule, while he himself turned back to the Hydraotes. Having crossed the Hydraotes, he returned again to the Acesines.

29.3. And there he found the city built which Hephaestion had been appointed to wall round for him; and having settled in it such of the neighbouring people as wished to settle there, and whatever of the mercenaries was unfit for war, he himself made his preparations for the voyage down to the great sea.

29.4. Meanwhile there came to him Arsaces, the governor of the country bordering on Abisares, and the brother of Abisares, and his other kinsmen, bringing gifts which are accounted greatest among the Indians, and the elephants from Abisares, thirty in number; for Abisares, they said, was unable through sickness to come. And with these agreed also the envoys whom Alexander had sent out to Abisares.

29.5. And believing without difficulty that this was so, he gave Abisares the satrapy of his own country, and added Arsaces to the dominion of Abisares; and having fixed what tribute they should pay, he sacrificed again at the river Acesines. And crossing the Acesines again he came to the Hydaspes, where he repaired, with his army, such parts of the cities of Nicaea and Bucephala as had suffered from the rains, and set in order the other affairs of the country.