Chapter XVI: Part 16

These detached notices, combined with those which appear in the translations, we may now gather together into a connected and consistent narrative. Sandrokottos was of obscure birth, and, from the remark of Plutarch that in his early years he had seen Alexander, we may infer that he was a native of the Panjâb. It was at one time thought that he had in some way offended the conqueror, and that to escape the effects of his displeasure, he had fled for protection to the court of Magadha. But this belief must now be given up, as it was based on a corrupt passage in Justin, which, by the restoration of the correct reading, shows that it was not Alexander whom he had offended, but Nandrus or Xandrames, the Magadha king. We do not know what induced Sandrokottos to leave his home and take service under the latter monarch, but we incline to attribute it to a sentiment of patriotism forbidding him to seek office or advancement under a power which had crushed the liberties of his country. What the nature of his offence against Nandrus was does not appear, but he so dreaded his resentment that he quitted his dominions and returned home to the Panjâb. He found it, although Alexander had now been six years dead, still under Greek vassalage, and ruled as formerly in civil matters by Omphis of Taxila and the great Pôros, while the military administration had passed into the hands of Eudêmos. Soon after his arrival, however, the order of things was violently disturbed. Eudêmos having decoyed Pôros into his power, treacherously murdered him,[418] but had no sooner done so than he was recalled to the west to succour Eumenes in his war against Antigonos. As he took with him 3000 foot, 500 horse, and 125 elephants, he denuded the province of the main strength of the force by which it was held in subjection, and his departure was fatal to Greek power. The Indians, who longed for freedom, and were no doubt greatly incensed by the murder of Pôros, rose in revolt. Sandrokottos, who headed this movement, having collected a band of insurgents, overthrew the existing government, expelled the remainder of the Greek garrison, and finally installed himself in the sovereignty of the Panjâb and of all the lower valley of the Indus. The insurgents, whom he led to victory, are called by Justin _robbers_; but we must not thence infer that he was a bandit leader, who, by taking advantage of an opportune crisis, rose to power by the help of desperadoes whose crimes had banished them from society. His adherents were, in point of fact, chiefly the _Arattâ_ of the Panjâb, who were always called _robbers_, and are denounced as such in the _Mahâbhârata_. The Kathaians, who so stoutly resisted Alexander at Sangala, were included under this designation, which means _Kingless_, and implies that they lived under republican institutions. The stories told by the same author of the lion which licked the sweat from Sandrokottos when asleep, and of the elephant which volunteered to carry him into battle, and thus gave presages of his future greatness, reflect the true spirit of oriental romance, and were no doubt derived from native traditions which somehow found their way to the west. They remind one of Joseph’s dreams, in which he saw the sheaves and then the heavenly bodies falling down in obeisance before him.

Sandrokottos while in Magadha had seen that the king was held in such odium and contempt by his subjects that, as Plutarch tells us, he used often afterwards to speak of the ease with which Alexander might have possessed himself of the whole country. He accordingly had no sooner settled the affairs of the Panjâb than he prepared to invade the dominions of his former master. The success which he anticipated followed his arms. He overthrew with ease the unpopular despot, and having received the submission of Magadha, extended his conquests far beyond its eastern limits. He was thus able to combine into one great empire the regions both of the Indus and the Ganges. He established the seat of government at Palibothra, the capital of Magadha, a great city advantageously situated at the confluence of the Erannoboas or Sôn with the Ganges, and on the site now occupied by Pâtnâ, beneath which, at a depth of from 12 to 15 feet, its ruins lie entombed.

While Sandrokottos was thus, with a genius like that of Akbar, welding the states of India into unity, the successors of Alexander were too much engrossed with their internecine wars to concern themselves with his doings; but when they had for a time composed their differences, Seleukos Nikator, the king of Syria, advanced eastward to recover the Indian conquests of Alexander. The date of this expedition cannot be fixed with precision, but it was probably made in the year 305 B.C., or about ten years after Sandrokottos had ascended the throne of Palibothra. The records of it are unfortunately lost. It seems that he was allowed to cross the Indus without opposition, but it is not known how far he advanced into the country. We do not even know whether the hostile armies came into actual conflict, but we may conjecture that the sight of the vast and formidable host brought into the field by his antagonist, who was an experienced commander of the stamp of Pôros, led him to think discretion would be the better part of valour, and to prefer entering into negotiations rather than to risk the chance of defeat. At all events he concluded a treaty by which he not only resigned his claims to the Greek conquests beyond the Indus, but ceded to the Indian king considerable districts extending westward from that river to the southern slopes of the Hindu-Kush. The compact was cemented by a matrimonial alliance, the Syrian king giving his daughter in marriage to Sandrokottos. Friendly relations seem to have subsisted ever afterwards between the two sovereigns.

Seleukos sent as his ambassador to the Indian court his friend and companion Megasthenes. This was a fortunate choice, for while there Megasthenes, who was an acute observer and of an inquisitive turn of mind, composed a work on India, in which he gave a faithful account of what fell under his own observation, as well as of what facts he could gather from trustworthy reports. That work, now lost, was the source whence Strabo and other classical authors derived most of their information regarding India. In such of the fragments thus preserved as relate to Sandrokottos, we find an admirable picture of his system of government, of his personal habits, and of the regulations of his court. He did not live to old age, but died in 291 B.C., before he had reached his fifty-fifth year.

When we turn to the Buddhist accounts of Chandragupta we find them tally so closely in all main points with the Greek accounts of Sandrokottos that no doubt can be left that the two names which are so nearly similar denote but one and the same person. As he was the founder of the dynasty to which the pious Aśôka, the Constantine of the Buddhist faith, belonged, the Buddhist writers assign to him an honourable pedigree which connected him even with the royal house whence Buddha himself sprang. His father, they tell us, reigned over a small kingdom situated in a valley among the Himalayas, and called Maurya, from the great number of its peacocks (_Mayûra_). He was killed in resisting an invasion of his enemies, but his queen escaped to Pataliputra, where she gave birth to a son whom she exposed in the neighbourhood of a cattle shed. The child, like Oedipûs, was found by a shepherd, who called him _Chandragupta_ (_Moon protected_), and charged himself with his maintenance. There resided at that time in Pataliputra a Brahman who had come from the great city of Taxila in the Panjâb, and whose name was Chânakya. To him King Dhanananda had given an insult which could be expiated by nothing short of his destruction. While the Brahman was casting about for means whereby he could clear his score with the offender, Chandragupta, now a boy, fell under his cognisance. Having discovered that he was of royal descent, and foreseen from his conduct among his companions that in after life he would be capable of great achievements, he bought him from the shepherd and gave him a training adapted to make him a fit instrument for the execution of his designs. When Chandragupta had grown up, his master put under his command a body of troops kept secretly in his pay, and attempted a rebellion, which proved abortive. Chandragupta fled to the desert, but having ere long collected a fresh force he invaded Magadha from the border, that is, from the side of the Panjâb. He captured city after city till the capital itself fell into his hands. The king was slain, and Chandragupta ascended the vacant throne.

Another form of the native tradition assigns his paternity to Dhanananda (the last of the eight Nanda kings, who ruled in succession over Magadha), though not by his queen, but by a woman of low caste—a sudra called Mura. The Brahmans made this base-born scion of the royal house the instrument of their rebellious designs, and with the help of a northern prince, to whom they offered an accession of territory, raised him to the throne while he was yet a youth, and put Nanda and his eight sons to death. They did not make good their promise to their ally, but rid themselves of him by assassination. His son Malayaketu marched with a large army, in which were Yavanas (Greeks), to revenge his death, but returned without success to his country. It has been supposed that this expedition may have been the same as that of Seleukos.

The Nanda dynasty which was supplanted by the Mauryan in 315 B.C. had succeeded to that of Sisunâga in 370 B.C. Its last member, whom the Greeks call _Xandrames_ and Curtius _Agrammes_, is variously named in native writings _Dhanananda_, _Nanda Mahâpadma_, and _Hiranyagupta_. Xandramas (of which Agrammes seems to be a distorted form) transliterates the Sanskrit _Chandramas_, which means _Moon-god_. A Hindu play—the Mudrâ Râkshasa—produced early in the Mahommedan period refers to the revolution by which Chânakya raised Chandragupta to power, but is of no historical value. Chandragupta was succeeded by his son Vindusâra, who is called by Strabo _Allitrochades_, and by Athênaios (xiv. 67),[419] _Amitrochates_, a form which transliterates the Sanskrit _Amitraghâta_, a title by which he was frequently designated, and which means _enemy-slayer_. He was succeeded by his son Aśôka in 270 B.C.

SELEUKOS NIKATOR, one of Alexander’s great generals who made himself king of Syria, was the son of Antiochos, an officer of high rank in the service of King Philip. Seleukos was distinguished for his great personal strength and courage, and when he accompanied Alexander into Asia held a command in the companion cavalry. He crossed the Hydaspês with Alexander himself, and took an important part in the great battle which followed. At Sousa he was rewarded for his eminent services with the hand of Apama, an Asiatic princess, the daughter of Spitamenes. In the dissensions which broke out after Alexander’s death among his generals, Seleukos sided with Perdikkas and the cavalry against Meleager and the infantry, and was in consequence made Chiliarch of the companions, one of the highest offices, and one which Perdikkas himself had previously held. He accompanied Perdikkas into Egypt, but he there put himself at the head of the mutineers by whom his patron was assassinated. At the second partition of the provinces made at Triparadeisos 321 B.C. he obtained the Babylonian satrapy, and established himself in Babylon. He assisted Antigonos in the war against Eumenes, but afterwards contended against him in alliance with Ptolemy. During an interval when hostilities were suspended between himself and his rivals, Seleukos undertook an expedition into India to regain the conquests of Alexander over which Sandrokottos had established his authority. We do not know how far he advanced into India, but he probably again crossed the Hydaspês, which he had crossed twenty years before along with the great conqueror himself. The result of the expedition was a treaty by which Seleukos ceded to Sandrokottos his Indian provinces and the regions west of the Indus as far as the range of Paropanisos, in exchange for 500 elephants, and a marriage alliance by which the daughter of Seleukos became the bride of the Indian king. Immediately either before or after this expedition, Seleukos in 306 B.C., following the examples of Antigonos and Ptolemy, formally assumed the regal title and diadem. In the battle of Ipsos 301 B.C., where Seleukos, in league with Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Kassander, fought against Antigonos, the cavalry and elephants which the Syrian king brought into the field were mainly instrumental in securing the victory. The empire of Seleukos then became the most extensive of those which had been formed out of Alexander’s conquests, extending from Phoenicia to Baktria and Sogdiana. After being engaged in other wars, Seleukos crossed the Hellespont with an army with a view to seize the crown of Macedonia, but was assassinated at Lysimachia by Ptolemy Keraunos in the beginning of the year 280 B.C. in the thirty-second year of his reign.

SISIKOTTOS was an Indian who had deserted his countrymen and taken service under Bessos. After the conquest of Baktria he took service under Alexander, who, no doubt, obtained from him much valuable information regarding India and its affairs. After the capture of the rock Aornos, Sisikottos was left in command of the garrison which Alexander established there. He afterwards sent messengers to inform Alexander that the Assakênians had revolted from him.

SITALKES was a leader of Thracian light-armed troops in Alexander’s service. He was left under Parmenion in Media, and on Alexander’s return from India was put to death for misgovernment.

SOLINUS was the author of a compendium of geography extracted mostly from the _Natural History_ of Pliny. He lived about the middle of the third century A.D.

SÔPHEITES or SÔPEITHÊS was, according to Curtius and Diodôros, king of a territory situated to the west of the Hyphasis. According to Arrian his dominions (or those of a king of the same name) lay along the banks of the Hydaspês, and, as we learn from Strabo, embraced the salt range of mountains called _Oromenus_ by Pliny. With regard to the name, Lassen took it to represent the Sanskrit _Aśvapati_, “lord of horses.” M. Sylvain Lévi, however, thinks this a fanciful identification of the two names, erring against Greek and against Sanskrit. He then says: “A drachma of Indian silver coined towards the end of the fourth century B.C. in imitation of Greek money bears the inscription ΣΩΦΥΤΟΥ. The form Sophytes is, then, the only one to be considered. The laws of transcription established by numerous examples give the equivalents: ω = _ô_ or _aw_, φ = _bh_. Sophytes then leads back to Sobûtha or Saubh. The Gana-pâtha knows precisely a country of the name of Saubhûta. Pânini (IV. ii. 67 _sqq._) shows by examples how local names are formed.... The name of Sâmkala, etc., is formed in this way. M. Bhandarkar has already recognised in the city of Sâmkala the famous fortress of Sangala, ... but the Indian _savant_ has not overcome the old prejudice which, regardless of the laws of transcription, identifies Sangala with Śâkala, capital of the Madras (Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ i. 801).... The identification firmly fixed of Sophytes and Saubhûta dissipates henceforward all doubts. Among the names classed in the Gana-pâtha under the rubric Sâmkala, etc., is found _Subhûta_, which gives, in virtue of the rule stated, _Saubhûta_ as the name of a locality. Everything concurs in proving the correctness of our identification.”

SPHINÊS.—_See_ Kalânos.

SPITAKES is supposed to be the same as the Pittakos mentioned by Polyainos. He was slain fighting on the side of Pôros in the battle of the Hydaspês. His territories lay near that river.

SPITAMENES, the most formidable and persistent of all the chiefs who opposed Alexander in the regions of the Oxus and Jaxartes.

STASANÔR, a distinguished officer in Alexander’s army, was a native of Soloi in Cyprus. For services rendered during the Baktrian campaign he was appointed satrap of Areia and afterwards of Drangiana. In the first partition of the provinces after Alexander’s death he was confirmed in his satrapy; but in the partition made at Triparadeisos he received the more important government of Baktria and Sogdiana. He ruled his subjects with justice and moderation. He is not heard of in history after 316 B.C.

STATEIRA or BARSINÊ, the daughter of Darius and wife of Alexander, was murdered after his death by Roxana with the consent of the regent Perdikkas.

STEPHANOS of Byzantium was the author of a geographical lexicon, in which the names of some Indian towns occur. His date is uncertain, but may be referred to the sixth or seventh century of our aera.

STRABO, the great geographer, was a native of Amasea in Pontos. He lived in the reign of Augustus, and during the first five years at least of Tiberius.

SIBYRTIOS was appointed by Alexander on returning from India satrap of Karmania, and afterwards of Arachosia and Gedrosia in succession to Thoas. He was confirmed in his government in accordance with the first and the second partition of the provinces. He incurred the displeasure of Eumenes, and thereby secured the patronage of Antigonos. Megasthenes was his friend, and at one time resided with him.

TAURÔN was an officer in Alexander’s army, who distinguished himself in the battle with Pôros.

TAXILÊS, whose personal name was Omphis, ruled a fertile territory between the Indus and Hydaspês, which had for its capital the great and flourishing city of Taxila. He was at feud with his neighbour, King Pôros, and this probably determined him to send an embassy to Alexander while he was yet in Baktria, in the hopes of forming an alliance with him which would enable him to crush his powerful rival. He waited on Alexander before he had crossed the Indus, and when he reached Taxila entertained him and his army with the most liberal hospitality. After the defeat and submission of Pôros, Alexander effected a reconciliation between the two princes. Taxilês gave all the assistance in his power to help forward the construction and equipment of the fleet by which Alexander intended to convey a portion of his troops down the Hydaspês and the Indus to the ocean. For this service he was rewarded with an accession of territory. After the death of Alexander he was allowed to retain his power, which had been increased after the murder of the satrap Philip. Subsequently to the year 321 B.C. Eudêmos seems to have exercised supreme authority in his province. We know nothing regarding Taxilês after that date. M. Sylvain Lévi shows that the personal name of Taxilês is incorrectly given by Diodôros as _Mophis_ instead of _Omphis_, which is the form in Curtius. He gives the reason thus: “The study of the words transcribed from the Indian languages into Greek proves that the ο corresponds to an _â_ or to an _o_ in Sanskrit, while the φ is the regular transcription of _bh_. Mophis gives therefore a Sanskrit _Mobhi_ or _Mâbhi_; neither the one nor the other is met with in the texts; they are both strangers to the language as well as to the history of India. But _Âmbhi_ presents itself in the Gana-pâtha, a genuine appendix to the _Grammar_ of Pânini.” He then shows that _Âmbhi_ has been obtained from _Ambhas_ in accordance with an established rule, and thus proceeds: “A double conclusion unfolds itself—1st, The dynasty which was reigning at Takśaśilâ at the time of the Greek invasion was a family of Kshatriya descended from Ambhas, and designated by the patronymic Âmbhi; 2nd, The dynasty Âmbhi has disappeared with the Greek rule soon after the death of Alexander. The revolt of India has swept away without doubt these allies of the stranger. Before the end of the fourth century B.C., Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan dynasty and king of the Prasyas, joined to his dominions the kingdoms of the basin of the Indus. Takśaśilâ became the residence of a Mauryan governor. The part played by the Âmbhi does not appear to have been considerable enough to preserve their memory long; the mention of them in the _Gana-pâtha_ is the only known testimony to their existence. The _Gana-pâtha_, and, at the same time, the _Grammar_ of Pânini, which is inseparable from it, are then _very probably contemporary with the Macedonian invasion_.” He adds as a footnote, “The mention of the Yavanas (Greeks) and of the Yavanâni (Greek writing) excludes the hypothesis of priority” (See _Journal Asiatique_ for 1890, pp. 234-236).

TERIOLTES, called also TYRIASPES, was appointed satrap of the Paropamisadai, but was deposed, or, according to Curtius, put to death for misgovernment. His satrapy Alexander then gave to his father-in-law Oxyartes.

TLEPOLEMOS was appointed satrap of Karmania by Alexander on his return from India.

TYRIASPES.—_See_ Terioltes.

VINDUSÂRA, the son of Sandrokottos.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

XANDRAMES, king of Magadha.—_See_ Sandrokottos.

FOOTNOTES

[1] With the exception of Alexander, all the great conquerors who have crossed the Indus to invade India have sprung from provinces towards Tartary and Northern Persia.

[2] According to Plutarch, seventy Asiatic cities at the least owed their origin to Alexander. Of those, forty can still be traced. Grote thinks the number is probably exaggerated, and disparages their importance.

[3] In saying this, I do not forget that the Graeco-Baktrian kings at one time extended their sway in India even far beyond the parts conquered by Alexander; but this cannot be regarded as having resulted from his invasion. It might have equally happened had his invasion been as mythical as the Indian expeditions of Dionysos and Heraklês. Nor do I by any means overlook the effects produced by Greek ideas on the Indian mind—effects which can be traced in a variety of spheres, such as religion, poetry, philosophy, science, architecture, and the plastic arts. On this subject Professor A. Weber read a very learned paper, entitled “Die Griechen in Indien,” before the Prussian Academy of Sciences in July 1890. It is a paper which well deserves to be translated into our language. Scholars now rather incline to believe that, whatever may be the exact degree of the indebtedness of India to Greece, the ancient civilization of India was much less original and self-contained than it was at one time supposed to be.

[4] Patroklês, who held an important command in the East under Seleukos Nikatôr and his son Antiochos I., stated, in a work (now lost) which included a description of India, that while the army of Alexander took but a very hasty view of everything (in India), Alexander himself took a more exact one, causing the whole country to be described by men well acquainted with it. This description, Patroklês says, was put into his hands by Xenoklês the Treasurer. On this subject Humboldt thus writes: “The Macedonian campaign, which opened so large and beautiful a portion of the earth to the influence of one sole highly-gifted race, may therefore certainly be regarded in the strictest sense of the word as a _scientific_ expedition, and, moreover, as the first in which a conqueror had surrounded himself with men learned in all departments of science, as naturalists, geometricians, historians, philosophers, and artists.”

[5] The editors of _Alexander in India_, however, say that this rhetorician must have flourished early under Claudius, who reigned from A.D. 41 to 54. They add that the Latin of Curtius agrees well with this view, which would place him between Velleius and Petronius.

[6] The author of the _Periplous_ of the Erythraian Sea also conducts Alexander to the Ganges. So too does Lucan—_Pharsalia_, x. 33.

[7] Sainte-Croix and Professor Freeman both express strong doubts of the authenticity of Alexander’s letters quoted by several writers.

[8] In Persian, _Kshatrapa_.

[9] The Macedonian line in this part of the field being broken, some of the Indians and of the Persian cavalry burst through the gap and fought their way to the enemy’s baggage, where a desperate conflict ensued.—_Arrian_, iii. 14.

[10] General Chesney, commenting lately on these numbers, remarks that “numbers without discipline are, after a certain point, worse than useless, the men only get in each others’ way. This was especially the case in the battles of old times fought at close quarters.” “The biographers of Sir Charles Napier,” he continues, “have made a great point of the circumstance that at the battle of Meani the British force of less than 3000 men was opposed by 40,000 of the enemy who fought desperately for several hours. Now, the whole British loss in killed and wounded was under 300, so that, assuming every wound to have been inflicted by a separate sword or bullet, it follows that out of the 40,000 desperate fighters, 39,700 contributed nothing to the fighting.” In another passage he points out that an ancient battle was in some respects a much more formidable thing than a modern one. In the battle of old days the absence of noise, except the words of command, the tramp of men, and the clashing of armour, above all the closeness of one’s adversary, must have been of a kind to try the nerves much more than the rattle of musketry, the crashing of shells, and the thunder of the artillery in a modern battle. What we shall never get back to is hand-to-hand fighting at close quarters. It was this that made a battle so decisive in olden days, and caused the tremendous slaughter that used to be the fate of the beaten side. An ancient battle was really a very short affair. After the marshalling of the troops and the preliminary skirmishing of the cavalry and the archery practice of the light troops, in which a good deal of time would be taken up, the business must have been decided in a very few minutes when once the infantry actually engaged. The fact is that when two bodies of men meet with sword or spear, a prolonged contest is from the nature of the case impossible. In modern warfare when a battle is lost, a large part of the defeated army is already at a distance and gets off unharmed. But there was no escape for the man in armour, and when he turned his back his shield was no defence.

[11] “Against Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Alexander had no mission of vengeance; he might rather call on them to help him against the common foe.... If the gods of Attica had been wronged and insulted (by the Persians) so had the gods of Memphis and Babylon”.—Prof. Freeman, _Historical Essays_, ii. pp. 202, 203.

[12] “From this unhappy time all the worst failings of Alexander become more strongly developed.... Impetuosity and self-exaltation now grew upon him till he could bear neither restraint nor opposition.”—Prof. Freeman, _Historical Essays_, ii. p. 206.

[13] The Mêdos is now the _Polvar_ and the Araxês the Bund-Amir.

[14] Kinneir places the Ouxian passes to the north-west of _Bebehan_.

[15] The narrow defile near _Kaleh Safed_ (the white fort), some fifty miles to the north-west of Shiraz.

[16] Curzon thinks that Pasargadai lay to the north-east of Persepolis at a distance of some thirty miles. For a discussion regarding their ruins and the tomb of Cyrus see his great work on Persia just published, vol. ii. pp. 70-92.

[17] The release of these enormous treasure-hoards produced such effects as resulted in recent times from the discoveries of gold in California and Australia. The prices of all commodities were greatly enhanced, and prosperity advanced by leaps and bounds.

[18] Perhaps Damaghan, but its position is very uncertain. According to Apollodoros it was 1260 stadia beyond the Kaspian Gates, but according to Pliny only 133 miles. See Curzon’s _Persia_, i. p. 287.

[19] _Sari_, according to Droysen.

[20] “Edicto vetuit ne quis se praeter Apellem Pingeret, aut alius Lysippo duceret aera Fortis Alexandri vultum simulantia.”—_Horace._

[21] Pausanias, however, says that it was Philadelphos who brought the body to Alexandreia.

[22] See Note L_l_ in Appendix.

[23] This name, transliterates the Sanskrit _Subhagasena_, which was not a personal name but an official title. See Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ II. p. 273.

[24] The Companion Cavalry, called sometimes simply the Companions, were the Royal Horse Guards, a body which at the beginning of the campaign consisted of 1500 men, all scions of the noblest families of Macedonia and Thessaly. In the course of the war their numbers were augmented perhaps to 5000, as Mützell conjectures.

[25] The Parai-tak-ênai possessed part of the mountainous country between the upper courses of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. They were perhaps one in race with the Takkas of India, who had a great and flourishing capital, Taxila (_i.e._ Takkasila, the Rock of the Takkas), situated between the Indus and Upper Hydaspes. The first part of their name _Parai_ represents perhaps the Sanskrit _parvata_, a hill, or _pahâr_ (a hill) of the common dialect. A tribe of the same name occupied a mountainous part of Media (Herod. i. 101), and another is located by Isidoros of Charax between Drangiana and Arachosia. Another form of the name is Paraitakai (Arrian, iii. 19; Strabo, xvi. 736; Stephanos Byz.)

[26] The spring of 327 B.C.

[27] Kaukasos here denotes the lofty mountain range, now called the Central Hindu Kush, which forms the northern frontier of Kâbul. Its native designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly transliterates it, Paropanisos. Till Alexander’s time these mountains were altogether unknown to the Greeks. The officers of his army who wrote accounts of his Asiatic expedition sometimes considered them to be a continuation of the Tauros, and sometimes of the Kaukasos. Arrian, who regarded them as an extension of the former range, says that the Macedonian soldiers called them Kaukasos to flatter Alexander, as if, when he had crossed them to enter Baktria, he had carried his victorious arms beyond Kaukasos. The Greeks of those days, it must be observed, had no definite knowledge of the mountains to which that name was properly applicable, but vaguely conceived them to be the loftiest and the remotest to be found in the eastern parts of the world. The pass by which Alexander recrossed the Paropanisos was most probably the Kushan or Ghorbund Pass.

[28] See Note A, Alexandreia under Kaukasos.

[29] The tribes collectively designated Parapamisadai were, according to Ptolemy (who calls them Paropanisadai), the five following:—The Bôlitai, Aristophyloi, Parsioi, Parsyêtai, and Ambautai. They lived along the spurs of the Hindu Kush, chiefly along its southern and eastern sides. They thus occupied the whole of Kabulistân, and part of Afghânistân. The Bôlitai were probably the people of Kâbul, a city which, no doubt, represents that which Ptolemy calls Karoura (Kaboura?) or Ortospana.

[30] The colonies which Alexander planted in the countries he overran were of a military character, designed to secure the permanence, cohesion, and ultimate unification of his conquests. The war-worn soldiers whom he made colonists were condemned to perpetual exile, as may be gathered from the fate which overtook the colonists who of their own accord left Baktra and attempted to return to Greece. They were treated as deserters, and were all put to death.

[31] This is the Kâbul river, called otherwise by the classical writers the _Kôphês_, except by Ptolemy, who calls it the _Kôa_. Its name in Sanskrit is the _Kubhâ_.

[32] See Note B.

[33] Taxilês. His distinctive name, as we learn from Curtius (viii. 14), was Omphis. Diodôros (xvii. 86) less accurately calls him Môphis, and says that Alexander changed his name to Taxiles. This is, however, a mistake, for Taxiles was a territorial title which each sovereign of Taxila assumed on his accession to power. Indian princes are generally designated in the classics by their territorial or dynastic titles. The father of Omphis died about the time Alexander was making his preparations to invade India.

[34] Kleitos had been killed before the army left Baktra, but his brigade continued to bear his name even after his death.

[35] Peukelaôtis designated both a district and its capital city. The name is a transliteration of Pukkalaoti, which is the Pali form of the Sanskrit Pushkalavati, the name by which the ancient capital of Gândhâra was known. General Cunningham has fixed its position at the two large towns of Parang and Chârsada, which form part of Hashtnagar, or _eight cities_, that are seated close together on the eastern bank of the Landaï or lower Swât river. The position thus indicated is nearly seventeen miles to the north-west of Peshâwar. The city was in early times a great emporium of commerce. Ptolemy, who with the author of the Periplûs of the Erythraian sea, calls it Proklaïs, has correctly located it on the eastern bank of the river of Souastênê, _i.e._ the river of Swât. Wilson, however, and Abbott take Pekhely (or Pakholi) in the neighbourhood of Peshâwar to be the modern representative of the old Gândhârian capital (_v._ Cunningham’s _Anc. Geog. of India_, pp. 49-51).

[36] The route assigned to this division lay along the course of the Kâbul river and through the Khaiber Pass to Peukelaôtis, which was situated where, or near where, Hasht-nagar on the river Landaï now stands.

[37] This name is perhaps a transliteration of the Sanskrit _Sanjaya_, which means _victor_. A Shinwâri tribe called _Sangu_ is found inhabiting a part of the Nangrihar district west of the Khaiber Pass.

[38] The hypaspists, so called because they carried the round shield called _aspis_, while the hoplites carried the oblong shield called _hoplon_, formed a body of about 3000 men at the outset of the war, but were perhaps augmented to double that number during its progress. They were not so heavily armed as the hoplites, and were therefore more rapid in their movements. The foot companions were another distinguished corps of guards. The Agrianians, who made excellent light-armed troops, were a Paionian people whose country adjoined the sources of the river Strymôn.

[39] Aspasioi and Assakênoi. See Note C.

[40] Strabo (xv. 697) states the reasons which led Alexander to select the northern route to the Indus in preference to the southern. “Alexander was informed,” he says, “that the mountainous and northern parts were the most habitable and fertile, but that the southern part was either without water or liable to be overflowed by rivers at one time, or entirely burnt up at another, more fit to be the haunts of wild beasts than the dwellings of men. He resolved therefore to master first that part of India which had been well spoken of, considering at the same time that the rivers which it was necessary to pass, and which flowed transversely through the country which he proposed to attack, would be crossed with more facility towards their sources.” The districts through which he passed are now called Kafiristan, Chittral, Swât, and the Yusufzai country. It is more difficult to trace in this than in any other of his campaigns the course of his movements, and to identify with certainty the various strongholds which he attacked. The country through which he passed is but little known even at the present day, and, as Bunbury remarks, a glance at the labyrinth of mountains and valleys, which occupy the whole space in question in the best modern maps, will sufficiently show how utterly bewildering they must have been to the officers of Alexander, who neither used maps nor the compass, and were incapable of the simplest geographical observations. The time occupied by Alexander in marching from the foot of Kaukasos to the Indus was about a year. Like Napoleon, he kept the field even in winter, though in these parts the cold at that season is intense.

[41] Khôês. This is the first river Alexander would reach after he had left his encampment near the junction of the Panjshîr with the Kôphên, which appears to have been the place where he divided his army. It cannot have been, as Lassen thought, the Kamah or Kunâr, but is rather the stream formed by the junction of the Alishang and the Alinghar, which joins the Kôphên on the left in the neighbourhood of Mandrour above Jalâlâbâd. The Alinghar river, as we learn from Masson, is called also the _Kow_. The Kôa of Ptolemy must not be confounded with the Khôês of the text, for that author in describing the Kôa says that it receives a tributary from the Paropanisadai, and that after being joined by the Souastos (the river of Swât) it falls into the Indus. The Kôa is therefore probably the Kôphên after its reception of the Kamah or Kunâr river.

[42] Euaspla R. This name, which, so far as I know, occurs only in Arrian, has not been satisfactorily explained. It designated, no doubt, the river which Aristotle, Strabo, and Curtius call the Choaspes, and which the best authorities identify with the Kamah or Kunâr, a river which rivals the Kôphên itself in the volume of its waters and the length of its course. It rises at the foot of the plateau of Pamîr, not far from the sources of the Oxus, and joins the Kôphên at some distance below Jalâlâbâd. Strabo says that the Choaspes traverses Bandobênê (Badakshan) and Gandarîtis after having passed near the towns of Plêgêrion and Gorydalê.

[43] The capital of this chief was probably Gorys on the Choaspes.

[44] Arigaion. This place, which was situated to the east of the Choaspes, is perhaps now represented by Naoghi, a village in the province of Bajore. Ritter identified it with Bajore or Bagawar, the capital of this province. The mountains to which the inhabitants fled for refuge may perhaps, as V. de Saint-Martin suggests, be those which Justin (xii. 7) calls Daedali, whereto he says Alexander led his troops after the Bacchanalian revelry with which they had been indulged at Nysa. There is no mention elsewhere of Arigaion, unless it be the “Argacum urbem” of the _Itiner. Alex._ 105. It is taken by Schneider to be the Acadira of Curtius.

[45] The Gouraios is the river Pañjkora, which unites with the river of Swât to form the Landaï, a large affluent of the Kâbul river. It appears under the name of the _Gauri_ in the sixth book of the _Mahâbhârata_, where it is mentioned along with the Suvâstu (the Swât river) and the Kampanâ. It owes its name to the _Ghori_, a great and wide-spread tribe, branches of which are still to be found on the Pañjkora, and also on both sides of the Kâbul River where it is joined by the Landaï. It formed the boundary between the Gouraians and the Assakênians.

[46] Mazaga. See Note D.

[47] Alexander seems to have treated these mercenaries with less than his usual generosity towards brave enemies. Plutarch reprobates his slaughter of them as a foul blot on his military fame. The attack upon the city after it had capitulated on terms admits of no justification.

[48] See Note E.

[49] Abisares. Arrian in a subsequent passage calls this chief King of the Mountaineer Indians. His name shows that he ruled over Abhisâra, that region of mountain-girt valleys, now called Hazâra, which lies between the Indus and the upper Hydaspes. In _Hazâra_ the ancient name of the country seems to be preserved. It has been supposed, but less reasonably, that the district was so called from the great number of its petty chiefs, _hazâra_ being the numeral for _a thousand_ (in Persian). Abisares was a very powerful prince, and it is supposed with reason that Kâshmîr was subject to his sway.

[50] Aornos. See Note F.

[51] “Heraklês,” says Herodotos (ii. 43, 44), “is one of the ancient gods of the Egyptians, and, as they say themselves, it was 17,000 years before the reign of Amasis, when the number of their gods was increased from eight to twelve, of whom Heraklês was accounted one. And being desirous of obtaining certain information from whatever source I could, I sailed to Tyre in Phoenicia, where, as I had been informed, there was a temple dedicated to Heraklês.” The name of the Egyptian Heraklês was Dsona or Chôn, or, according to Pausanias, Makeris, and that of the Tyrian was Melkart. These were more ancient than the Theban Heraklês, the son of Zeus and Alkmênê. The Indian Heraklês, called Dorsanes, who, according to Arrian, was the father of Pandaia, has been identified with Śiva, but also with Balarâma, the eighth avatâr of Vishnu. Diodôros (ii. 39) ascribes to him the building of the walls and of the palace of Palibothra (now Pâtnâ). Arrian in the second book of this work (c. 16) distinguishes the Tyrian Heraklês from the Egyptian and Argive or Theban. The latter, he says, lived about the time of Oidipous, son of Laios.

[52] The Olympic stadium, which was the chief Greek measure for itinerary distances, was equal to 600 Greek feet, 625 Roman feet, and 606 feet 9 inches English. The stadium of this length was the only one in use before the third century of our aera.

[53] The site of Orobatis must be sought for in the district west of Peukelaôtis, through which Hêphaistiôn advanced on his way to the Indus. The position and name of Arabutt, a village in this locality where ruins exist, plainly show its identity with the Orobatis of the text. It is situated on the left bank of the Landaï, and is near Naoshera. It is probably the Oroppa of the Ravenna geographer.

[54] Nikanor was succeeded in this office by Philippos, who was placed in command of the garrison of Peukelaôtis.

[55] Peukelaôtis, as has been stated, stood on the Landaï at a distance of seventeen miles north-west from Peshâwar. Alexander after the fall of Bazira moved westwards toward that river, judging it expedient before attacking the Rock to reduce all the yet unconquered region west of the Indus. He took Peukelaôtis, and then directed his march eastward till he approached the embouchure of the Kôphên, whence turning northwards he advanced up the right bank of the Indus till he reached Embolima, about eight miles distant from Aornos, and as high up the river as an army could go.

[56] Kôphaios, to judge from his name and from what is here stated, must have been the ruler of the valley of the lower Kôphên or Kâbul river. Hence it is unlikely, as some have supposed, that the dominions of Taxilês lay partly in the country west of the Indus. I find nothing anywhere in the classical writers lending countenance to such a supposition. The name of Assagetes is probably a transliteration into Greek of the Sanskrit _Aśvajit_, “gaining horses by conquest.”

[57] Ritter taking Embolima to be a word of Greek origin, equivalent in meaning to ἐκβολή, “the mouth of a river,” thought that this place lay opposite to Attak, in the angle of land where the Kôphên discharges into the Indus, and was thus led to identify Aornos with the hill in that locality on which the fort of Raja Hodi stands. Embolima appears, however, to be rather a combination of two native names, Amb and Balimah. Amb is the name of a fort, now in ruins, from which runs the ordinary path up to the summit of Mahâban. It crowns a position of remarkable strength, which faces Derbend, a small town on the opposite side of the Indus. Not far westward from this fort, and on the same spur of the Mahâban, there is another fort also in ruins, which preserves to this day in the tradition of the inhabitants the name of Balimah. It is in accordance with Indian custom thus to combine into one the names of two neighbouring places.

[58] See Note F, Aornos.

[59] “All this account,” says Abbott, who takes Aornos to be Mount Mahâban, “will answer well for the Mahâban, which is a mountain-table about five miles in length at summit, scarped on the east by tremendous precipices from which descends one large spur down upon the Indus between Sitana and Amb. The mountain spur being comparatively easy of ascent would not probably be contested by the natives, who would concentrate their power to oppose the Macedonians as they climbed the precipitous fall of the main summit. The great extent of the mountain, covered as it is with pine forest, would enable Ptolemy, under the guidance of natives, to gain any distant point of the summit without observation.”

[60] His name seems a transliteration of _Śaśigupta_, “protected by the moon.”

[61] That is the eastern part of their country. He had already reduced the western and the capital Massaga.

[62] On descending the Mahâban by its northern or western spurs, Alexander would have found himself in the valleys of Chumla and Buner. The fugitives from the rock would no doubt flee for shelter to these valleys or the mountains by which they were enclosed. Dyrta probably lay to the north of Mahâban, near the point where the Indus issues from the mountains. Court’s opinion that Dyrta was a place so far remote from the rock as Dir, which lies beyond the Pañjkora river, seems altogether improbable. Yet it is adopted by Lassen, though the regions in which Dir is situated had already been subdued.

[63] “This road,” says Abbott, “was probably the path leading amongst precipices above and along the torrent of the Burindu, a river which, after watering the valleys of Buner and Chumla, flows into the Indus above Amb. The path even now is very difficult. This would have brought Alexander back to Amb.” On this route probably lay the pass which the chief called Eryx by Curtius and Aphrikes by Diodôros attempted, but unsuccessfully, to defend against Alexander. The river Burindu above mentioned may be identified with the _Parenos_ of the Greek writers.

[64] In doing so they had of course to cross over to the left bank of the Indus.

[65] Arrian in his _Indika_ (c. 14) has described the mode of elephant hunting practised by the Indians. It is still in vogue.

[66] Abbott points out that at Amb large quantities of drift timber are yearly arrested at an eddy near Derbend. It is probable, he thinks, that the pine forest in those days descended lower down the river than it does at present. At one time forests of fine sisoo, mulberry, and willow timber grew along both banks of the Indus at that part of its course.

[67] The bridge in all probability spanned the Indus near Attak, which stands on a steep and lofty part of the left bank about two miles below the junction of the Kâbul and Indus. The width of the latter river at the fortress of Attak is, according to Lieutenant Wood who measured it, 286 yards. A little lower down where the channel is usually spanned by a bridge of boats it varies, as stated by Vigne, from 80 to 120 yards. According to Cunningham, the bridge was made higher up the river, at Ohind. From Alexander’s campaign north of the Kâbul river, General Chesney (in a lecture at Simla) hints that a _moral_ may be drawn:—“We have been accustomed,” he says, “to consider the country north of the Kâbul river as virtually impregnable. The march of Alexander’s army is a practical proof to the contrary, and although he was not burdened with artillery, and had apparently only mule transport, yet the Greek soldiers all marched in heavy armour, which must have added greatly to the difficulties of warfare among those mountains. There is an obvious moral to be drawn by us from these incidents.”

[68] See Note G, Nysa.

[69] Mount Tmôlos, as we learn from Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny, was famous for its vines. It was therefore considered to be a favourite haunt of the wine-god.

[70] As the Greek φ represents the _bh_ of Sanskrit, his name would be _Akubhi_.

[71] Ivy abounds, however, in Hazâra as well as in some other parts of India.

[72] His other names were Bacchos, Iacchos, Lyaios, Lênaios, Evios, Bromios, and among the Romans Liber also.

[73] Arrian writes to the same effect in his _Indika_, c. 5: “When the Greeks noticed a cave in the dominions of the Paropamisadai, they asserted that it was the cave of Promêtheus the Titan, in which he had been suspended for stealing the fire.” At the distance of thirty-four miles from Birikot, a place near the river Swât, is Daityapûr, now called Daiti-Kalli, said to have been built by one of the Daityas, _i.e._ _enemies of the gods_, such as were the Titans of the Greeks. In the hill adjacent is a vast cavern which, as Abbott has suggested, the companions of Alexander may have taken to be the cave frequented by the eagle which preyed upon the vitals of Prometheus the Titan. At Bamiân, which lies on one of the routes from Kâbul to Baktria, there are some very notable caves, one of which, some think, must have been that which the Greeks took to be the cave of Promêtheus. But Alexander does not appear to have selected the Bamiân route either in crossing or recrossing the Kaukasos. The mountains of the real Kaukasos were the loftiest known to the Greeks before Alexander’s time, and hence to have crossed them was regarded as a transcendent achievement.

[74] Arrian, like other ancient writers, supposed that the Indus had its sources in those mountains from which it emerges into the plains some sixty miles above Attak. It is now known that it rises in Tibet on a lofty Himalayan peak, Mount Kailâsa, famous in Hindu fable as the residence of Śiva and the Paradise of Kuvera, and that before it issues into the plains it has nearly run the half of its course of about 1800 miles. The number of its mouths has varied from time to time. Ptolemy, the geographer, gives it seven.

[75] Pâtâla in Sanskrit mythology denotes _the underworld_—the abode of snakes and demons—to which the sun at the close of day seems to descend. It was, therefore, Ritter says, the name applied by the Brahmans to all the provinces in India that lay towards sunset. Cunningham, however, suggests that Pâtali, a Sanskrit word meaning _the trumpet-flower_ (_bignonia suaveolens_) may have given its name to the Delta “in allusion,” he says, “to the ‘trumpet’ shape of the province included between the eastern and western branches of the mouth of the Indus, as the two branches as they approach the sea curve outwards like the mouth of a trumpet.” But could the idea of such a resemblance have occurred to the minds of the Indians unless maps were in use among them? For a better etymology see Note U. It has been conclusively proved that Haidarâbâd is the modern representative of the ancient Pâtâla.

[76] The Indus after receiving the united streams of the great Panjâb rivers is increased in breadth from 600 to 2000 feet. Its breadth is therefore grossly exaggerated here unless the extent to which its inundations spread beyond its banks enters into the account.

[77] See Note H.

[78] The Afghans and Rajputs are still noted for their great stature.

[79] The Greek geographers derived the name of the Aethiopians from αἴθω, _I burn_, and ὦψ, _the visage_, and applied it to all the sun-burnt, dark-complexioned races south of Egypt. As the Aethiopic language is, however, purely Semitic, the name, if indigenous, must also be Semitic, since, as Salt states, the Abyssinians to this day call themselves Itiopjawan. Herodotus (vii. 70) speaks of Asiatic Aethiopians. These served in the army which Darius led into Greece, and were marshalled with the Indians, and did not at all differ from the others in appearance, but only in their language and in their hair, which was straight, while that of the Aethiopians of Libya (Africa) was woolly.

[80] The Persians were originally the inhabitants of that poor and insignificant province called Persis, which was included between the Persian Gulf in the south and Mêdia in the north, and which stretched eastward from Susiana (Elam) to the deserts of Karmania. The great empire won by their arms, extended from the Mediterranean to the Jaxartes and Indus. Xenophon says that the Persians in early times led a life of penury and hard toil, as they inhabited a rugged country which they cultivated with their own hands (_Kyrop._ vii. 5, 67).

[81] Cyrus is said to have perished in this expedition against the Skythians, who lived beyond the Jaxartes, and were led by Queen Tomyris. The account of this expedition, given by Herodotos in the closing chapters of his first book, is examined at length by Duncker in the sixth volume of his _History of Antiquity_, pp. 112-124. Xenophon represents Cyrus as dying in peace at an advanced age.

[82] Called the _Indika_, written in the Ionic dialect, and based chiefly on the works (now lost) of Megasthenes and Nearchos.

[83] The Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, in contrast to the interior sea or Mediterranean.

[84] By the Indian Ocean (called immediately afterwards the Great Sea) is meant here the Bay of Bengal and the ocean beyond, then unknown, which extended to the shores of China. By the Kaukasos, which extended to this eastern ocean, is meant the vast Himâlayan range.