Chapter II: Part 2

Since the publication of his lecture, of which we have thus summarised the contents, Colonel Holdich has contributed to the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_ (January 1896), an article on “The Origin of the Kafîr of the Hindu-Kush,” which contains some very interesting notices regarding Alexander as he fought his way from the Hindu-Kush to the banks of the Indus. The route by which the conqueror himself advanced with one division of his army, while the other division, which was more heavily armed, advanced by the Khaibar Pass, is thus described by our author:—

“The recognised road to India from Central Asia was that which
passed through the plains of Kabul, by the Kabul river, into
Laghmân or Lamghân, and thence by the open Dasht-i-Gumbaz into
the lower Kunar. From the Kunar valley this road, even to the
time of Baber’s invasion of India (early in the sixteenth
century), crossed the comparatively low intervening range
into Bajour; thence to the valley of the Panj-Kora and Swat,
and out into India by the same passes with which we have now
(after nearly 400 years) found it convenient to enter the same
district.”

A reference to our notes, B. C. D. E., in the Appendix, will show that this view of the route is that which we ourselves had adopted. His views with regard to the position of Massaga, Aornos, and Embolima are also coincident with those at which we had arrived. Dyrta he takes to have been the place now known as Dir. That opinion was held by such great authorities as Court and Lassen, but we have pointed out an objection to it in p. 76, n. 3. To Nysa, which, as will be seen by a reference to our long note pp. 338-340, we have identified with the Nagara or Dionysopolis of Ptolemy (B. vii., 43), thus placing it at a distance of four or five miles west of Jalâlâbâd and near the Kabul river, Colonel Holdich assigns a different locality.

“The Nysaeans,” he says, “whose city Alexander spared, were the
descendants of those conquerors, who, coming from the west,
were probably deterred by the heat of the plains of India from
carrying their conquests south of the Punjab. They settled
on the cool and well-watered slopes of those mountains which
crown the uplands of Swat and Bajour, where they cultivated the
vine for generations.... It seems possible that they may have
extended their habitat as far eastward as the upper Swat valley
and the mountain region of the Indus, and at one time may have
occupied the site of the ancient capital of the Assakenoi,
Massaga, which there is reason to suppose stood in about the
position now occupied by the town of Manglaor.”

The hill in the neighbourhood of Nysa called Mount Mêros, which was clad with ivy, laurel, and vine-trees, he identifies with the Koh-i-Mor or Mountain of Mor, and gives this account of it:—

“On the right bank of the Panj-Kora river (the ancient Ghoura),
nearly opposite to its junction with the river of Swat
(Suastos), is a very conspicuous mountain, whose three-headed
outline can be distinctly seen from the Peshawar cantonment,
known as the Koh-i-Mor or Mountain of Mor. On the southern
slopes of this mountain, near the foot of it, is a large
scattered village called Nuzar or Nasar. The sides of the
mountain spurs are clothed with the same forest and jungle that
is common to the mountains of Kafiristan, and to the hills
intervening between Kafiristan and the Koh-i-Mor. Amid this
jungle are to be found the wild vine and ivy.”

In note B.—Nikaia—page 332, some remarks will be found regarding the Kafîrs. Colonel Holdich describes them similarly, but upholds the view, rejected by Elphinstone, of their Greek origin. The best known of them, he points out, are the Kamdesh Kafîrs from the lower valley of the Bashgol, a large affluent of the Kunar river, which it joins from the north-west, some forty miles below Chitral. He then continues:—

“In the case of the Kamdesh Kafîr, at least, the tradition
of Greek or Pelasgic origin seems likely to be verified in a
very remarkable way. Scientific inquiry has been converging
on him from several directions, and it seems possible that
the ethnographical riddle connected with his existence will
be solved ere long. In appearance he is of a distinct Aryan
type, with low forehead, and prominent aquiline features,
entirely free from Tartar or Mongolian traits; his eyes, though
generally dark, are frequently of a light grey colour; his
complexion is fair enough to pass for Southern European; his
figure is always slight, but indicating marvellous activity and
strength; and the modelling of his limbs would furnish study
for a sculptor.”

Colonel Holdich subsequently calls our attention to certain strange inscriptions found in the valley of the Indus east of Swat, and engraved, most of them, on stone slabs built into towers which are now in ruins. These inscriptions, on being subjected to a congress of Orientalists, were pronounced to be in an unknown tongue. They may possibly, he adds, be found to be vastly more ancient than the towers they adorned, it being, at any rate, a notable fact about them that some of them “recall a Greek alphabet of archaic type.” He concludes his observations regarding the Kafîrs in these terms: “I cannot but believe them to be the modern representatives of that very ancient western race, the Nysaeans—so ancient that the historians of Alexander refer to their origin as mythical.”

I may, in conclusion, advert, in a word, to an article of great ability, contributed to the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ for October 1894, in which the writer endeavours to show that Alexander reached the Indus by a widely different route from that which is indicated in our pages, although it is also the route which, in its main outlines, has been determined by the best authorities—men of high military rank, personally acquainted with the country, and scholars of the greatest eminence. As the selection of the route advocated was mainly based on the opinion which the writer had formed as to the point whereat Alexander had effected his passage of the Indus, it will suffice to refute his theory if we prove that his opinion is altogether untenable. In his view, the Indus was crossed, not at Attock, but much higher up stream, at a point between Amb and the mouth of the Barhind river, the Parenos of the Greeks. Now, while the passage at Attock is that which, from time immemorial, has been used as the easiest means of access into India from the west, the passage higher up is much more difficult and dangerous, for though the river is not there so wide, its current is much more impetuous, while the banks are, at the same time, much steeper. Had Alexander notwithstanding attempted to cross at that point, he would have had to encounter a desperate resistance on the part of his determined enemy Abisares, in whose dominions he would have found himself on reaching the eastern bank. He made, however, no such foolhardy attempt either here or afterwards at the Hydaspes. We find, as a matter of fact, that when he made the passage he met with no opposition, but was most hospitably received by his vassal, the King of Taxila, in whose dominions Attock was situated. The writer, it would appear, has been led to his erroneous assumption by applying to the Indus _specially_ the remark in Strabo (quoted at page 64, note 4) regarding the rivers of Northern Afghânistân _generally_, that Alexander wished to cross them as near their sources as possible. The remark, we may be certain, had no reference to the Indus at all, for Alexander could not but have learned from Taxiles, who had joined him at Nikaia before the two divisions of his army separated, where the Indus could best be crossed. Taxiles, moreover, accompanied the division which advanced towards the Indus by the Khaibar Pass, with instructions to make all the necessary preparations for the passage of the whole army. Could such instructions have been given if the point where the passage was to be made had still to be discovered? A reference to Baber’s _Memoirs_ will show with what ease that other great conqueror transported his army into India by using the Attock passage.

_A sixth volume, containing descriptions of India by Strabo
and Pliny, together with incidental notices of India by other
classical writers, is in course of preparation, and will
complete the series._

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

En inventant l’histoire, la Grèce inventa le jugement du monde,
et, dans ce jugement, l’arrêt de la Grèce fut sans appel.
A celui dont la Grèce n’a pas parlé, l’oubli, c’est-à-dire
le néant. A celui dont la Grèce se souvient, la gloire,
c’est-à-dire la vie.—_Discours de M. Ernest Renan du 5 Mai
1892._

This work is the fifth of a series which may be entitled _Ancient India as described by the Classical Writers_, since it was projected to supply annotated translations of all the accounts of India which have descended to us from classical antiquity. The volumes which have already appeared contain the fragments of the _Indika_ of Ktêsias the Knidian, and of the _Indika_ of Megasthenês, the _Indika_ of Arrian, the _Periplous of the Erythraian Sea_ by an unknown author, and Ptolemy’s _Geography of India and the other Countries of Eastern Asia_. A sixth work, containing translations of the chapters in Strabo’s _Geography_ which describe _India and Ariana_, is in preparation, and will complete the series. I cannot at present say whether this work will appear as a separate publication, or will be included in a volume containing new and revised editions of the three _Indikas_ mentioned above, which are now nearly out of print, as are also the other two works of the series.

In the present work I have translated and annotated all the earliest and most authentic records which have been preserved of the Macedonian invasion of India under Alexander the Great. The notes do not touch on points either of grammar or of textual criticism, but are mainly designed to illustrate the statements advanced in the narratives. When short, they accompany the text as footnotes, and when of such a length as would too much encumber the pages, they have been placed together in an appendix by themselves. Such notes again as refer to _persons_ have been placed, whether short or long, in a second appendix, which I have designated a _Biographical Appendix_.

In preparing the translations and notes I have consulted a great many works, of which the following may be specified as those which I found most useful:—

Droysen’s _Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen_.

Williams’s _Life of Alexander_.

Sainte-Croix’s _Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens
d’Alexandre le Grand_.

C. Müller’s _collection of the remaining fragments of the
Historians of Alexander the Great_.

Thirlwall’s _History of Greece_, vols. vi. and vii.

Grote’s _History of Greece_, vol. xii.

Duncker’s _History of Antiquity_, vol. iv., which treats of
India exclusively.

Talboys Wheeler’s _History of India_.

Le Clerc’s _Criticism upon Curtius_, prefixed to Rooke’s
Translation of Arrian’s _Anabasis_.

Lassen’s _Indische Alterthumskunde_.

General Sir A. Cunningham’s _Geography of Ancient India_.

V. de Saint-Martin’s _Étude sur la Géographie Grecque et Latine
de l’Inde_, and his _Mémoire Analytique sur la carte de l’Asie
Centrale et de l’Inde_.

Rennell’s _Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan_.

Bunbury’s _History of Ancient Geography_.

Abbott’s _Gradus ad Aornon_.

_Journal Asiatique._ Serie VIII.

_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society._ New Series.

Mahaffy’s _Alexander’s Empire_ and his _Greek Life_ and
_Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman Conquest_.

Professor Freeman’s _Essay on Alexander the Great_.

General Chesney’s _Lecture on the Indian Campaign of Alexander_.

Wesseling’s Latin Translation of Diodôros.

Translations of Curtius by Digby, Pratt, and Vaugelas
respectively.

The Notes to the Elzevir edition of Curtius.

Chinnock’s Translation of Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, and
Notes thereto.

Chaussard’s Translation of Arrian into French.

Moberly’s _Alexander the Great in the Punjaub_, from Arrian.
Book V.

Burton’s _Sindh_.

Weber’s _Die Griechen in Indien_.

Dr. Bellew’s _Ethnography of Afghanistan_.

Sir W. W. Hunter’s and Professor Max Müller’s Works on India.

The Translations are strictly literal, but though such, will, I trust, be found to give, without crudeness of diction, a faithful reflex not only of the sense, but also of the spirit, force, fluency, and perspicuity of the original compositions. I have at all events spared no pains to combine in the translations the two merits of being at once literal and idiomatic in expression.

In translating Arrian I adopted the text of Sintenis (2nd edition, Berlin, 1863); and with regard to Curtius, I found the work entitled _Alexander in India_, edited by Heitland and Raven, very serviceable, containing, as it does, exactly that portion of Curtius which it was my purpose to translate. Both the works referred to contain valuable _prolegomena_ and notes, to which I must here acknowledge my obligations.

The Introduction consists of two parts. In the first, I have pointed out the sources whence our knowledge of the history of Alexander has been derived, and discussed their title to credibility; while in the second, I have sketched Alexander’s career, and added a very brief summary of the events that followed his death till the wars for the division of his empire were finally composed.

In the transcription of Greek proper names I have followed as hitherto the method introduced by Grote, which scholars have now generally adopted. A vindication of the method which, to my thinking, is unanswerable, has appeared in the preface to Professor Freeman’s _History of Sicily_, a work which the author unfortunately has not lived to complete.

The most noticeable change resulting from this method is the substitution of _K_ for _C_ in the spelling of Greek names. This should be borne in mind by those who may have occasion to consult either the Biographical Appendix or the General Index. I may further note that in transcribing Sanskrit or other Indian names I have in all cases used the circumflex to distinguish the long _â_, which is sounded as _a_ in _fall_, from the short _a_, which is sounded as _u_ in _dumb_. In Sanskrit and its derivative dialects this short vowel (अ) is never written unless it begin a word, for it is supposed to be inherent in every consonant. The letter _ś_ with the acute accent represents the palatal sibilant (श), which is sounded like _sh_.

Two maps accompany the work, the larger of which shows the entire line of the route which Alexander followed in the course of his Asiatic expedition, while the smaller shows more distinctly that part of his route which lay through the northern parts of Afghânistân and the Country of the Five Rivers. For both I consulted the latest and most authoritative maps, both British and German, in which these routes have been laid down, and I found them in pretty close agreement, except with regard to that part of the route which is traced in the smaller map. Here I have generally followed the sketch map of the Panjâb which is given in General Cunningham’s _Ancient Geography of India_, but have ventured to differ from him with regard to the position of the Rock Aornos, of Alexander’s bridge over the Indus, of Sangala, and of the Oxydrakai, whom I have placed, as in Sir E. H. Bunbury’s map, to the south of the Malloi.

The frontispiece to the volume, reproduced from a fifteenth-century French MS. of the Life of Alexander, may, it is hoped, appeal to many as a quaint rendering of a widely “popular” incident.

I cannot conclude without expressing my great obligations to Mr. Archibald Constable, by whose firm this work is published, for all the trouble he has taken in connection with its passage through the press, and especially with the preparation of the illustrations. I have also to thank Dr. Burgess for supplying the photograph from which the Aśôka inscription on page 373 has been reproduced, and for sundry valuable suggestions besides.

J. W. M’C.

9 WESTHALL GARDENS, EDINBURGH, 1892.

INTRODUCTION

“Of the life of Alexander we have five consecutive narratives,
besides numerous allusions and fragments scattered up and down
various Greek and Latin writers.... Unluckily, among all the
five there is not a single contemporary chronicler.... The
value of all, it is clear, must depend upon the faithfulness
with which they represent the earlier writings which they
had before them, and upon the amount of critical power
which they may have brought to bear upon their examination.
Unluckily again, among all the five, one only has any claim
to the name of a critic. Arrian alone seems to have had at
once the will and the power to exercise a discreet judgment
upon the statements of those who went before him. Diodôros we
believe to be perfectly honest, but he is, at the same time,
impenetrably stupid. Plutarch, as he himself tells us, does
not write history, but lives; his object is rather to gather
anecdotes, to point a moral, than to give a formal narrative of
political and military events. Justin is a feeble and careless
epitomizer. Quintus Curtius is, in our eyes, little better
than a romance writer; he is the only one of the five whom we
should suspect of any wilful departure from the truth.”—From
_Historical Essays_, by Professor Freeman, 2d series, third
edition, pp. 183, 184.

INTRODUCTION

The invasion of India by Alexander the Great, like the first voyage of Columbus to America, was the means of opening up a new world to the knowledge of mankind. Before the great conqueror visited that remote and sequestered country, which was then thought to lie at the utmost ends of the earth, nothing was known regarding it beyond a few vague particulars mentioned by Herodotos, and such grains of truth as could be sifted from the mass of fictions which formed the staple of the treatise on India written by Ktêsias of Knidos. A comparison of this work with the _Indika_ of Megasthenes, which was written after the invasion, will show how entirely all real knowledge of the country was due to that event. It may even, we think, be asserted that had that invasion not taken place, the knowledge of India among the nations of the West would not have advanced much beyond where Ktêsias left it, until the maritime passage to the East by the Cape of Good Hope had been discovered.

It was early in the year 326 B.C. that Alexander, fresh from the conquest of the fierce tribes of northern Afghânistân, led his army over into the plains of India by a bridge of boats, with which he had spanned the Indus a little below its junction with the Kabul river.[1] He remained in the country not more than twenty months all told, yet in that brief space he reduced the Panjâb as far as the Satlej, and the whole of the spacious valley of the lower Indus, downwards to the ocean itself. He would even have penetrated to the Ganges had his army consented to follow him, and, in the opinion of Sandrokottos, would have succeeded in adding to his empire the vast regions through which that river flows. The rapidity with which he achieved his actual conquests in the country appears all the more surprising when we take into account that at every stage of his advance he encountered a most determined resistance. The people were not only of a most martial temperament, but were at the same time inured to arms; and had they but been united and led by such a capable commander as Pôros, the Macedonian army was doomed to utter destruction. Alexander, with all his matchless strategy, could not have averted such a catastrophe; for what is the record of his Indian campaigns? We find that the toughest of all his battles was that which he fought on the banks of the Hydaspes against Pôros; that he had hot work in overcoming the resistance of the Kathaians before the walls of Sangala; that he was wounded near to death in his assault upon the Mallian stronghold; and that in the valley of the Indus he could only overpower the opposition instigated by the Brahmans by means of wholesale massacres and executions. It may hence be safely inferred that if Alexander had found India united in arms to withstand his aggression, the star of his good fortune would have culminated with his passage of the Indus. But he found, on the contrary, the political condition of the country when he entered it eminently favourable to his designs. The regions of the Indus and its great tributary streams were then divided into separate states—some under kingly and others under republican governments, but all alike prevented by their mutual jealousies and feuds from acting in concert against a common enemy, and therefore all the more easy to overcome. Alexander, in pursuance of his usual policy, sought to secure the permanence of his Indian conquests by founding cities,[2] which he strongly fortified and garrisoned with large bodies of troops to overawe and hold in subjection the tribes in their neighbourhood. The system of government also which he established was the same as that which he had provided for his other subject provinces, the civil administration being entrusted to native chiefs, while the executive and military authority was wielded by Macedonian officers.

The Asiatic nations in general submissively acquiesced in the new order of things, and after a time found no reason to regret the old order which it had superseded. Under their Hellenic masters they enjoyed a greater measure of freedom than they had ever before known; commerce was promoted, wealth increased, the administration of justice improved, and altogether they reached a higher level of culture, both intellectual and moral, than they could possibly have attained under a continuance of Persian supremacy.

India did not participate to any great extent in these advantages. Her people were too proud and warlike to brook long the burden and reproach of foreign thraldom, and within a few years after the Conqueror’s death they completely freed themselves from the yoke he imposed, and were thereafter ruled by their native princes. The Greek occupation having thus proved so transient, had little more effect in shaping the future course of the national destinies than a casual raid of Scottish borderers into Cumberland in the old days could have had in shaping the general course of English history.[3]

By this disruption of her relations with the rest of Alexander’s empire, India fell back into her former isolation from all the outside world, and for more than fifteen or sixteen centuries afterwards the western nations knew as little of her internal condition as they knew till lately of the interior of the Dark Continent. The invasion was, however, by no means fruitless of some good results. As has been already indicated, it drew aside the veil which had till then shrouded India from the observation of the rest of the world, and it thus widened the horizon of knowledge. It is fortunate that what then became known of India was not left for its preservation at the mercy of mere oral tradition, but was committed to the safer custody of writing. Not a few of Alexander’s officers and companions were men of high attainments in literature and science, and some of their number composed memoirs of his wars, in the course of which they recorded their impressions of India and the races by which they found it inhabited.[4] These reports, even in the fragmentary state in which they have come down to us, have proved of inestimable value to scholars engaged in the investigation of Indian antiquity—a task which the sad deficiency of Sanskrit literature in history and chronology has rendered one of no ordinary difficulty. Strabo, we must however note, stigmatized the authors referred to as being in general a set of liars, of whom only a few managed now and then to stammer out some words of truth. This sweeping censure is, however, a most egregious calumny. It may indeed be admitted that their descriptions are not uniformly free from error or exaggeration, and may even be tainted by some intermixture of fiction, but on the whole they wrote in good faith—a fact which even Strabo himself practically admits by frequently citing their authority for his statements. If one or two of them are to some extent liable to the censure, it must be remembered that Ptolemy, Aristoboulos, Nearchos, Megasthenes, and others of them, are writers of unimpeachable veracity.

It is to be regretted that the works in which these writers recorded their Indian experiences have all, without exception, perished. We know, however, the main substance of their contents from the histories of Alexander, written several centuries after his death by the authors we have here translated, as well as from Strabo, Pliny, Ailianos, Athênaios, Orosius, and others.

The following is a list of the writers on India who visited the country either with Alexander, or not many years after his death, or who were at least his contemporaries:—

1. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, who became king of Egypt.

2. Aristoboulos of Potidaia, or, as it was called afterwards,
Kassandreia.

3. Nearchos, a Kretan by birth, but settled at Amphipolis,
admiral of the fleet.

4. Onêsikritos of Astypalaia, or, as some say, of Aegina, pilot
of the fleet.

5. Eumenês of Kardia, Alexander’s secretary, who kept the
_Ephemerides_ or Court Journal. His countryman, Hieronymos, in
his work on Alexander’s successors, made a few references to
the campaigns of the Conqueror.

6. Chares of Mitylene, wrote anecdotes of Alexander’s private
life.

7. Kallisthenes of Olynthos, Aristotle’s kinsman, author of an
account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition.

8. Kleitarchos (Clitarchus), son of Deinôn of Rhodes, author of
a life of Alexander.

9. Androsthenes of Thasos, a naval officer, author of a
Paraplous.

10. Polykleitos of Larissa, author of a history of Alexander,
full of geographical details.

11. Kyrsilos of Pharsalos, who wrote of the exploits of
Alexander.

12. Anaximenes of Lampsakos, author of a history of Alexander.

13. Diognêtos, who, with Baitôn, measured and recorded the
distances of Alexander’s marches.

14. Archelaös, a geographer, supposed to have accompanied
Alexander’s expedition.

15. Amyntas, author of a work on Alexander’s _Stathmoi_, _i.e._
stages or halting-places.

16. Patroklês, a writer on geography.

17. Megasthenês, friend of Seleukos Nikator, and his ambassador
at the Court of Sandrokottos, king of Palibothra, composed an
_Indika_.

18. Dêïmachos, ambassador at the same court in the days of the
son and successor of Sandrokottos, author of a work on India in
two books.

19. Diodotos of Erythrai, who, like Eumenês, kept Alexander’s
Court Journal, and may possibly have been in India.

Five consecutive narratives of Alexander’s Indian campaigns, compiled several centuries after his death from the works of the writers enumerated, who were either witnesses of the events they described, or living at the time of their occurrence, have descended to our times, and are respectively contained in the following productions:—

1. The Anabasis of Alexander, by Arrian of Nikomêdeia.

2. The History of Alexander the Great, by Quintus Curtius Rufus.

3. The Life of Alexander, in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.

4. The History of Diodôros the Sicilian.

5. The Book of Macedonian History, compiled from the Universal
History of Trogus Pompeius, by Justinus Frontinus.

ARRIAN

Arrian, who is universally allowed to be by far the best of all Alexander’s historians, was at once a philosopher, a statesman, a military commander, an expert in the tactics of war, and an accomplished writer. He was born towards the end of the first century of our aera at Nikomêdeia (now Ismiknid or Ismid), the capital of Bithynia, situated near the head of a deep bay at the south-eastern end of the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. He became a disciple of the Stoic philosopher Epiktêtos (much in the same way as Xenophon attached himself to Sôkrates), and gave to the world an abstract of his master’s lectures, together with an _Encheiridion_ or manual of his philosophy—a work which was long and widely popular. Under the Emperor Hadrian he was appointed in A.D. 132 prefect of Kappadokia. He had not long filled this office when a large body of wild Alan horsemen made one of their formidable raids into his province. They had hitherto proved irresistible, but on this occasion they were completely foiled by the skilful strategy and tactics of Arrian, who expelled them from his borders before they had secured any plunder. In Rome he was preferred to various high offices, and under Antoninus Pius was raised to the consulship. In his later years he retired to his native city, where he occupied himself in composing treatises on a considerable variety of subjects, but chiefly on history and geography. He died at an advanced age in the reign of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

His account of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition was followed by a treatise on India called the _Indika_. The first part of this work, which gives a description of India and its people, was based chiefly on the _Indika_ of Megasthenes; and the second part, which narrates the famous voyage of Nearchos from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, was based on a journal kept by Nearchos himself. The work is but a supplement to his history. He speaks himself with noble pride of this great work. “This I do assert,” he says, “that this historical record of Alexander’s deeds is, and has been from my youth up, in place to me of native land, family, and honours of state; and so I do not regard myself as unworthy to take rank among the foremost writers in the Greek language, if Alexander be forsooth among the foremost in arms.” “Quel délire de l’amour propre!” here exclaims Sainte-Croix. His merits as an author are thus well stated by a writer in Smith’s _Classical Dictionary_: “This great work (the _Anabasis_) reminds the reader of Xenophon’s _Anabasis_, not only by its title, but also by the ease and clearness of its style.... Great as his merits thus are as an historian, they are yet surpassed by his excellences as an historical critic. His _Anabasis_ is based upon the most trustworthy historians among the contemporaries of Alexander.... One of the great merits of the work is the clearness and distinctness with which he describes all military movements and operations, the drawing up of the armies for battle, and the conduct of battles and sieges.”

Q. CURTIUS RUFUS

Nothing is known with any certainty respecting either the life of this historian or the time at which he lived. Niebuhr makes him contemporary with Septimius Severus, but most critics with Vespasian. Zumpt again, who, like some other eminent scholars, identifies him with the rhetorician Q. Curtius Rufus, of whom Suetonius wrote a life now lost, places him as early as Augustus.[5] The style in which his history is written certainly shows him to have been a consummate master of rhetoric. He was particularly given to adorning his narrative with speeches and public harangues, and these, as Zumpt observes, are marked with a degree of power and effectiveness which scarcely anything in that species of writing can surpass. It may also be said that his style for elegance does not fall much short of the perfection of Cicero himself. It has of course its faults, and in these can be traced the incipient degeneracy of the Latin language, such as the introduction of poetical diction into prose, the ambition of expressing everything pointedly and strikingly, not to mention certain deviations from strict grammatical propriety.

The materials of his narrative were drawn chiefly from Ptolemy, who accompanied Alexander into India, from Kleitarchos their contemporary, and from Timagenes, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, and wrote an excellent history of Alexander and his successors. While the sources whence he derived his information were thus good on the whole, he was himself deficient in the knowledge of military tactics, geography, chronology, astronomy, and especially in historical criticism, and he is therefore as an historical authority far inferior to Arrian. But in perusing his “pictured pages” the reader takes but little note of his errors and inconsistencies, being fascinated with his graceful and glowing narrative, interspersed as it is with brilliant orations, sage maxims, sound moral reflections, vivid descriptions of life and manners, and beautiful estimates of character. It is not surprising that with such merits Curtius has been one of the most popular of the classical authors. In spite of all his sins, for which he has so often been pilloried by the censors of literary morals, his history of Alexander has been the delight and admiration of not a few of the greatest of European scholars. He seems to have taken Livy as his model, as Arrian took Xenophon for his. His work consisted originally of ten books, but the first two are lost, and in some of the others considerable gaps occur. The French translation of Curtius by Vaugelas, who devoted thirty years of his life to the task, is so remarkable for its elegance that it has been pronounced to be as inimitable as Alexander himself was invincible. It is not, however, a very close version.

PLUTARCH

There are but few works in the wide circle of literature which have afforded so much instruction and entertainment to the world as Plutarch’s _Parallel Lives of the Famous Men of Greece and Rome_. These _Lives_, which are forty-six in number, are arranged in pairs, and each pair contains the _life_ of a Greek and a Roman, followed, though not always, by a comparison drawn between the two. Alexander the Great and Caesar are ranked together, but no comparison follows. In his introduction to the _life_ of the former, Plutarch explains his method as a biographer. “We do not,” he says, “give the actions in full detail and with a scrupulous exactness, but rather in a short summary, since we are not writing _histories_, but _lives_. It is not always in the most distinguished achievements that men’s vices or virtues may be best discerned, but often an action of but little note—a short saying or a jest—may mark a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges or the most important battles.” His _Lives_, therefore, while useful to the writer of history, must be used with care, since they are not intended as materials for history. His narrative of Alexander’s progress through India has one or two passages which show this indifference to historical accuracy, as when, for instance, he states that the soldiers of Alexander refused to pass the Ganges when they saw the opposite bank covered with the army of the King of the Praisians.[6] His account of the battle with Pôros is, however, excellent, and all the more interesting, because, as he tells us, he obtained the particulars from Alexander’s own letters.[7]

Plutarch was a native of Chairôneia, a town in Boiôtia. The date of his birth is unknown, but may be fixed towards the middle of the first century of our aera. He visited Italy, and lectured on philosophy in some of its cities. For some time he lived in Rome, where, it is said, but on doubtful authority, that he was promoted to high offices of state, and became tutor to the Emperor Trajan. The later years of his life he spent at Chairôneia, where he discharged various magisterial offices and held a priesthood. The date of his death, like that of his birth, is unknown, but it is clear that he lived to an advanced age. Besides the _Lives_, he published other writings, mostly essays, having some resemblance to those of Bacon. They are sixty in number, and are called collectively _Moralia_, though some of them are of an historical character. Two of them are orations _About the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander_. His style is somewhat difficult, at times cumbrous and involved, and somewhat deficient in that grace and perspicuity for which the works of the Attic writers are noted. His writings are all the more valuable from their supplying a deficiency of the Greek historians, whose works are filled with the records of war and politics, while giving us but little insight into men’s private lives and their social surroundings.

DIODOROS THE SICILIAN

Diodôros was born at Agyrium, a city in the interior of Sicily, and was a contemporary of Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus. It was the great ambition of his life to write an universal history, and having this in view he travelled over a great part of Europe and Asia in order to acquire a more accurate knowledge of countries and nations than could be obtained from merely reading books. In Rome, where a far greater number of the ancient documents which he required to consult had been collected than were to be found elsewhere, he resided for a considerable time. He spent thirty years in the composition of his work, to which he gave the name of _Bibliothêkê_, which indicated that it formed quite _a library_ in itself, embracing, as it did, the history of all ages and all countries. It consisted of forty books, which he divided into three great sections: 1st, the mythical period previous to the Trojan war; 2d, the period thence to the death of Alexander the Great; 3d, the period from Alexander to the beginning of Caesar’s Gallic wars. Considerable portions of the _Bibliothêkê_ are lost, but all the books relating to the period with which we are concerned are still extant.

Diodôros constructed his narrative upon the plan of annals, placing the events of each year side by side without regard to their intrinsic connection. The value of the work is greatly impaired by the author’s evident want of critical discernment; he mixes up history with fiction, shows frequently that he has misunderstood his authorities, and advances statements which are mutually contradictory. His style is, however, pleasing, having the merits of simplicity and clearness. In his second book he gives a description of India epitomized from Megasthenes. His account of Alexander’s career in India records some interesting particulars of which we should otherwise have remained ignorant. He seems to have drawn largely from the same sources as Curtius.

JUSTINUS FRONTINUS

Justin, in the preface to his work entitled _De Historiis Philippicis_, informs us that it was “a kind of anthology”—_veluti florum corpusculum_—extracted from the forty-four volumes published by Pompeius Trogus on Philippic (_i.e._ Macedonian) history. As these volumes included histories of nearly all the countries with which the Macedonian sovereigns had transactions, they embraced such a very wide field that they were regarded as a cyclopaedia of general history. Justin remarks that while many authors regard it as an arduous task to write no more than the history of one king or one state, we cannot but think that Pompeius had the daring of Hercules in attacking the whole world, seeing that in his books are contained the _res gestae_ of all ages, kings, nations, and peoples. He then states that he had occupied his leisure while in Rome by selecting those passages of Trogus which seemed most worthy of being generally known, and passing over such as he took to be neither particularly interesting nor instructive. He has been much, but unjustly, blamed for his omissions, seeing that his only object in writing was to compile a work of elegant historical extracts. By so doing he has rescued from oblivion many facts not elsewhere recorded. From the extracts relating to India we gather more information about Sandrokottos (Chandragupta) than from any other classical source. Trogus Pompeius belonged, we know, to the age of Augustus, but it is uncertain when Justin lived. As the earliest writer by whom he is mentioned is St. Jerome, his date cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth century of our aera.

THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Alexander III., King of Macedonia, surnamed the Great, was born at Pella in the year 356 B.C. He was the son of Philip II. and Olympias, who belonged to the royal race of Epeiros, which claimed to be descended from Achilles, the hero of the _Iliad_. The education of the prince was in the outset entrusted to Lysimachos, an Akarnanian, and to his mother’s kinsman Leonidas, a man of an austere character, who inured his pupil to Spartan-like habits of hard exercise and simple fare. In his thirteenth year he was placed under the immediate tuition of Aristotle, who acquired a life-long influence over the mind and character of his pupil. It may be supposed that the eager love of discovery which conspicuously distinguished Alexander from ordinary conquerors was in a great measure inspired and stimulated by the precepts of his master. In his sixteenth year he was entrusted, during his father’s absence on a foreign expedition, with the regency of Macedonia; and two years later, at the battle of Chaironeia, which was won chiefly through his impetuous valour, he displayed for the first time his incomparable genius for war. This victory made the Macedonian King supreme in Greece, and at a convention which met soon afterwards at his summons, and which was attended by deputies from all the Grecian states except Sparta, he was appointed to command the national forces and to conduct an expedition against Persia to avenge the invasions of Mardonios and Xerxes. He was actively engaged in preparing for this great contest when he fell by the hand of an assassin. Alexander succeeded (336 B.C.) not only to his sovereignty, but also to his supremacy in the affairs of Greece. He found himself, immediately on his accession, beset on all sides with most formidable opponents. Attalos, who was in Asia with a considerable force under his command, aspired to the throne; the Greeks, instigated by the passionate eloquence of Demosthenes, attempted to liberate themselves from Macedonian dictation, and the barbarians of the north threatened his hereditary dominions with invasion. The youthful monarch was equal to the emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube. Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been, he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse.

The empire which this comparatively insignificant force was destined to attack and overthrow was the greatest which the world had as yet seen, and had already subsisted for two hundred years. It had been founded by Cyrus the Great, and extended by his successors till it embraced all Asia from the shores of the Aegean and the Levant to the regions of the Jaxartes and the Indus. It was divided by the great belt of desert, which stretches almost continuously from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Aral, into two great sections which differed widely both in their physical aspect and the character of their inhabitants. The eastern tribes living amid mountains and deserts were rude, but distinguished for their hardihood, their love of independence, and their martial prowess. The western Asiatics, on the other hand, who inhabited those fair and fertile countries which had been the earliest seats of civilisation, were singularly deficient in these qualities. Enervated by ease and the affluence of luxuries, they offered but a feeble resistance to Alexander, and bent their necks submissively to his yoke. He had quite a different experience when he came into conflict with the tribes of the Oxus, Jaxartes, and Indus. They resisted him with the utmost spirit and determination, rose against him even after defeat, and succeeded in inflicting a signal disaster on his arms.

The system by which the vast empire was governed may be described as a rigid monarchy. It was divided by Darius Hystaspes into twenty provinces, a number which was afterwards much augmented probably by the subdivision of the larger ones. The government of each was committed to a satrap[8] whose powers were almost despotic. He collected the revenues, from which, besides defraying the expenses of his own administration, he was obliged to remit a fixed amount of annual tribute to the royal treasury. The Indian satrapy, which probably included Baktria and was limited to the regions west of the Indus, paid the largest tribute, which, as we learn from Herodotos, amounted to the immense sum of 360 talents of gold dust.

The king who filled the throne at the time of the invasion was Darius Kodomannos, who had some reputation for personal courage and some other virtues which might have adorned his reign had it been fated to be peaceful. He was, however, like Louis XVI. of France, quite destitute of the skill and nerve required for piloting the vessel of the state in stormy times. The empire long before his accession had been falling into decay. Insurrections were for ever breaking out. Some of the provinces, though nominally subject, were practically independent, while in others the satraps both claimed and exercised the right of transmitting their authority by hereditary succession. What saved it from dissolution was, not so much the strength of the government, as the reluctance of the leading men, through their distrust of each other’s good faith, to enter into combinations against it. It was another symptom of its weakness, that the king in his wars trusted far more to the Greek troops in his pay than to his native levies and their leaders. Neither the Greeks nor the Persians had lost sight of the fact that at Kounaxa the victory had been won for Cyrus by the Greek mercenaries.

Alexander having completed his preparations, and appointed Antipater to act as regent of Macedonia during his absence, crossed over the Hellespont into Asia in the spring of 334 B.C. His army, though numerically insignificant when compared with the magnitude of the enterprise which lay before it, proved nevertheless, from the physical superiority, courage, and daring of the men, combined with the perfection of their organisation and discipline, and the consummate skill of their leader, more than a match for any force, however numerous, which was brought into the field against it. We may here quote a passage from Thirlwall, in which he describes the composition, organisation, and equipment of this heroic little army which performed the greatest deeds recorded in military annals:

“The main body, the phalanx—or quadruple phalanx, as it was
sometimes called, to mark that it was formed of four divisions,
each bearing the same name—presented a mass of 18,000 men,
which was distributed, at least by Alexander, into six brigades
of 3000 each, formidable in its aspect, and on ground suited
to its operations, irresistible in its attacks. The phalangite
soldier wore the usual defensive armour of the Greek heavy
infantry—helmet, breast-plate, and greaves: and almost the
whole front of his person was covered with the long shield
called the _aspis_. His weapons were a sword long enough to
enable a man in the second rank to reach an enemy who had come
to close quarters with the comrade who stood before him, and
the celebrated spear, known by the Macedonian name, _sarissa_,
four-and-twenty feet long. The sarissa, when couched, projected
eighteen feet in front of the soldier: and the space between
the ranks was such that those of the second rank were fifteen,
those of the third twelve, those of the fourth nine, those of
the fifth six, and those of the sixth three feet in advance of
the first line: so that the man at the head of the file was
guarded on each side by the points of six spears. The ordinary
depth of the phalanx was of sixteen ranks. The men who stood
too far behind to use their sarissas, and who therefore
kept them raised until they advanced to fill a vacant place,
still added to the pressure of the mass. As the efficacy of
the phalanx depended on its compactness, and this again on
the uniformity of its movements, the greatest care was taken
to select the best soldiers for the foremost and hindmost
ranks—the frames, as it were, of the engine. The bulk and core
of the phalanx consisted of Macedonians; but it was composed
in part of foreign troops. These were no doubt Greeks. But
the northern Illyrians, Paeonians, Agrianians, and Thracians,
who were skilled in the use of missiles, furnished bowmen,
dartsmen, and slingers: probably according to the proportion
which the master of tactics deemed the most eligible, about
half the number of the phalanx. To these was added another
class of infantry, peculiar in some respects to the Macedonian
army, though the invention belonged to Iphicrates. They were
called Hypaspists, because, like the phalangites, they carried
the long shield: but their spears were shorter, their swords
longer, their armour lighter. They were thus prepared for more
rapid movements, and did not so much depend on the nature of
the ground. They formed a corps of about 6000 men. The cavalry
was similarly distinguished into three classes by its arms,
accoutrements, and mode of warfare. Its main strength consisted
in 1500 Macedonian and as many Thessalian horse. But the rider
and his horse were cased in armour, and his weapons seem to
have corresponded to those of the heavy infantry. The light
cavalry, chiefly used for skirmishing and pursuit, and in
part armed with the sarissa, was drawn from the Thracians and
Paeonians, and was about the third of the number of the heavy
horse. A smaller body of Greek cavalry probably stood in nearly
the same relation to the other two divisions, as the Hypaspists
to the heavy and light infantry. To the Hypaspists belonged
the royal foot bodyguard, the Agêma, or royal escort, and the
Argyraspides, so called from the silver ornaments with which
their long shields were enriched. But the precise relation in
which these bodies stood to each other does not appear very
distinctly from the descriptions of the ancients. The royal
horse-guard was composed of eight Macedonian squadrons, filled
with the sons of the best families. The numbers of each are not
ascertained, but they seem in all not much to have exceeded or
fallen short of a thousand.”

From this description of the Macedonian army, it may easily be imagined what a formidable aspect its main arm—the phalanx of panoplied infantry—would present to the enemy. Polybios informs us that the Roman officers who were present in the battle of Kynoskephalai, and then saw the phalanx for the first time, told him that in all their experience of war they had never seen anything so terrible. The phalanx, however, as that historian points out, could only operate effectively on level and open ground—was quite unfit for rapid advance and rough terrain, and useless if its ranks were broken. It was thus helpless in face of an active enemy unless well supported by cavalry and light troops. This explains why Alexander attached so much importance to his cavalry. In point of fact he owed none of his victories to the phalanx; his cavalry, rapid in its evolutions and charging with resistless impetuosity, gained them all. In addition to the troops which have been particularised in the extract, there was one kind organised by Alexander called _dimachai_, intermediate between cavalry and infantry, being designed to fight on horseback or on foot as circumstances required. His artillery formed a very useful part of his equipment. The _balistai_ and _katapeltai_ of which it consisted threw stones and darts to the distance of 300 yards, and was frequently employed with great effect.

As he foresaw that in the course of his expedition he was likely to penetrate to regions either imperfectly or altogether unknown, he entertained on his staff men of literary and scientific requirements to write his deeds, and describe those countries and nations to which he might carry his arms.