The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and KarmaniaMcCrindle, John Watson
History
The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as described by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch and Justin: Being Translations of such portions of the Works of these and other Classical Authors as describe Alexander's Campaigns in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia and Karmania
McCrindle, John Watson
Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.-323 B.C.; India -- History -- To 324 B.C. -- Sources
They had elected three generals renowned for their valour and military
skill; but when those who lived near the river, the banks of which were
most thickly studded with their villages,[313] saw the whole river as
far as the eye could reach covered with ships, and saw besides the
many thousands of men and their gleaming arms, they took fright at the
strange spectacle and imagined that an army of the gods and a second
Father Bacchus, a name famous in that country, were coming into their
midst. The shouts of the soldiers and the noise of the oars, together
with the confused voices of the sailors encouraging each other, so
filled their alarmed ears that they all ran off to the army and cried
out to the soldiers that they would be mad to offer battle to the gods,
that the number of ships carrying these invincible warriors was past all
counting.[314] By these reports they created such a terror in the ranks
of their own army that they sent ambassadors commissioned to surrender
their whole nation to Alexander.
Having received their submission, he came on the fourth day after to
other tribes which had as little inclination for fighting as their
neighbours. Here therefore he built a town, which by his orders was
called Alexandrea,[315] and then he entered the country of the people
known as the Musicani.[316] While he was here he held an enquiry into the
complaints advanced by the Parapamisadae against Terioltes,[317] whom
he had made their satrap, and, finding many charges of extortion and
tyranny proved against him, he sentenced him to death. On the other hand
Oxyartes, the governor of the Bactriani, was not only acquitted, but, as
he had claims upon Alexander’s affections, was rewarded with an extension
of the territory under his jurisdiction. Having thereafter reduced the
Musicani, Alexander put a garrison into their capital, and marched thence
into the country of the Praesti, another Indian tribe.[318] Their king
was Porticanus, and he with a great body of his countrymen had shut
himself up within a strongly-fortified city. Alexander, however, took
it after a three days’ siege. Porticanus, who had taken refuge within
the citadel after the capture of the city, sent deputies to the king to
arrange about terms of capitulation. Before they reached him, however,
two towers had fallen down with a dreadful crash, and the Macedonians
having made their way through the ruins into the citadel, captured it and
slew Porticanus, who with a few others had offered resistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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