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  Corrhagus with a single fatal blow of his club. The king was furious that

  his compatriot had been so easily humiliated in a fight, all the more so

  because it had happened in the presence of Indians. Alexander got his

  revenge on Dioxippus some time later, when during a banquet he had a

  gold cup planted close to the Athenian and next accused him of theft. The

  disgraced athlete subsequently committed suicide.55

  The march to the ocean was resumed in February 325. The fleet and

  the land army were to meet up again at the point where the Acesines

  flowed into the Indus. On the way there the column commanded by

  Perdiccas forced the surrender of the Abastanians (alternatively called

  Sambastai), who inhabited lands on both sides of the river Zadrus (today

  known as the Sutlej) and were one of the so-called ‘independent’ tribes

  over whom no monarch ruled. Ancient authors concur that yet another

  Alexandria was founded at the confluence of the Acesines and Indus,

  which according to Diodorus was to have a population of 10,000

  inhabitants. However, since no traces of this settlement have been found to

  date, some scholars are questioning its historical authenticity. As happened

  so frequently during the Indian expedition, here too traces of the presence

  of Dionysus were found, in whose footsteps the king always eagerly

  followed.56

  54 Arr., An. , 6.14.1-4; Curt., 9.7.12-14, 9.8.1-2. Bosworth 1988, p. 137.

  55 Curt., 9.7.15-26; Diod., 17.100-101; Ael., VH, 10.22.

  56 Arr., An. , 6.14.4-15.2; Diod., 17.102.1-4; Curt., 9.8.3-8. Eggermont 1993, p. 101;

  Fraser 1996, pp. 70-71.

  Expedition to India

  325

  The stopover at the confluence of the two rivers gave Alexander time

  to settle the administrative matters of his empire. He appointed his father-

  in-law Oxyartes the new satrap of Paropamisus in place of the now

  dismissed Tyriespis, while the province of southern Punjab, which was

  still being conquered, was entrusted to a Macedonian by the name of

  Peithon. However, Peithon could not have been satrap there for long as by

  the time of Alexander’s death Porus was also governing that region and

  Peithon had been moved to a western part of India.57

  On the next leg of their journey the Macedonians entered the land of

  King Musicanus to the east of the Indus. In the account of Onesicritus this

  kingdom had less in common with India than with a conventionally

  idolized image of an aristocratic country similar to Sparta or Crete.

  Apparently people there ate their meals together, youths performed tasks

  that were in other places normally given to slaves and the use silver or

  gold coins was quite unknown. Instead, the inhabitants enjoyed living long

  lives in prosperity and equality thanks to the natural abundance of their

  land. Unfortunately, these fantastic images conjured up by the cynic

  philosopher obscure rather than shed light on what the Kingdom of

  Musicanus was really like. The only feature that seems genuine was the

  lack of slaves in the Punjab of those days. Instead there was serfdom.

  Musicanus failed to turn up at the border to greet Alexander, which could

  have been interpreted as a declaration of war. However, the rajah was soon

  terrified by the swiftness of Alexander’s army as it proceeded to invade his

  territory and hurried to greet the Macedonian to pay tribute and present

  him with gifts. The surrender was accepted but Craterus occupied the

  kingdom’s capital all the same. There he left a garrison in the citadel: just

  to make sure the barbarians stayed loyal.58 The capital is most frequently

  associated with today’s city of Alor on the eastern bank of the Indus in the

  Pakistani province of Sind. Next Alexander launched a lightning campaign

  against Oxicanus or Porticanus, whose land lay further south and who had

  failed to provide the tribute required from all those whom Alexander

  encountered. Detachments of cavalry, Agrianians and archers were

  transported down the Indus by ship. Within two days the Macedonians

  managed to storm two cities and kill the disobedient rajah, who had

  decided to negotiate a bit too late. The sources give contradictory accounts

  57 Arr., An. , 6.15.3-4; Arr., Succ. , ap. Phot., fr. 1.36; Curt., 9.8.9-10. Bosworth 1983, pp. 38-44.

  58 Onesicritus, ap. Str., 15.1.34 (= FGrH, 134 F24); Arr., An. , 6.15.4-7; Curt., 9.8.8-10; It. Alex. , 112. Pearson 1960, pp. 100-106; Eggermont 1975, pp. 7-9, 25;

  Seibert 1985, p. 167; Bosworth 1996a, pp. 85-87; Karttunen 1997, p. 79; Hahn

  2000, p. 205, n. 200.

  326

  Chapter VI

  regarding the fate of the remaining subjects of Oxicanus/Porticanus.59 The

  ruler of the next kingdom, Sambus/Sabbas/Sabus (perhaps Sāmba),

  preferred to immediately flee, leaving his capital, Sindimana to capitulate.

  However, there is also a tradition, originating from Cleitarchus’ work,

  which states that the people were incited by the Brahmans to resist and as

  a consequence 80,000 were allegedly killed.60

  Either way, the Macedonians encountered far more resistance in the

  Brahman town of Harmatelia located in or close to Sambus’ kingdom at a

  distance of four day’s sailing down river from Sindimana. On this

  occasion the sources do not present the Brahmans as Indian sages but as an

  Indian tribe, a caste that farmed the land, were warriors and performed

  other tasks. This description is probably closer to the truth about the India

  of those times. They allegedly smeared their swords and arrowheads with

  poison so as to make them more lethal. Consequently many Macedonians

  died after receiving wounds from such weapons. One of those said to have

  been affected by this poison, though not fatally, was Ptolemy, the later

  king of Egypt. A story that appears in the ‘Vulgate’ histories and no doubt

  originated from Ptolemy himself states Alexander, who was concerned

  about Ptolemy’s wound, dreamed of herb that could serve as an antidote to

  the poison. This herb was supposed to have saved Ptolemy and other

  wounded Macedonians from death. The Brahmans were defeated outside

  their city’s walls and surrendered.61

  It was at this time that the Musicanus decided to rebel. According to

  Arrian, the rajah was persuaded by the Brahmans to make such a desperate

  and, in face of the invading army’s vast superiority, quite hopeless

  decision. The Brahmans in turn had most probably decided to resist not

  only out of solidarity to fellow Brahmans in the lands of Sambus and

  Harmatelia but also out of the outrage and deep hatred felt also by other

  Indians towards the Macedonians for the crimes they had committed

  against the country’s highest caste. Another reason for their enmity may

  have been the presence of the Brahman ‘traitor’ Calanus in the camp of the

  sacrilegious and hostile invader. Worse still, from the Sind Brahmans’

  point of view though not so shocking to the Brahmans of northwest India,

  Calanus was participating in drunken orgies. The revolt was easily crushed

  by Peithon. This time no mercy could be shown to the rebellious

  59 Arr., An. , 6.16.1-2; Diod., 17.102.5; Curt., 9.8.11-13; Str., 15.1.33. Seibert 1985, p. 1
67; Karttunen 1997, p. 35.

  60 Arr., An. , 6.16.3-4; Diod., 17.102.6; Curt., 9.8.13-15; Plu., Alex. , 64.1; Str., 15.1.33. Bosworth 1988, pp. 137-138; Karttunen 1997, p. 35.

  61 Cic., Div. , 2.135; Arr., An. , 6.16.5; Diod., 17.103; Curt., 9.8.17-28; Str., 15.2.7; Just., 12.10. Eggermont 1975, pp. 128-129; Bosworth 1998, p. 197.

  Expedition to India

  327

  Musicanus; both he and his Brahman advisors were crucified. The

  exceptional scale of slaughter and cruelty perpetrated during the southern

  Punjab campaign may have resulted from frustration and the loosening of

  moral restraints among psychologically exhausted Macedonian soldiers,

  who were fighting a war they no longer believed in, on quite foreign soil

  and in a difficult climate. On the other hand, it could have also resulted

  from Alexander’s deliberate decision. In this part of India he was unable to

  find rajahs who, like Taxiles and Porus, were willing to loyally cooperate

  with the invader. Therefore he may have felt he had no choice but to break

  the natives will to resist through the application of terror, particularly

  against scheming Brahmans.62

  The unprecedented wave of terror in southern Sind suppressed the will

  to fight among Indians up until the Macedonians left. The ruler of the

  Pataloi, who inhabited the Indus Delta, surrendered to Alexander even

  before his troops had reached his land. The Macedonian king told him to

  return home and prepare to greet the army. The rajah, however, felt he

  could no long bear the tension and fled together with many of the

  inhabitants of the region’s capital and surrounding areas; only some of

  them could be persuaded to come back. On the way to Patala Alexander

  had some of the phalangites and less physically fit veterans march together

  with the elephants under the command of his best officer, Craterus. This

  corps was to proceed along an inland route through Multan Pass to today’s

  Quetta (the capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan), thence west

  through the river Helmand valley and next on to Carmania. Craterus

  fulfilled his mission and met up with his monarch in Carmania at the start

  of 324.63 The rest of the army reached Patala approximately in mid June

  325. There Hephaestion was instructed to set up a fortress; ships were built

  in an improvised shipyard in preparation for the army’s return to the centre

  of Alexander’s empire. In the meantime Alexander spent his time

  exploring the Indus delta. His squadron sailed up to the point where Indus

  flowed into the sea and there for the first time they experienced the

  ocean’s huge tides, unknown in the Mediterranean. At low tide the ships

  were grounded, and then as the sea rose again they were smashed against

  the shore. During this expedition Alexander offered sacrifices to Poseidon

  and other gods specified by the Ammon oracle. The sacrifices included

  slaughtered bulls thrown into the ocean, a libation and the offering of gold

  vessels. On one of the islands in the delta Alexander had an altar built for

  62 Arr., An. , 6.17.1-2; Curt., 9.8.16; Diod., 17.102.4. Green 1974, p. 425; Badian

  1985, pp. 469-470; Bosworth 1996a, pp. 95-96; Bosworth 1998, pp. 180, 196-199.

  63 Arr., An. , 6.17.2-3, 6.17.5; Curt., 9.8.28-29; Str., 15.2.4. Goukowsky 1981, pp.

  105-107; Seibert 1986, p. 169; Bosworth 1988, pp. 138-139.

  328

  Chapter VI

  Oceanus and Thetis. This way he marked the southernmost boundary of

  his expedition, just as he had earlier marked the northernmost and

  easternmost boundaries. In other words, Alexander was stating that his

  Indian expedition had reached its limit.64

  The Indian campaign with the exceptionally difficult climate and the

  quite alien peoples the Macedonians encountered and did not understand

  had had a demoralising effect on Alexander and his subjects, which was

  expressed in outbursts of open dissatisfaction and conflicts. At some stage

  a dispute erupted between Alexander’s two top commanders – Craterus

  and Hephaestion. It got so bad that they even reached for their swords and

  as both had their ardent supporters it could have well led to civil war if

  Alexander had not intervened. The king publicly rebuked Hephaestion,

  whereas with Craterus he had words in private, thus showing that he

  valued his military talent and respected his personal sense of dignity. On

  this occasion the ancient authors recall that Hephaestion was regarded to

  be Alexander’s friend, whereas Craterus, with his traditionalistic loyalty to

  the Argead dynasty, was a friend of the king.65

  From Alexander’s point of view his expedition to India was at best

  only partly successful. In modern historiography it is almost exclusively

  known from Western documentary sources and to a much lesser extent

  from the occasional archaeological find in Pakistan. The expedition does

  not seem to have had any impact on Indian literature and there is also no

  other mention of Alexander as a historic figure. Like the Greeks of those

  times, Indians were certain about the value and supremacy of their culture.

  Contacts between the two civilizations continued to be only sporadic in the

  early Hellenistic period; both sides limited relations to occasional

  diplomatic exchanges and searches for exotic goods. The first individual

  from the Greek world to make an impact on the Indian written tradition

  was the ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom Menander I (known as

  Milinda in Buddhist literature), who himself adopted Indian customs,

  culture and religion. However, it is generally believed that the most

  important consequence of the 327-325 expedition was the break up of the

  status quo in northern India, which indirectly led to the collapse of the

  Nanda Empire and the emergence of the state of Chandragupta Maurya.

  Another indirect consequence of Alexander’s expedition was an increased

  influx of Persian artists and craftsmen, who were now deprived of

  64 Aristobul., ap. Str., 15.1.17 (= FGrH, 139 F35); Arr., An. , 6.17.4, 6.18-19; Diod., 17.104.1-2; Curt., 9.9; Plu., Alex. , 66.1-2; Just., 12.10; It. Alex. , 114. Oikonomides 1988, pp. 31-32; Hamilton 1999, pp. 181-182; Worthington 2004, p. 165.

  65 Plu., Alex. , 47.9-12; Plu., mor. , 181d, 337b; Diod., 17.114.1-2. Heckel 1992, p.

  85.

  Expedition to India

  329

  Achaemenid patronage. Thanks to this increased immigration the

  Zoroastrian religion spread throughout India and an Iranian influence

  became apparent in Indian arts and crafts.66

  66 Narain 1965, pp. 165-167; Wheeler 1968, pp. 106, 121, 128-145, 153-156; Holt

  1993a.

  CHAPTER VII:

  THE LAST YEARS

  1. In the footsteps of Cyrus and Semiramis

  After a difficult but for the time being victorious campaign in India the

  Macedonian army returned to the central provinces of the Achaemenid

  Empire in three groups. The easiest and most obvious of routes was taken

  by Craterus’ corps (see Chapter VI.4). Another group, commanded by

  Nearchus, travelled across the Arabian Sea, whereas Alexander took the

  rest of the army along the coast. The latter two routes were more

  dangerous. The Greeks had already sailed in the Indus region as well as


  the southern seas on their way back to Egypt, but that was the 6th-century

  voyage of the sailor Scylax of Caryanda in Darius’ service and his account

  was not widely known among Greeks in the late 4th century. Nearchus

  therefore was to sail across a quite unfamiliar ocean whose great forces

  weakly constructed Greek vessels were ill-prepared to withstand. However,

  it was Alexander’s corps who faced the greatest challenge. It included the

  basic land forces, most of the baggage train, the soldiers’ families and

  other camp followers. They were to march through Makran, a desert and

  semi desert land deprived of rain except during the summer monsoon and

  the winter season. The ancient authors state that Alexander was aware of

  the potential difficulties and dangers that could face them. They provide

  only one explanation for his decision, one originally passed on to them

  from Nearchus: the desire to outdo Semiramis and Cyrus the Great. Both

  were supposed to have used this route through Makran to try and invade

  India. Both almost lost their entire armies in attempting to do so; allegedly

  only 20 of Semiramis’ soldiers survived and as few as seven in Cyrus’

  case. Regardless of how historically true these accounts of previous

  expeditions are, such a reason for Alexander’s decision to take this route is

  hardly surprising when we bear in mind how willingly he followed in

  Heracles and Dionysus’ footsteps in India. Alexander was known to have

  admired Cyrus the Great for a long time and just as previously he had

  captured Aornos Rock to outdo Heracles, so too he could now have

  wished to beat that other hero. We cannot tell whether, as M. Brosius

  332

  Chapter VII

  assumes, behind this imitation of Cyrus the Great there also lay a political

  plan of winning over the Persian aristocracy. Rationalising modern

  historians attribute to Alexander motives that are nowhere recorded in the

  sources. They say he wanted to punish the soldiers for their rebellion on

 

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