Alexander

by Guy Maclean Rogers

  was as dangerous as combat itself.

  Once Alexander himself had made it across, Coenus with his brigade was left at the river to

  supervise the crossing of the remainder of the army and to gather wheat and other necessities from the

  part of India that Alexander already ruled. Porus (of the Hydaspes) was sent back to his kingdom with

  orders to bring the most warlike of the Indians and any elephants he had to Alexander. Porus had

  proved his mettle and Alexander now trusted his former adversary.

  The campaign eastward from the Acesines River to the Hydraotes (Ravi), and finally to the

  Hyphasis (Beas in India), now was fought in the worst conditions the Macedonians ever had faced. It

  rained for seventy days straight. The heavy rains were accompanied by continuous thunder and

  lightning. For the time being, however, the iron discipline of the Macedonians carried them along.

  Overrunning the lands of Porus’ cousin, they left guards at the most strategic points along the route to

  the Hydraotes so that the troops with Coenus and Craterus might safely search for provisions.

  Hephaestion was then left with two phalanxes of infantry, his own cavalry regiment, Demetrius’, and

  half the archers to consolidate the conquest while Alexander crossed the Hydraotes and attacked the

  stronghold of the Cathaei (Kathas) at Sangala (perhaps between modern Lahore and Amritsar).

  Despite the construction of a triple defensive ring, the fortifications of the Cathaei were to prove no

  match for the Macedonians. Alexander once again personally led the attack of phalanx infantry that

  dislodged the Indians from the (third) outer ring of wagons. The phalanx then forced them back from

  the second, denser formation. The Indians did not even attempt to defend the innermost line, but

  retreated and shut themselves up behind Sangala’s walls.

  At this point, Alexander had a double stockade built around the town, and several attempts to break

  out of the besieged town were interdicted by Ptolemy and the Guards under his command. Porus

  arrived with his elephants and 5,000 Indian troops, and Alexander then had the siege engines brought

  up to the city walls; but before any part of the wall was battered down, the Macedonians undermined

  the wall, set up ladders all around, and captured the city by assault. At least 17,000 Indians were

  killed and 70,000 taken prisoner. The short siege cost Alexander 100 men killed in action, with 1,200

  wounded, including Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s personal bodyguards.

  Alexander now dispatched his secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, to the two towns that had rebelled at

  the same time as Sangala to announce that Alexander would not treat them harshly if they stayed

  where they were and received him peacefully. But the inhabitants of the towns had fled at the news of

  Sangala’s capture. The refugees were pursued, but most escaped. Those who were too infirm (or

  sick) to flee were executed, to the number of 500, an atrocity that recalled Darius’ mutilation of

  Alexander’s wounded at Issos, even if the inhabitants of the Indian town were viewed as rebels. As

  for Sangala, it was razed and its territory was given over to those formerly self-governing Indians

  who had surrendered. Porus was sent to set up garrisons in those cities.

  Alexander and the army now advanced on to the Hyphasis to conquer the Indians there. As long as

  there was any hostility at all, he felt that there could be no end to the war. Alexander’s appetite for

  combat seemed to grow with the fighting. The Macedonian soldiers, on the other hand, felt differently.

  Since leaving the Hydaspes River two months before and some 390 miles to the west, they had been

  fighting in dreadful conditions, literally destroying everything and everyone in their path who did not

  surrender. Unlike Alexander, the Macedonians at last had had enough of the carnage, at least under

  such dreadful conditions.

  THE MUTINY AT THE HYPHASIS RIVER

  At the Hyphasis, the local ruler, Phegeus, told Alexander how far it was to the Ganges River and

  described the foes he would encounter on the other side of the river. It was twelve days’ march

  through desert to the Ganges, and he reported that the river was four miles wide and by far the deepest

  of all Indian rivers. On the eastern bank of the Ganges, Phegeus said, the kings of the Gandaridae and

  the Praesii were waiting for Alexander with 80,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 8,000 chariots, and

  6,000 fighting elephants.

  Alexander doubted these reports but Porus confirmed them. Porus added, however, that the king of

  the Gandaridae was a common and undistinguished fellow, the son of a barber. His father had been a

  good-looking man who was greatly loved by the queen. After she had her husband murdered, the

  kingdom fell to the barber’s son.

  Naturally Alexander was undeterred by the reports about the size of the enemy force. He had faith

  in the courage of the Macedonians and in the oracles he had received. He remembered that the Pythia

  had called him “invincible” and that Ammon had given him the rule of the whole earth.

  But the Macedonian soldiery had a different point of view. They had spent nearly eight years

  amidst toils and dangers. Many had been the losses among the soldiers and there was no end in sight.

  The horses’ hooves had been worn thin by marching. The arms and armor of the soldiers were just

  about worn out and their Greek clothing was altogether gone. They were wearing recut Indian clothes.

  This was also the season of the unremitting rains. The monsoons had been pelting down rain upon the

  Macedonians without respite. And then there were the snakes.

  Sensing the mood at the camp, Alexander shrewdly allowed the men to pillage locally, hoping

  thereby to raise their spirits. To the soldiers’ wives he gave a monthly ration, and disbursed to the

  children a service bonus scaled to their fathers’ military records.

  Nevertheless, soldiers grumbled about their present fate. Some maintained that they would follow

  no farther, not even if Alexander himself should lead them.

  Hearing of the grumbling, Alexander called a meeting of the army and announced his grand plan: he

  intended to go beyond the Ganges even, to the eastern ocean, and from there, around from the Persian

  Gulf to Libya as far as the Pillars of Herakles. All of Libya and the lands eastward, as well as Asia,

  would be theirs. There would be no boundaries to the empire but what Zeus himself had made for the

  whole world.

  Thus Alexander confirmed what many must have long suspected, namely, that while Zeus reigned

  over the gods on Mount Olympus, his son intended to rule over the whole earth. The war would not

  end until Alexander had conquered the world.

  Alexander’s speech was a spectacular flop. For a long time there was silence. Then Coenus, one of

  the phalanx commanders and a very well-respected soldier, who had seen action at every major

  battle, finally spoke up. He urged Alexander to set some limit to the present enterprise. Alexander

  should return to Greece, he said, and put right its affairs. If he wanted to begin another expedition

  against the Indians of the east, or to the Black Sea, or to Carthage and the Libyan territories beyond,

  he should do so with other Greek and Macedonian troops.

  Last, Coenus made a memorable point: it was a noble thing to exercise a sense of self-restraint

  when all was going well. In other words, Alexander still needed to learn whe
n to stop.

  Coenus’ speech was greeted with applause. Some men wept. None seem to have rallied to

  Alexander’s call to world conquest.

  The next day Alexander called another meeting and declared that although he would pressure no

  Macedonian to accompany him, he himself was resolved to go on.

  “I shall have others,” he said, “who will need no compulsion to follow their king. If you wish to go

  home, you are at liberty to do so—and you may tell your people there that you deserted your king in

  the midst of his enemies.”

  And, with that defiant proclamation, Alexander retreated to his tent to sulk for three days, and to

  wait and see if emotional blackmail would work after an appeal to self-interest had failed. But the

  silence was total, unbroken, and presumably deafening. Perhaps recognizing that he had gone too far,

  and certainly realizing that he needed a way of saving face, Alexander ordered sacrifices to be made

  for the crossing of the river to determine the will of the gods.

  The sacrifices fortuitously proved to be unfavorable. The gods, not the Macedonians, had stayed

  Alexander’s steps. On hearing the news, most of the troops wept and came to Alexander’s tent calling

  down every blessing upon him for allowing them to prevail. It was the only defeat Alexander ever

  suffered. The long march eastward was over.

  In hindsight, what is remarkable about the mutiny at the Hyphasis is not that it happened, for many

  armies have rebelled when they have suffered too many casualties, or gone hungry for too long, or had

  to march too far through mud or snow. What is astonishing about the mutiny at the Hyphasis is rather

  that it took so long to happen. The Macedonians had followed Alexander for the better part of a

  decade, over thousands of miles, in every season, over every kind of terrain, against countless foes,

  all of whom they had vanquished in every kind of warfare. It was only when they finally understood

  that Alexander would never stop until he reached the ends of the world that the Macedonians refused

  to take one step farther away from their homeland. Yet there was no violence or even the threat of it

  against Alexander or any of his generals. Rather, the Macedonians through Coenus essentially begged

  Alexander to stop for their sake, which Alexander did, if somewhat grudgingly. So deep was the bond

  between the Macedonian soldiers and their king.

  No doubt Alexander was deeply disappointed at the loss of his chance to march to the Ganges and

  conquer India. He might have done it, too; Sandracottus, the eventual Indian ruler of the area

  Alexander had intended to invade, remarked that Alexander was within a step of conquering the

  whole country, since the king who ruled it then was hated and despised on account of his base

  character and low birth.

  But there is no evidence that after the mutiny Alexander bore a grudge against his soldiers, as some

  historians have imagined, which caused Alexander to punish the Macedonians by leading them into

  suicidal battles or on marches for which they were ill-prepared. Both before and after the mutiny at

  the Hyphasis, Alexander and the Macedonians fought desperate battles against formidable foes, and

  the conditions they faced on their march homeward were different from those on the journey out, but

  no less dangerous. Moreover, as we shall see, Alexander did everything humanly possible to provide

  for his soldiers under the worst conditions. That he failed cannot be used as evidence for his

  intentions—which are truly unknowable.

  Thinking how best to mark the limits of his realm at the Hyphasis, Alexander had the soldiers build

  altars to the twelve Olympian gods, each seventy-five feet high. On them were inscribed the following

  words: “To Father Ammon and his brother Herakles, and to Athena Providence, and to Olympian

  Zeus, and to the Kabeiri of Samothrace, and to the Indian Sun, and to the Delphian Apollo.”

  These altars were dedicated to give thanks to the gods and goddesses who had promised and

  brought Alexander his unprecedented and unbroken string of successes. Neither the altars nor the

  inscriptions have been found.

  Alexander then offered sacrifice upon these altars, as was his custom, and held a contest of

  athletics and cavalry exercises. He also had built a giant camp three times the size of a normal one,

  with huts containing huge beds and horse mangers twice the normal size, in order to leave the locals

  evidence of men of huge stature.

  Now Alexander began to prepare for the long march westward, back to Macedon. All the territory

  as far as the Hyphasis he gave to Porus to rule over. Abisares was given the governorship of his

  province, while Arsaces was joined to the administration of Abisares. Tribute also was imposed, a

  sign that Alexander was not simply abandoning the area. He fully intended to enjoy the profits of his

  empire.

  THE DEATH OF COENUS

  Alexander made his way back toward the Hydaspes River, reaching it probably by late summer of

  326. At the Hydaspes, Coenus, who had given voice to the soldiers’ discontent at the Hyphasis, died

  by an illness. The timing of his death has given rise to speculation that Alexander somehow was

  involved in Coenus’ death. But there is no concrete evidence for that. The worst that can be said is

  that although Alexander gave Coenus a magnificent funeral, he also is reported to have remarked,

  somewhat uncharitably, that “it was merely for the sake of a few days that Coenus had made his long

  speech, as if he were the only one who would see Macedonia again.” At most, Coenus’ opportune

  death perhaps suggests that Alexander really was favored by at least some gods.

  PART THREE

  When They Were Happy

  CHAPTER 21

  The Meed of Great Deeds

  SOUTHBOUND

  Using his new cities of Bucephala and Nikaia as twin bases, Alexander marshaled his forces for the

  long, difficult journey southward. Including recent reinforcements from Greece, Thrace, and Asia,

  Alexander now led about 120,000 men. Around 13,000 of these were cavalry and there also were

  55,000 front-line infantrymen. This was unquestionably one of the largest and most powerful Greco-

  Macedonian forces ever assembled.

  To convey the horses and provisions of this huge army down the Indus, Alexander had constructed

  an equally impressive fleet. It consisted of no fewer than 80 thirty-oared galleys, while the total

  number of boats of all sorts was not far short of 2,000. The armada was considerably smaller than the

  Allied fleet of 5,333 ships that brought 175,000 men to the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, but

  far larger than any other Greek fleet ever assembled.

  The ships were manned by crews picked from the Phoenicians, Cypriots, and Egyptians who had

  followed the expedition. Ionians and men from the Hellespontine region also provided nautical

  expertise. Commanders of the triremes (a largely honorary title) were appointed from among

  Alexander’s Macedonian, Greek, and Persian officers and friends. Overall command was put into the

  hands of Nearchus, Alexander’s boyhood friend from Crete. Onesicritus of Astypalaea was selected

  as the helmsman of the royal flagship.

  Contests of art and athletics were celebrated and victims for sacrifice were given to the whole

  army before the fleet set out. The embarkation began at dawn, probably at the beginning of November

/>   326. Alexander sacrificed to the gods following his custom, and made a special offering to the river

  Hydaspes, in accordance with the seers’ instructions. Then, having embarked from the bows, he

  poured a libation from a golden cup into the water, invoking the river and joining with its name the

  name of Acesines, which he knew to be the greatest of its tributaries, and calling upon the Indus, too.

  He also offered a libation to his ancestor Herakles and to Ammon, and to the other gods he usually

  honored. Another great labor had begun; at its conclusion the fulfillment of Ammon’s oracle might

  still come.

  Alexander then ordered the bugle to sound for their departure. As the blast of the bugle pierced the

  early morning quiet, the fleet started out in due order, the oars of the triremes rhythmically dipping

  into the brown waters of the immense river.

  Alexander was joined on the ships by the Guards, the archers, the Agrianes, and the special

  squadron of the Companion cavalry. As the huge armada made its way down the Hydaspes, Craterus

  marched with part of the infantry along the right bank, while Hephaestion proceeded along the left

  bank with the best fighting troops and 200 elephants. Hephaestion’s battle group had been ordered to

  march to the kingdom of Sopeithes. Philip, governor of the territory on the Bactrian side of the Indus,

  had orders to wait for three days and then to follow up with his troops, mopping up whatever

  resistance survived the three-pronged advance of Craterus, Alexander, and Hephaestion.

  On the fifth day out, the fleet reached the dangerously narrow junction of the Hydaspes and

  Acesines. Although some ships suffered damage from the disturbed waters, repairs were quickly

  made, and Alexander was rejoined by Hephaestion, Craterus, and Philip with their troops. That took

  place at a prearranged meeting point and indicates the care that went into planning the advance

  downstream. On the first leg of the journey downriver, the Macedonians suffered little loss of life or

  property; now, though, they would encounter fierce resistance to their progress, and they in turn would

  bring death or enslavement to all who opposed them. If this part of the campaign were merely a

  “raid,” as some Indian historians have claimed, it was surely one of the most devastating raids in