John Watson McCrindle

“ It is your valour I take as the gage and surety of the deeds I mean to perform.
“As long as it is with you I shall stand in battle, I count not the number either of my own or the enemy’s army. Do ye only, I entreat, keep your minds full of alacrity and confidence. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise and our labours, but at their very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean, and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its remotest bounds. ”

“ Forasmuch as you do not wish, O king! to rule Macedonians by constraint, but say that you will lead them by persuasion, or suffering yourself to be persuaded by them, will not have recourse to compulsion, I intend to speak, not on behalf of myself and fellow-officers who have been honoured above the other soldiers, and have most of us received splendid rewards of our labours, and from having been highly exalted above others are more zealous than others to serve you in all things, but in behalf of the great body of the army. ”

“ Alexander deemed the spectacle one which he could not with propriety witness, because the man to suffer was his friend; but to those who were present Kalânos caused astonishment in that he did not move any part of his body in the fire. As soon as the men charged with the duty set fire to the pile, the trumpets, Nearchos says, sounded by Alexander’s order, and the whole army raised the war-shout as if advancing to battle. The elephants also swelled the noise with their shrill and warlike cry to do honour to Kalânos. ”

“ I am not ignorant, soldiers, that during these last days the natives of this country have been spreading all sorts of rumours designed expressly to work upon your fears; but the falsehood of those who invent such lies is nothing new in your experience. The Persians in this sort of way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this river you crossed by a ford, and that by means of a bridge. Fame is never brought to a clearness in which facts can be seen as they are. They are all magnified when she transmits them. ”

“ We have traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth’s utmost verge, and yet you are preparing to go to a sphere altogether new—to go in quest of an India unknown even to the Indians themselves. You would fain root out from their hidden recesses and dens a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts, so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun surveys. ”

“ The cavalry even, which on the extreme right had victory almost within their grasp, yielded to the general panic, and helped to swell the crowd of fugitives. As the narrowness of the plain allowed but very little room for escape, the vanquished were massacred in myriads. Darius escaped across the Euphrates, but his treasures and his family, consisting of his mother, wife, and children, fell into Alexander’s hands, who treated these illustrious captives with all the kindness and courtesy which were due alike to their misfortunes and their exalted rank. ”

“ Reflect, I pray you, that we have come to lands in the eyes of which the name of a woman is the most famed for valour. What cities did Semiramis build! What nations did she bring to subjection! What mighty works did she plan! We have not yet equalled the glorious achievements of a woman, and have we already had our fill of glory? No, I say. Let the gods, however, but favour us, and things still greater remain for us yet to do. But the countries we have not yet reached shall only become ours on condition that we consider nothing little in which there is room for great glory to be won. ”

“ Not the olive, however, which is neither indigenous to India, nor thrives if brought into it. The park is therefore frequented by wild birds as well as by the tame. They seek its groves from choice, and there build their nests and rear their young. Parrots too are bred there, which, flitting to and fro, keep hovering around the king. Notwithstanding they are so numerous, no Indian will eat them, for they regard them as sacred, while the Brahmans esteem them above all other birds, and with good reason, since the parrot alone with a clear utterance repeats the words of human speech. ”

“ But the Macedonians heroically bore the brunt of this dreadful onslaught, and having killed with their long pikes the men stationed between the elephants, made the poise of the battle equal. They next assailed the animals themselves with a storm of javelins, thus piercing them with numerous wounds, which so tortured them that the Indians mounted on their backs lacked sufficient strength to control their movements, for the animals on heading to their own ranks bore against them with an impetuosity not to be repressed, and trampled their own friends under their feet. ”

“ Here the satrap Ariobarzanes, at the head of more than 40,000 men, tried but in vain to arrest his progress. Alexander, with his usual skill and courage forced the position, and meeting with no further resistance reached Persepolis, where no defence was attempted. He not only permitted his soldiers to plunder this ancient capital, but, if we may believe the story, with which Dryden’s Ode has made us familiar, set fire with his own hands in a drunken revel to the royal palace, a structure of supreme magnificence, as its ruins, which are still to be seen, attest. ”

“ The Macedonians, who were of the same race with Koragos, and the king himself joined in showing their eagerness for the success of their compatriot, while the Greeks were unanimous in backing up Dioxippos. The champions advanced into the lists, the Macedonian arrayed in costly armour, the Athenian naked, rubbed over with oil, and wearing a close-fitting skull-cap made of felt. As both men excited the wonder and admiration of the spectators by the massive strength of their limbs and their superlative prowess, the contest, it was anticipated, would be of the nature of a fight between two gods ”

“ The only comfort in this rash adventure was a confident reliance on Alexander’s uniform good fortune. The expedition had in this manner now proceeded a distance of 400 stadia, when the pilots brought to his notice that they began to feel sea-air, and that they believed the ocean was not now far off.
The king, elated by the news, exhorted the sailors to bend to their oars. The end of their labours, he said, for which they had always been hoping and praying, was close at hand; nothing was now wanting to complete their glory; nothing left to withstand their valour. ”

“ Gaza alone, like Tyre, closed its gates against him. This city, which stood not far from the sea, towards the edge of the desert which separates Syria from Egypt, was strongly fortified, and held out for two months. Alexander took it by storm, slaughtered the garrison, and then set out for Egypt. A seven days’ march through the desert brought him to Pelusium. The Egyptians, who smarted under the bondage of Persia, like the Israelites of old under their own, hailed his advent as that of a deliverer, and gladly submitted to his rule. ”

“ Even our own glory, though resting on a solid basis, is more indebted for its greatness to rumour than to reality. Who but till the other day believed that it was possible for us to bear the shock of those monstrous beasts that looked like so many ramparts, or that we could have passed the Hydaspes, or conquered other difficulties which after all were more formidable to hear of than they proved to be in actual experience. By my troth we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare us. ”

“ The Brachmans were held in greater repute, as they agreed more exactly in their opinions. They lived in a grove outside the city, lay upon pallets of straw and on skins, abstained from animal food and sexual intercourse. After living thirty-seven years in this manner each individual retired to his own possessions, led a life of greater freedom, and married as many wives as he pleased. They discoursed much upon death, which they held to be for philosophers a birth into a real and happy life. They maintained that nothing which happens to a man is bad or good, opinions being merely dreams. ”

“ We have conquered all the world, but are ourselves destitute of all things. Can you think of exposing such a noble army as this, all naked and defenceless, to the mercy of savage beasts, whose numbers, though purposely exaggerated by the barbarians, must yet, as I can gather from the lying report itself, be very considerable. If, however, you are bent on penetrating still farther into India, that part of it which lies towards the south is not so vast, and were this subdued you could then quickly find your way to that sea which nature has ordained to be the boundary of the inhabited world. ”

“ If, however, he would not spare his soldiers, he should at all events spare himself, and not wear out his good fortune by subjecting it to too severe a strain. Alexander was moved by these well-grounded entreaties, and, as if he had now reached the goal of victory, ordered a camp to be made of an unusual size and splendour, in order that the work, while calculated to terrify the enemy by its vastness, might be left to render himself an object of admiration to future ages. Never did the soldiers apply themselves with such alacrity to any work as they did to this ”

“ At the same time, I must point out that those who are willing to lay down their lives for me do not look at the matter from my point of view, inasmuch as I judge myself to have deserved by my bravery your favourable inclinations towards me, for you may possibly be coveting to reap the fruit of my favour for a great length of time, perhaps even in perpetuity, but I measure myself not by the span of age, but by that of glory. ”

“ Were the united powers of the whole world to conspire against us, were they to cover the land all over with arms and men, to cover the seas with fleets, and lead ferocious wild beasts against us, we shall prove invincible to every foe when we have you to lead us. But which of the gods can ensure that this the stay and star of Macedonia will be long preserved to us when you are so forward to expose your person to manifest dangers, forgetting that you draw into peril the lives of so many of your countrymen? For which of us wishes to survive you, or even has it within his power? ”

“ When Pôros, who had nobly discharged his duties throughout the battle, performing the part not only of a general, but also that of a gallant soldier, saw the slaughter of his cavalry and some of his elephants lying dead, and others wandering about sad and sullen without their drivers, while the greater part of his infantry had been killed, he did not, after the manner of Darius, the great king, abandon the field and show his men the first example of flight, but, on the contrary, fought on as long as he saw any Indians maintaining the contest in a united body ”

“ He lived in a plain style like men of common rank, was liberal in the extreme, easy too of access, and a man who gave himself none of the high airs so often assumed by courtiers. These qualities made it doubtful whether he was more loved by the king or by his countrymen. At all events, now that his life was in danger, he was for the first time made aware of the great affection entertained for him by the Macedonians, who by this time seem to have presaged the greatness to which he afterwards rose, for they showed as much solicitude for him as they did for Alexander himself. ”

“ Life, signalised by deeds of valour, is delightful, and so is death, if we leave behind us an immortal name. Know ye not that it was not by staying at home in Tiryns [136] or Argos, or even in Peloponnêsos or Thebes, that our ancestor was exalted to such glory, that from being a man he became, or was thought to be, a god. Nor were the labours few even of Dionysos, who ranks as a god far above Heraklês. But we have advanced beyond Nysa, and the rock Aornos, which proved impregnable to Heraklês, is in our possession. ”