The Anabasis of Alexander or, The history of the wars and conquests of Alexander the Great
Mount Merus with the Companion cavalry and the foot guard, and saw
the mountain, which was quite covered with ivy and laurel and groves
thickly shaded with all sorts of timber, and on it were chases of all
kinds of wild animals.[626] The Macedonians were delighted at seeing
the ivy, as they had not seen any for a long time; for in the land of
the Indians there was no ivy, even where they had vines. They eagerly
made garlands of it, and crowned themselves with them, as they were,
singing hymns in honour of Dionysus, and invoking the deity by his
various names.[627] Alexander there offered sacrifice to Dionysus, and
feasted in company with his companions.[628] Some authors have also
stated, but I do not know if any one will believe it, that many of
the distinguished Macedonians in attendance upon him, having crowned
themselves with ivy, while they were engaged in the invocation of the
deity, were seized with the inspiration of Dionysus, uttered cries of
Evoi in honour of the god, and acted as Bacchanals.[629]
CHAPTER III.
INCREDULITY OF ERATOSTHENES.—PASSAGE OF THE INDUS.
Any one who receives these stories may believe or disbelieve them
as he pleases. But I do not altogether agree with Eratosthenes the
Cyrenaean,[630] who says that everything which was attributed to the
divine agency by the Macedonians was really said to gratify Alexander
by their excessive eulogy. For he says that the Macedonians, seeing a
cavern in the land of the Parapamisadians,[631] and hearing a certain
legend which was current among the natives, or themselves forming a
conjecture, spread the report that this forsooth was the cave where
Prometheus had been bound, that an eagle frequented it to feast on his
inward parts, that when Heracles arrived there he killed the eagle and
set Prometheus free from his bonds. He also says that by their account
the Macedonians transferred Mount Caucasus from the Euxine Sea to the
eastern parts of the earth, and the land of the Parapamisadians to that
of the Indians;[632] calling what was really Mount Parapamisus by the
name of Caucasus, in order to enhance Alexander’s glory, seeing that
he forsooth had gone over the Caucasus. He adds, that when they saw in
India itself some oxen marked with the brand of a club, they concluded
from this that Heracles had penetrated into India. Eratosthenes also
disbelieves the similar tale of the wandering of Dionysus. Let me leave
the stories about these matters undecided as far as I am concerned.
When Alexander arrived at the river Indus, he found a bridge made over
it by Hephaestion, and two thirty-oared galleys, besides many smaller
craft.[633] He moreover found that 200 talents of silver,[634] 3,000
oxen, above 10,000 sheep for sacrificial victims, and thirty elephants
had arrived as gifts from Taxiles the Indian; 700 Indian horsemen also
arrived from Taxiles as a reinforcement, and that prince sent word that
he would surrender to him the city of Taxila,[635] the largest town
between the rivers Indus and Hydaspes.[636] Alexander there offered
sacrifice to the gods to whom he was in the habit of sacrificing, and
celebrated a gymnastic and horse contest near the river. The sacrifices
were favourable to his crossing.
CHAPTER IV.
DIGRESSION ABOUT INDIA.
The following are statements about the river Indus which are quite
unquestionable, and therefore let me record them. The Indus is the
largest of all the rivers in Asia and Europe, except the Ganges,[637]
which is also an Indian river. It takes its rise on this side mount
Parapamisus, or Caucasus, and discharges its water into the Great Sea
which lies near India in the direction of the south wind. It has two
mouths, both of which outlets are full of shallow pools like the five
outlets of the Ister (or Danube).[638] It forms a Delta in the land
of the Indians resembling that of Egypt[639]; and this is called
Pattala in the Indian language. The Hydaspes, Acesines, Hydraotes, and
Hyphasis are also Indian rivers,[640] and far exceed the other rivers
of Asia in size; but they are not only smaller but much smaller than
the Indus, just as that river itself is smaller than the Ganges. Indeed
Ctesias[641] says (if any one thinks his evidence to be depended upon),
that where the Indus is narrowest, its banks are forty stades apart;
where it is broadest, 100 stades; and most of it is the mean between
these breadths.[642] This river Indus Alexander crossed at daybreak
with his army into the country of the Indians; concerning whom, in
this history I have described neither what laws they enjoy, nor what
strange animals their land produces, nor how many and what sort of fish
and water-monsters are produced by the Indus, Hydaspes, Ganges, or the
other rivers of India. Nor have I described the ants which dig up the
gold for them,[643] nor the guardian griffins, nor any of the other
tales that have been composed rather to amuse than to be received as
the relation of facts; since the falsity of the strange stories which
have been fabricated about India cannot be exposed by any one.[644]
However, Alexander and those who served in his army exposed the
falsity of most of these tales; but there were even some of these very
men who fabricated other stories. They proved that the Indians whom
Alexander visited with his army, and he visited many tribes of them,
were destitute of gold; and also that they were by no means luxurious
in their mode of living. Moreover, they discovered that they were tall
in stature, in fact as tall as any men throughout Asia, most of them
being five cubits in height, or a little less. They were blacker than
the rest of men, except the Ethiopians[645]; and in war they were far
the bravest of all the races inhabiting Asia at that time. For I cannot
with any justice compare the race of the ancient Persians with those of
India, though at the head of the former Cyrus, son of Cambyses, set out
and deprived the Medes of the empire of Asia, and subdued many other
races partly by force and partly by voluntary surrender on their own
part. For at that time the Persians were a poor people and inhabitants
of a rugged land, having laws and customs very similar to the Laconian
discipline.[646] Nor am I able with certainty to conjecture whether the
defeat sustained by the Persians in the Scythian land was due to the
difficult nature of the country invaded or to some other error on the
part of Cyrus, or whether the Persians were really inferior in warlike
matters to the Scythians of that district.
CHAPTER V.
MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS OF ASIA.
But of the Indians I shall treat in a distinct work,[647] giving the
most credible accounts which were compiled by those who accompanied
Alexander in his expedition, as well as by Nearchus,[648] who sailed
right round the Great Sea which is near India. Then I shall add what
has been compiled by Megasthenes[649] and Eratosthenes, two men of
distinguished authority. I shall describe the customs peculiar to the
Indians and the strange animals which are produced in the country, as
well as the voyage itself in the external sea. But now let me describe
so much only as appears to me sufficient to explain Alexander’s
achievements. Mount Taurus divides Asia, beginning from Mycale, the
mountain which lies opposite the island of Samos; then, cutting through
the country of the Pamphylians and Cilicians, it extends into Armenia.
From this country it stretches into Media and through the land of the
Parthians and Chorasmians. In Bactria it unites with mount Parapamisus,
which the Macedonians who served in Alexander’s army called Caucasus,
in order, as it is said, to enhance their king’s glory; asserting that
he went even beyond the Caucasus with his victorious arms. Perhaps
it is a fact that this mountain range is a continuation of the other
Caucasus in Scythia, as the Taurus[650] is of the same. For this
reason I have on a previous occasion called this range Caucasus, and
by the same name I shall continue to call it in the future. This
Caucasus extends as far as the Great Sea which lies in the direction
of India and the East. Of the rivers in Asia worth consideration which
take their rise from the Taurus and Caucasus, some have their course
turned towards the north, discharging themselves either into the lake
Maeotis,[651] or into the sea called Hyrcanian, which in reality is a
gulf of the Great Sea.[652] Others flow towards the south, namely, the
Euphrates, Tigres, Indus, Hydaspes, Acesines, Hydraotes, Hyphasis, and
all those that lie between these and the river Ganges. All these either
discharge their water into the sea, or disappear by pouring themselves
out into marshes, as the river Euphrates[653] does.
CHAPTER VI.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF INDIA.
Whoever arranges the position of Asia in such a way that it is divided
by the Taurus and the Caucasus from the west wind to the east wind,
will find that these two very large divisions are made by the Taurus
itself, one of which is inclined towards the south and the south
wind, and the other towards the north and the north wind. Southern
Asia again may be divided into four parts, of which Eratosthenes and
Megasthenes make India the largest. The latter author lived with
Sibyrtius,[654] the viceroy of Arachosia, and says that he frequently
visited Sandracotus, king of the Indians.[655] These authors say that
the smallest of the four parts is that which is bounded by the river
Euphrates and extends to our inland sea. The other two lying between
the rivers Euphrates and Indus are scarcely worthy to be compared with
India, if they were joined together. They say that India is bounded
towards the east and the east wind as far as the south by the Great
Sea, towards the north by mount Caucasus, as far as its junction with
the Taurus; and that the river Indus cuts it off towards the west and
the north-west wind, as far as the Great Sea. The greater part of it
is a plain, which, as they conjecture, has been formed by the alluvial
deposits of the rivers; just as the plains in the rest of the earth
lying near the sea are for the most part due to the alluvial action of
the rivers taken singly. Consequently, the names by which the countries
are called were attached in ancient times to the rivers. For instance,
a certain plain was called after the Hermus, which rises in the
country of Asia from the mountain of Mother Dindymene,[656] and after
flowing past the Aeolian city of Smyrna discharges its water into the
sea. Another Lydian plain is named after the Cayster, a Lydian river;
another from the Caïcus in Mysia; and the Carian plain, extending as
far as the Ionian city of Miletus, is named from the Maeander. Both
Herodotus and Hecataeus[657] the historians (unless the work about
the Egyptian country is by another person, and not by Hecataeus) in
like manner call Egypt a gift of the river[658]; and Herodotus has
shown by no uncertain proofs that such is the case[659]; so that even
the country itself perhaps received its name from the river. For that
the river which both the Egyptians and men outside Egypt now name the
Nile, was in ancient times called Aegyptus, Homer is sufficient to
prove; since he says that Menelaüs stationed his ships at the outlet
of the river Aegyptus.[660] If therefore single rivers by themselves,
and those not large ones, are sufficient to form an extensive tract
of country, while flowing forward into the sea, since they carry down
slime and mud from the higher districts whence they derive their
sources, surely it is unbecoming to exhibit incredulity about India,
how it has come to pass that most of it is a plain, which has been
formed by the alluvial deposits of its rivers. For if the Hermus, the
Cayster, the Caïcus, the Maeander, and all the other[661] rivers of