The Anabasis of Alexander or, The history of the wars and conquests of Alexander the Great
ordered the scaling-ladders to be placed against the citadel on all
sides, and the wall to be undermined; and when one of the towers, being
undermined, fell down, and a part of the wall between two towers was
breached, and thus rendered the citadel more accessible to assault
in this quarter, he was seen to be the first man to scale the wall
and get hold of it. The other Macedonians seeing him were ashamed of
themselves and mounted the ladders in various places. The citadel was
soon in their possession. Some of the Indians began to set fire to the
houses, and being caught in them were killed; but most of them were
slain fighting. About 5,000 in all were killed; and on account of their
valour, only a few were taken prisoners.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEFEAT OF THE MALLIANS AT THE RIVER HYDRAOTES.
Having remained there one day to give his army rest, he advanced on the
morrow against the other Mallians. He found the cities abandoned, and
ascertained that the men had fled into the desert. There he again gave
the army one day’s rest, and on the next day sent Peithon and Demetrius
the cavalry general back to the river, in command of their own troops,
giving them in addition as many battalions of the light-armed infantry
as were sufficient for the enterprise. Their instructions were to go
along the bank of the river, and if they met any of those who had fled
for safety into the woods, of which there were many near the river’s
bank, to kill all who refused to surrender. Peithon and Demetrius
captured many of these in the woods and killed them. He himself led
his forces against the largest city of the Mallians, whither he was
informed many from the other cities had taken refuge. But this also the
Indians abandoned when they heard that Alexander was marching against
it. Crossing the river Hydraotes, they remained with their forces drawn
up upon its bank, because it was high, and they thought they could
obstruct Alexander’s passage. When he heard this, he took all the
cavalry which he had with him, and went to the part of the river where
he was informed that the Mallians had drawn themselves up for battle;
and the infantry was ordered to follow. When he reached the river and
beheld the enemy drawn up on the opposite bank, he made no delay, but
instantly plunged into the ford with the cavalry alone. When they saw
that he was now in the middle of the river, though they were drawn
up ready for battle, they withdrew from the bank with all speed; and
Alexander followed them with his cavalry alone. But when the Indians
perceived only cavalry, they wheeled round and fought with desperate
valour, being about 50,000 in number. When Alexander perceived that
their phalanx was densely compact, and that his own infantry was
absent, he rode right round their army and made charges upon them, but
did not come to close fighting with them. Meanwhile the archers, the
Agrianians and the other battalions of light-armed infantry, being
picked men whom he was leading with him, arrived, and his phalanx of
infantry was seen not far off. As all kinds of danger were threatening
them at once, the Indians now wheeled round again and began to flee
with headlong speed into the strongest of their adjacent cities; but
Alexander followed them and slew many, while those who escaped into the
city were cooped up within it. At first indeed he surrounded the city
with the horse-soldiers as they came up from the march; but when the
infantry arrived, he encamped all round the wall for this day, because
not much of it was left for making the assault, and his army had been
exhausted, the infantry by the long march, and the cavalry by the
uninterrupted pursuit, and especially by the passage of the river.
CHAPTER IX.
STORMING OF THE MALLIAN STRONGHOLD.
On the following day, dividing the army into two parts, he himself
assaulted the wall at the head of one, and Perdiccas led on the
other. Upon this the Indians did not wait to receive the attack of
the Macedonians, but abandoned the walls of the city and fled for
safety into the citadel. Alexander and his troops therefore split
open a small gate, and got within the city long before the others;
for those who had been put under Perdiccas were behind time, having
experienced difficulty in scaling the walls, as most of them did not
bring ladders, thinking that the city had been captured, when they
observed that the walls were deserted by the defenders. But when the
citadel was seen to be still in the possession of the enemy, and many
of them were observed drawn up in front of it to repel attacks, some
of the Macedonians tried to force an entry by undermining the wall,
and others by placing scaling ladders against it, wherever it was
practicable to do so. Alexander, thinking that the men who carried the
ladders were too slow, snatched one from a man who was carrying it,
placed it against the wall, and began to mount it, crouching under his
shield. After him mounted Peucestas, the man who carried the sacred
shield which Alexander took from the temple of the Trojan Athena and
used to keep with him, and have it carried before him in all his
battles.[745] After Peucestas, by the same ladder ascended Leonnatus
the confidential body-guard; and up another ladder went Abreas, one of
the soldiers who received double pay for distinguished services.[746]
The king was now near the battlement of the wall, and leaning his
shield against it was pushing some of the Indians within the fort,
and had cleared that part of the wall, by killing others with his
sword. The shield-bearing guards becoming very anxious for the king’s
safety, pushed each other with ardour up the same ladder and broke it;
so that those who were already mounting fell down and made the ascent
impracticable for the rest. Alexander then, standing upon the wall,
was being assailed all round from the adjacent towers; for none of the
Indians dared approach him. He was also being assailed by the men in
the city, who were throwing darts at him from no great distance; for
a mound of earth happened to have been heaped up there opposite the
wall. Alexander was conspicuous both by the brightness of his weapons
and by his extraordinary display of audacity. He therefore perceived
that if he remained where he was, he would be incurring danger without
being able to perform anything at all worthy of consideration; but
if he leaped down within the fort he might perhaps by this very act
strike the Indians with terror, and if he did not, but should only
thereby be incurring danger, at any rate he would die not ignobly
after performing great deeds of valour worthy of recollection by men
of after times.[747] Forming this resolution, he leaped down from the
wall into the citadel; where, supporting himself against the wall, he
struck with his sword and killed some of the Indians who came to close
quarters with him, including their leader, who rushed upon him too
boldly. Another man who approached him he kept in check by hurling a
stone at him, and a third in like manner. Those who advanced nearer to
him he again kept off with his sword; so that the barbarians were no
longer willing to approach him, but standing round him cast at him from
all sides whatever any one happened to have or could get hold of at the
time.
CHAPTER X.
ALEXANDER DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED.
Meantime Peucestas and Abreas, the soldier entitled to double pay,
and after them Leonnatus, being the only men who happened to have
scaled the wall before the ladders were broken, had leaped down and
were fighting in front of the king. Abreas, the man entitled to double
pay, fell there, being shot with an arrow in the forehead. Alexander
himself also was wounded with an arrow under the breast through his
breastplate into the chest, so that Ptolemy says air was breathed out
from the wound together with the blood. But although he was faint with
exhaustion, he defended himself, as long as his blood was still warm.
But the blood streaming out copiously and without ceasing at every
expiration of breath, he was seized with a dizziness and swooning,
and bending over fell upon his shield. After he had fallen Peucestas
defended him, holding over him in front the sacred shield brought
from Troy; and on the other side he was defended by Leonnatus. But
both these men were themselves wounded, and Alexander was now nearly
fainting away from loss of blood. For the Macedonians had experienced
great difficulty in the assault also on this account, because those
who saw Alexander being shot at upon the wall and then leaping down
into the citadel within, in their ardour arising from fear lest their
king should meet with any mishap by recklessly exposing himself to
danger, broke the ladders. Then some began to devise one plan and
others another to mount upon the wall, as well as they could in their
state of embarrassment, some fixing pegs into the wall, which was made
of earth, and suspending themselves from these hoisted themselves up
with difficulty by their means; others got up by mounting one upon
the other. The first man who got up threw himself down from the wall
into the city, and so on in succession; and when they saw the king
lying there on the ground they all raised a loud lamentation and howl
of grief. Now ensued a desperate conflict around his fallen body, one
Macedonian after another holding his shield in front of him. In the
meantime some of the soldiers having shivered in pieces the bar by
which the gate in the space of wall between the towers was secured,
entered the city a few at the time; while others, inasmuch as a gap
had been made in the gate, put their shoulders under it and forced it
into the space inside the wall, and thus laid the citadel open in that
quarter.
CHAPTER XI.
ALEXANDER WOUNDED.
Hereupon some of them began to kill the Indians, all of whom they slew,
sparing not even a woman or child. Others carried off the king, who
was lying in a faint condition, upon his shield; and they could not
yet tell whether he was likely to survive. Some authors have stated
that Critodemus, a physician of Cos, an Asclepiad by birth,[748]
made an incision into the injured part and drew the weapon out of
the wound. Other authors say that as there was no physician present
at the critical moment, Perdiccas, the confidential body-guard, at
Alexander’s bidding, made an incision with his sword into the wounded
part and removed the weapon. On its removal there was such a copious
effusion of blood that Alexander swooned again; and the effect of
the swoon was, that the effusion of blood was stanched.[749] Many
other things concerning this catastrophe have been recorded by the
historians; and Rumour having received the statements as they were
given by the first falsifiers of the facts, still preserves them even
to our times, nor will she desist from handing the falsehoods on to
others also in regular succession, unless a stop is put to it by this
history.[750] For example, the common account is, that this calamity
befell Alexander among the Oxydracians; whereas, it really occurred
among the Mallians, an independent tribe of Indians; the city belonged
to the Mallians,[751] and the men who wounded him were Mallians. These
people, indeed, had resolved to join their forces with the Oxydracians
and then to make a desperate struggle; but he forestalled them by
marching against them through the waterless country, before any aid
could reach them from the Oxydracians, or they could render any help
to the latter. Moreover, the common account is, that the last battle
fought with Darius was near Arbela, at which battle he fled and did not
desist from flight until he was arrested by Bessus and put to death
at Alexander’s approach; just as the battle before this was at Issus,