force,” positioned to present Porus with one of two equally unpalatable tactical options once he
recognized that Alexander was across the river. Porus could confront Craterus or Alexander, but not
both, at least effectively.
Between Craterus and Alexander mercenary cavalry and infantry also were posted, to effect river
crossings in sections as soon as they saw the Indians engaged in the battle.
Alexander was to take with him to the crossing point a strong “turning” force, comprising the
special squadron of the Companions (the agema), three Macedonian cavalry regiments, native
contingents from Bactria and Sogdiana, the Scythian cavalry, the mounted archers, the infantry units of
the Guards, two Macedonian infantry battalions, archers, and the invaluable Agrianes. In all, this
force numbered 6,000 foot and 5,000 cavalry troops. Alexander then brought the assault force to the
crossing point at some distance back from the river to hide their movement from Porus. Before the
night of the crossing the skin-floats and the thirty-oared galleys had been brought up near the point of
embarkation and concealed in the trees. A fortuitous deluge drowned out the noise of final
preparations.
THE BATTLE OF THE HYDASPES
Just before dawn, after the wind and rain had subsided, the operation was initiated. The cavalry
embarked upon rafts and the infantry were loaded into boats. Alexander himself crossed in one of the
galleys, accompanied by three officers of his personal bodyguard—Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Lysimachus
—as well as by Seleucus and half of the hypaspists. It was now time to play the Lion.
Indian mounted scouts spotted the crossing party and immediately rode off to Porus with the news
of their approach, but the crossing was a success. Alexander, the first ashore, promptly began to put
the disembarking cavalry into battle order. The only problem was that, from want of local knowledge,
he and the rest of the Macedonians had not landed on the river’s opposite shore, but on an island
separated from the far bank by a stream. “Intelligence” had let the Macedonians down—as it had
before the battle of Issos, when Darius and the Persians were able to circle back behind Alexander
and cut the Macedonians off from their Cilician supply bases. Now, on an island in the middle of a
rain-swollen river, thousands of miles from home, came the test of Alexander’s leadership.
Finding another fording point from the island to the far bank, the assault group calmly reassembled
and crossed over. The water rose to the men’s armpits and to the necks of the horses during the
second crossing.
Having reached the opposite bank of the river, Alexander then marshaled his forces again. The
Royal Squadron and the rest of the best cavalry were put on the right wing, with mounted archers in
front. In the rear of the cavalry was the Royal Regiment of Guards under Seleucus, then the Royal
Regiment of heavy infantry, in touch with the other Guards regiments. The archers, the Agrianes, and
the javelin men were stationed on the wings of the infantry phalanx. Alexander’s men had regrouped
flawlessly under terrible conditions, a tribute to his leadership and their own professionalism.
Alexander then ordered the turning force to advance, with the cavalry leading the way, the archers
following them, and then the infantry. In effect, therefore, he had deployed his cavalry as a kind of
screen for his infantry. At this point, our sources diverge. According to one contemporary account, the
landing on the bank was initially opposed by Porus’ son with sixty chariots; this force promptly drove
right past the Macedonians’ landing point and was put to flight by the mounted archers. Other writers
state that Porus’ son did fight Alexander at the landing point, wounding Alexander and striking the
blow that killed Bucephalas.
Ptolemy, however, who fought in the battle, later recalled that Porus’ son did indeed come, not just
with 60 chariots (an improbable number, for it would be insufficient to challenge Alexander, and too
many for reconnaissance) but with 2,000 mounted troops and 120 chariots. The purpose of this
attacking force must have been to disrupt Alexander’s landing or to prevent the Macedonians from
forming up in good order. In either case, it was not successful. Alexander routed it with a cavalry
attack, with the Indians losing 400 mounted men, including Porus’ son. The chariots with their teams
were captured in the subsequent retreat; they had driven rather heavily and had been useless in the
action itself because of the mud.
News of his son’s defeat (or failure) was conveyed to Porus, who now saw that the pinning force
left with Craterus was beginning to cross the river. Caught in a classic pincer movement, Porus
wisely determined to confront the strongest part of the Macedonian army, which was led by
Alexander himself. Leaving behind a small force with a few elephants to spread alarm among
Craterus’ cavalry as they crossed the Hydaspes, Porus then marched out to meet Alexander on his
side of the river with around 2,000 cavalry, 85 elephants, 240 chariots, and 20,000 infantry.
After reaching a place that was sandy (rather than muddy), level, and solid, and therefore suitable
for cavalry maneuvers, Porus positioned his elephants along his battle formation at intervals of fifty
feet, screening the whole body of his infantry (and intending to terrify the Macedonian cavalry).
Behind the screen were set the foot soldiers, slotted into the intervals between the elephants. Infantry
were posted on the wings as well, stretching out beyond the line of elephants. Mounted units, each
with a screen of war chariots, provided additional protection on the flanks.
After allowing his infantry to catch up with his cavalry and then to re-form and rest, Alexander
moved the majority of his cavalry to his right wing (opposite Porus’ left). Philotas’ brother-in-law,
Coenus, with his own and Demetrius’ cavalry regiments, was sent over to Porus’ right with orders
that when Porus sent his cavalry over to his own left to face Alexander’s massed cavalry, he should
stay behind them. The heavy phalanx infantry units under Seleucus, Antigenes, and Tauron were
ordered to hold off from engagement until the Indians were thrown into confusion by the (usual)
Macedonian cavalry charge.
Alexander commenced the attack with an assault by 1,000 mounted archers against Porus’ left
wing. This assault was followed by a charge of the Companion cavalry led by Alexander against the
Indian left, before their cavalry could mass.
The Indians meanwhile were removing all of their cavalry from their line to meet Alexander’s
charge. These cavalrymen were followed by Coenus and his men, who began to appear at the rear of
the Indian cavalry as it followed Alexander out to the right. The Indians therefore split their forces to
deal with Alexander and Coenus.
In that instant, when the Indian cavalry split, and part of it changed direction to meet Coenus,
Alexander charged into the Indian line facing him. The Indians immediately fell back into their screen
of elephants.
At this point the Macedonian infantry advanced, hurling javelins at the drivers of the elephants,
and, surrounding the elephants, volleyed upon them from all sides. The elephants then charged out into
the line of infantry, devastating the infantry of both sides, whichever way they
turned. The Indian
cavalry, seeing that the action had settled down into an infantry battle, regrouped and charged again
into the Macedonian cavalry. Once again, however, the strength and experience of the Macedonians
told, and the Indian cavalry was pushed back into the elephants.
By this time the elephants too had been crowded back into a narrow space where they trampled to
death as many friends as enemies. The Macedonians, with more room to maneuver than the Indians,
gave ground when charged or went after the elephants with their javelins when the opportunity arose.
The Macedonian infantry adopted a close-order formation when they were about to make contact with enemy infantry. Within such a
formation, the pikes of the infantrymen in the first few rows projected out in front of the phalanx, like the quills of a porcupine, but at
different heights. While the shields-locked formation of the infantry ( above) was primarily a defensive formation, it could also be used offensively as it was during the final stages of the battle of the Hydaspes River.
When the elephants grew tired of charging and backed away, retreating like ships backing water,
Alexander surrounded the whole lot, elephants, horsemen, and all, and signaled the infantry to lock
shields ( synaspismos formation, in Greek) and move up in phalanx order. Most of the Indian cavalry
were cut down in the resulting action. Some of the infantry escaped only to be met by Craterus, who
had successfully crossed the river and taken over the pursuit of the survivors from Alexander and his
men.
No fewer than 12,000 Indians were killed in the battle, including both infantry and cavalry, and
9,000 were taken prisoner. Of Porus’ force of elephants, eighty were captured alive. All of the Indian
war chariots were destroyed. On the Macedonian side, 280 cavalry and 700 infantrymen lost their
lives.
Alexander and his multi-ethnic force had prevailed against a brave and tenacious foe who was
fighting on his home ground from a superior defensive position. The king had used deception to effect
a difficult river crossing under dreadful conditions. Despite the mistake of landing on the island in the
middle of the river, he and the Macedonians had executed the pinning and turning operation
flawlessly. As usual, Alexander had led the cavalry charge that decided the outcome of the battle. The
Hydaspes was a complex triumph of operational planning, deception, and execution. If Alexander’s
major battles can be compared to symphonies, this was his Jupiter, his masterpiece, and like the
Jupiter, it was to be his last.
THE FATE OF PORUS
Porus himself was not among the Indian casualties. Mounted on the largest elephant, more than seven
feet tall himself, the king had fought on. He had refused to surrender, although he was wounded in his
right shoulder and he could see that his cavalry had been slaughtered, most of his infantry had been
killed, and his elephants had been cut down or were wandering about without riders. At last
persuaded to listen to a message from Alexander brought by an Indian friend named Meroes, Porus
dismounted and drank some water. Then the towering Indian king was brought to Alexander.
“What do you wish me to do with you?” Alexander asked. Porus replied, “Treat me, O Alexander,
like a king.” Impressed, Alexander restored Porus to his sovereignty and even enlarged his realm.
Alexander then founded two new cities ( poleis). The first, sited on the east bank of the Jhelum
where the battle took place, was named Nikaia (Victory), in honor of Alexander’s victory over Porus
and the Indians. The second city stood on the west bank, perhaps on the spot where Alexander had
initiated his crossing; it was christened Bucephala, in memory of his beloved horse, who had died
there (at the age of thirty) not wounded by anyone, but from exhaustion and age.
THE EULOGY OF BUCEPHALAS
Of Bucephalas and Alexander, Arrian wrote:
In former days, he had shared with Alexander many a danger and many a weary march. No one
ever rode him but his master, for he would never permit anyone else to mount him. He was a big
horse, high-spirited—a noble creature. He was branded with the figure of an ox-head, whence
his name—though some have said that the name came from a white mark on his head, shaped like
an ox. This was the only bit of white on his body, all the rest being black. In Uxia, once,
Alexander lost him, and issued an edict that he would kill every man in the country unless he was
brought back, as he promptly was. The story is evidence both of the fear which Alexander
inspired and of his devotion to Bucephalas. But I must say no more: what I have written in
Bucephalas’ praise, I have written for Alexander’s sake.
CHAPTER 20
The Mutiny at the Hyphasis River
THE MARCH TO THE HYPHASIS RIVER
After respects had been paid to those who had fallen at the Hydaspes, Alexander performed
customary sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods for the victory. A contest of athletic and cavalry
games also was held on the bank, at the spot where Alexander first had crossed the river with the
turning force. Such games were celebrated throughout the campaigns when bonding mechanisms or
reaffirmations of solidarity were deemed necessary—especially, it should be noted, after Alexander
and his soldiers had witnessed the deaths of many of their friends.
Alexander also used commemorative objects to keep morale high and to promote his own version
Indians, including one that showed an elephant on the reverse and an Indian archer on the obverse,
and a much larger coin that featured Alexander himself on horseback with a pike in his hand attacking
two Indians riding an elephant.
While the king advanced against the Indians across the border of Porus’ kingdom to the northeast
(in what is now Kashmir), he left Craterus, with part of the army, to build and fortify his new cities.
He clearly intended to continue the march eastward until the conquest of India was complete, just
as Alexander already had revealed to Pharasmanes in the summer of 328. The advance, however,
soon turned into a journey, if not quite into the heart of darkness, then certainly close enough to it to
persuade the majority of the Macedonians to refuse to go any farther before the end of the summer of
326.
The name of the tribe of Indians Alexander first encountered on the march was the Glauganicae or
Glausae. The thirty-seven towns of these Indians that Alexander captured were handed over to Porus,
who thereby was immediately paid off for his new alliance with Alexander. Taxiles, having been
reconciled with Porus and supplanted by him in Alexander’s esteem, was then sent home.
From the timber of nearby mountains Alexander then had built a large number of ships, which he
meant to use later to sail down the Indus after the conquest of India. In this region Alexander and his
men also encountered a large number of snakes; some were twenty-four feet long. Others were small
and multicolored. Many were venomous, and until the locals showed the Macedonians a root that
could be used to treat their deadly bites, the Macedonians slept uneasily at night in hammocks slung
from trees.
The Macedonians also marveled at the wide variety of monkeys found in the region. Among these
were
the famous monkeys who had taught the Indians how to entrap them. Because of their strength
and cleverness these monkeys could not be captured simply by force, but had to be tricked. The Indian
hunters, making sure that they were within the sight of the monkeys, would smear their own eyes with
honey, fasten sandals upon their ankles, and hang mirrors on their own necks. The hunters then
departed, having attached fastening to the sandals they left behind, having substituted birdlime for
honey, and having attached slip nooses to mirrors. When the monkeys imitated what they had seen the
Indians do, their eyes were stuck together by the birdlime, their feet were bound fast in the sandals,
and their bodies were held immovable by the slip nooses. After disabling themselves, the monkeys
were easier to catch.
Having learned all about the local fauna, Alexander and the Macedonians then turned their attention
to the human opposition in the area. Very soon Alexander received envoys from Abisares, including
his own brother, who finally brought treasure and a gift of forty elephants. Alexander sent a message
to Abisares ordering him to come and threatening that if he did not, Abisares would soon see him with
his army—an unpleasant sight.
There also came to Alexander representatives from the autonomous Indians and from Porus’
cousin, confusingly also named Porus. Porus the cousin initially had offered submission to Alexander
but then had fled across the Hydraotes River (Ravi) with his army. Alexander then marched off
eastward in pursuit of Porus’ cousin.
Alexander made it to the Acesines River (Chenab) without much opposition, but the crossing of the
river, which was a little under two miles wide, was difficult. It was the time of the summer solstice
(326), and the river was still swollen from the monsoons. Although Alexander apparently crossed the
river at its widest point, where the current was slower, nowhere were the waters of the rivers
completely calm, and there were large, sharp rocks in the bed of the river. For those who crossed the
river on hides the way across was easy. But many of those who crossed in boats lost their lives when
their vessels crashed upon the rocks and were wrecked. Crossing the tributaries of the mighty Indus