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.
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