The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (33 page)

This done, he returned to Pattala, where he found the construction of the fortress complete and Peitho already arrived with his mission successfully accomplished. Hephaestion was ordered to make all necessary preparations
for fortifying the harbour and for the installation of docks, as it was Alexander’s intention to leave a considerable fleet stationed at Paítala, at the junction of the two estuaries of the Indus.

He now undertook a second voyage to the Ocean, this time by the other branch of the Indus, for the purpose of informing himself which of the two offered the easier passage (the mouths of the Indus are about 225 miles apart).
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On the way down he came to a great lake; it is really a part of the estuary, and its vast extent is due to the spreading waters of the river assisted, possibly, by other tributary streams flowing in on this side or on that, so that it resembles, in effect, a gulf of the sea. Moreover, deep-sea fish were to be seen in it, larger than those we find in our own waters at home.

Alexander came to an anchor at a spot in the lake which his pilots recommended; then, leaving behind all the light pinnaces and most of his men in charge of Leonnatus, he proceeded with the thirty-oars and one-and-a-half-bankers down to the mouth of the river, and so, once again, out into the open sea. The passage by this branch proved the easier of the two.

Bringing up close off-shore, he landed and went three days’ march with a party of mounted troops along the coast, making observations of the nature of the country along which the coasting voyage would have to be made and arranging for wells to be dug, to provide the fleet with water. Then he returned to his ships, and having sailed up to Paítala, sent off a strong working-party to the coast with orders to rejoin him when the task was complete. This done, he once again went down-river to the
lake, where he had another harbour and more docks constructed. Finally, leaving a garrison there, he laid in four months’ supplies for the troops and made all other necessary preparations for the coastal voyage.

At the moment, however, it was the wrong time of year for a sea voyage. The monsoon was blowing, and, unlike our own seasonal winds, the monsoon is not a northerly wind, but blows in off the ocean from the south; but according to the information Alexander received conditions were suitable for sailing from the setting of the Pleiades at the beginning of winter
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to the winter solstice, as throughout that period the heavy inland rains give rise to constant light off-shore winds, convenient for a coastal voyage under either sails or oars.

While Nearchus, admiral of the fleet, was waiting at Paítala for weather,
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Alexander moved on with his whole force to the river Arabius,
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and then turned towards the coast and proceeded along it in a westerly direction, taking with him half the total number of Guards and archers, the battalions of footguards, the picked squadron of the Companions, a squadron from each of the other cavalry regiments, and all the mounted archers. His object was, first, to have wells dug in order to ensure a good supply of water for Nearchus’ men during their coastal passage, and, secondly, to make a surprise attack on the Oreitae, a local Indian tribe which had long been independent and had hitherto made no gesture of friendship towards
Alexander and his army.
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Hephaestion had command of the troops left behind at Pattala.

The Arabitae, another independent tribe near the Arabius, thought they were no match for Alexander; they did not, however, surrender when they learned of his approach, but made off into the wilds. Alexander, accordingly, crossed the river, which was hardly more than a shallow stream, crossed in the course of the night the greater part of the uninhabited country, and by dawn found himself close to the occupied regions again; then, instructing his infantry to follow in marching order, he entered the Oreitan territory with his mounted troops, dividing them into squadrons to enable them to cover as much ground as possible. All the natives who attempted resistance were killed; many were taken prisoner.
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He then made a temporary halt near a small stream, and as soon as he was rejoined by Hephaestion continued his advance as far as the village called Rhambacia, the largest settlement in the Oreitan territory. The site of this place impressed him favourably, and feeling that if a town were built there it might well become great and prosperous, he left Hephaestion on the spot to put the work in hand.
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His next objective was the frontiers of the Oreitae and Gedrosians, and thither he now proceeded with a force consisting of one half of the Guards and Agrianes, his crack cavalry regiment, and the mounted archers. A
report had come in that the approach was by a narrow pass, and that the combined forces of these two peoples had taken up a position in front of it with the purpose of stopping Alexander from getting through. This was, in fact, true; but as soon as they knew of his approach most of them abandoned their post and left the pass undefended, while the chiefs of the Oreitae came to Alexander with an offer of surrender for themselves and their people. Alexander ordered them to round up the scattered members of their tribe and send them back to their homes, adding an assurance that they should come to no harm. As governor there he appointed Apollophanes, and left Leonnatus, officer of the Guard, in the territory of the Orians
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to support him; he put under Leonnatus’ command all the Agrianes, certain units of archers and cavalry, and a number of Greek mercenary troops, both horse and foot, and added instructions that he was to wait for the arrival of the fleet off the coast in those parts, to attend to the new settlement, and help to introduce such order and discipline among the Oreitae as might induce them to be more obedient to their governor. Then, when Hephaestion had rejoined him with the troops left behind at Rhambacia, he moved forward with the greater part of his army towards Gedrosia, mostly through desolate and uninhabited country.

In this wild region (Aristobulus records) myrrh grows in great abundance, the trees being larger than the common species; the Phoenicians, who accompanied the expedition for what they could make out of it, used to collect the gum and load their pack-animals with it – it was, indeed, extremely plentiful, for it had never been collected before and the trunks which exuded it were of such uncommon size. The country also produces nard,
both abundant and sweet-smelling, and this, too, was gathered by the Phoenicians.
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This grew in such profusion that much of it was trampled underfoot by the marching men, and the crushed plants spread a delicious fragrance for miles around. Other trees grow there too; one, with a leaf like laurel, is found growing below high-water mark on the sea-shore: this tree is left high and dry by the ebb tide, and on the succeeding flood looks as if it were growing in the sea. Some of them, growing in hollows which do not dry at low tide, are never out of the water, but even so take no harm from the constant immersion of their roots. Some trees are as much as forty-five feet in height and were in blossom when Alexander saw them; the flower is rather like the white violet, but much more fragrant. The region also produces a sort of thistle with great strong spikes – sometimes, as the men rode by, the spikes would catch their clothes, and so tough were they that rather than break off they pulled the rider from his horse. It is said that passing hares get these thorns entangled in their fur; and indeed they used to be caught in this way, as birds are with lime or fish with hooks. The stem of this plant could be easily cut through; and when it was, it exuded juice, more in quantity and more pungent than that of early figs.

From there Alexander marched through Gedrosian territory.
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The route was a difficult one, and no supplies were to be had; worst of all, in many places there was not even water for the men. They were forced to cover great distances at night, going some way inland, in spite of the fact that Alexander was anxious to work along the coast
in order to see what possible anchorages there were and, so far as he could in the brief time at his disposal, to assist the fleet by digging wells, and doing what could be done to provide markets and shelter for the ships.

There was nothing of any kind to be had in the whole southern strip of Gedrosia, so he sent Thoas, son of Mandrodorus, down to the sea with a party of mounted troops to find out if there was any sort of shelter for ships thereabouts, or any fresh water near the coast, or anything else which might be of use to the fleet. Thoas brought back a report that he had found a few fishermen on the beach living in stifling huts built of shells and roofed with the backbones of fish; they made do with very little fresh water, getting what they could by scraping away the shingle, and even this little was brackish.
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At last Alexander reached a part of Gedrosia where provisions were more or less plentiful. He had what he was able to obtain distributed among the baggage-trains, put his personal seal upon it, and gave orders that it should be taken down to the coast; but during the stage of his march which brought him nearest to the sea, the men, including the guards, in spite of the fact that the provisions were officially sealed, took them for their own purposes and shared them out among those of their fellows who were suffering most acutely from hunger. So great was their distress that the future prospect of Alexander’s anger and the chance of punishment was, not unreasonably, of less concern to them than the opportunity of averting the death which stared them in the face. As it happened, Alexander pardoned them when he realized
the severity of the need which induced them to disobey his orders.

To provision the troops who would be sailing with the fleet, Alexander by scouring the country got together what he could, and sent Cretheus of Callatis
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to see to its safe delivery; the natives, too, were ordered to bring to the coast from the inland districts as much ground grain as they could, together with a supply of dates and sheep for the army to purchase. Telephus, one of the Companions, was sent to another place with a small supply of flour.

The next objective was the capital town of Gedrosia, situated in a district named Pura.
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The march thither from Oria occupied in all sixty days. Most historians of Alexander’s campaigns have stated that the sufferings of his men on that march were out of all proportion greater than anything they had had to endure in Asia. Alexander did not choose that route because he was unaware of the the difficulties it would involve (Nearchus is our one authority for this); he chose it because, apart from Semiramis on her retreat from India, no one, to his knowledge, had ever before succeeded in bringing an army safely through. Even Semiramis, according to local tradition, got through with no more than twenty survivors, and Cyrus, son of Cambyses, with only seven – for it is a fact that Cyrus came here with the intention of invading India, but found the going so bad and the country so wild and barren that he lost nearly all his men before he could do so. Alexander heard these old stories; they inspired him to go one better than Cyrus and Semiramis, and that was
the reason, combined with the hope of being able to keep contact with the fleet and procure supplies for it, why, according to Nearchus, he marched by that route.
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The result was disastrous:
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the blazing heat and the lack of water caused innumerable casualties, especially among the animals, most of which died of thirst or from the effects of the deep, burning, sunbaked sand. Sometimes they met with lofty hills of sand – loose, deep sand, into which they sank as if it were mud or untrodden snow; sometimes, climbing or descending, the mules and horses suffered even greater distress from the uneven and treacherous surface of the track. Not the least hardship was the varying length of the marches, as the fact that they never knew when they would find water made regular, normal marches impossible. It was not so bad when they found water in the morning after covering the requisite distance during the night; but when there was still further to go, and they found themselves plodding on and on as the day advanced, the double distress of heat and raging thirst was almost intolerable.

Casualties among the animals were very numerous; indeed, most of them perished. Often they were killed deliberately by the men, who used to put their heads together and agree to butcher the mules and horses, whenever supplies gave out, and then eat their flesh and pretend they had died of thirst or exhaustion. As every man was involved, and the general distress was so great, there was no one to bring actual evidence of this crime, though Alexander himself was not unaware of what was going on; he realized, however, that the only way to deal with the situation was to feign ignorance, which would be better than to let the men feel that he connived at their breach of discipline. It was, moreover, no easy task, when men were sick or fell exhausted in their tracks, to get them along with the rest; for there were no transport animals left and even the wagons were being continually broken up as it became more and more impossible to drag them through the deep sand. In the earlier stages of the march they had often been prevented for this reason from taking the shortest route and compelled to seek a longer one which was more practicable for the teams. So there was nothing for it but to leave the sick by the way, and any man rendered incapable by exhaustion or thirst or sunstroke. No one could give them a helping hand; no one could stay behind to ease their sufferings, for the essential thing was to get on with all possible speed, and the effort to save the army as a whole inevitably took precedence over the suffering of individual men. Most of the marching was at night, and many men would fall asleep in their tracks; the few who had strength left to do so followed the army when they woke up again, and got safe through; but the greater number perished – poor castaways in the ocean of sand.

There was yet another disaster, perhaps the worst for
all concerned, men, horses, and mules. In Gedrosia, as in India, it rains heavily during the monsoon; the rain falls not on the plains but on the mountains, the summits of which arrest the clouds carried thither by the wind and cause them to condense in rain. It so happened that the army bivouacked by a small stream, for the sake of the water it afforded, and about the second watch of the night it was suddenly swollen by rain. The actual rain was falling far away out of sight, but the stream nevertheless grew into such a torrent that it drowned most of the camp-followers’ women and children and swept away the royal tent with everything it contained, and all the surviving animals, while the troops themselves barely managed to escape, saving nothing but their weapons – and not even all of those. Another trouble was, that when plenty of water happened to be found after a hot and thirsty march, most of the men drank so immoderately that the result was fatal to them, and for this reason Alexander usually made his halts a couple of miles or so from water, to stop his men from flinging themselves indiscriminately upon it to their own destruction and that of their beasts, and to prevent those who had least self-control from plunging right into the spring or stream, or whatever it was, and so spoiling the water for the others.