Who’s Afraid of Alexander the Great?
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
With the rise of the Achaemanid power in Persia in the 6th century BC, India was once again subjected to assaults from outside through the north-west. Cyrus had annexed Gandhara to the Persian Empire as a satrapy. His successor, Darius, had extended his sway further across the Indus. This was the situation at the end of the third quarter of the fourth century BC when Alexander the Macedonian set out to achieve a lofty ideal. He embarked on a campaign of conquests whose philosophical name was ekumenê or Oikoumenê, meaning, ‘the inhabited part of the world’, or, in other words, world domination by incorporating all men in his ekumene. The idea behind that was that as long as any segments of the human race remained outside his monarchy, his task would remain incomplete. The aim, therefore, was to establish a mighty world empire wherein all races would melt together, and the only way to achieve that was to reach the ocean, which, according to Herodotus, circled the world
By first seeking that ocean to the north and finding it futile, he thought it advisable to seek it by marching eastward. He crushed his opponents in Greece and the Balkans and invaded Asia Minor in 334 BC. Then he entered Syria and defeated the army of Persia at Issus. Proceeding down the coast of Tyre, and cutting off the bases of the Persian fleet he seized Egypt. He then directed his attack on mainland Persia and defeated the Persian emperor Darius III putting his capital Persepolis on fire. The emperor being dead, Alexander declared himself the successor of Darius and embarked on recovering his kingdom.
Overrunning all the lands between Alexandria and Kabul river, Qandhar and Bokhara, Alexander proceeded towards India in 327 BC It was an act that made him realize that greatness belongs to others too. GandharaandPunjabhad been Persian satrapies for two hundred years. He sent messages in advance to all the kings west of the river Sindhuto discuss terms of their surrender. The rulers of Takshašila and a frontier hill-state, Ambhi and Šashigupta, respectively, returned assurances of allegiance to Alexander and of military assistance in his campaigns. Alexander then proceeded to subjugate the defiant ones. Facing resistance at every step by small principalities, and defeating them promptly, he set foot on the friendly soil of Takshašila (Taxila) in 326 BC. The territory beyond Takshašila was the kingdom of Porus who had refused to bow before the authority of Alexander. Crossing Jhelum, Alexander faced the army of Porus. Porus gave a tough fight, but in the end, he was defeated. Alexander, showing magnanimity, reinstated Porus as the king. Porus was only required to regard himself as a member of the world realm under Alexander. Alexanderhad thus brought the Indo-Persian connection to an end.
Undaunted, Alexander now saw the triumphant route wide open before him, which could lead him to the sources of the sun, thinking India as the end of the world. Fully confident that no man, no obstacle, would be powerful enough to bar his way, he marched further ahead. In those victories, he was helped by Poruswith elephants and 6,000 soldiers. In marching further eastward, he could fulfill his dream of crowning himself as the king of the inhabited world. CrossingRavi, and defeating various small principalities and republican peoples, Alexander reached the river Beas (Hyphasis). But beyond Beas was the kingdom of a great monarchy, that of Parsi and Gangaridae, ‘a nation by repute brave, well equipped, more civilized than those through which he had passed like a flaming sword’. The Greek writers refer to the king of that monarchy, whose capital was at Pataliputra (modern Patna), as Agrammes, whose rule extended from the far east of India to the banks of the river Beas in the Punjab. By some Greek accounts the king, Dhana Nanda, had a very large army: 80,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 8,000 four-horsed chariots, and 6,000 war-elephants. The rumor ran that near the headwaters of theGanges, Dhana Nanda had blocked the way with two hundred thousand foot soldiers, twenty thousand horses, two thousand chariots, and three thousand elephants. Alexander’s army refused to step into that territory, and despite his repeated commands and pleadings, the army did not yield.
Finding the army’s unwillingness to advance, and before the disorder and despondency could increase more in the soldiers, Alexander convoked the officers in command of the brigades. He addressed them, “Are you afraid there are other barbarians who may yet successfully resist you although of those we have already met some have willingly submitted, others have been captured in flight, while others have left us their deserted country to be distributed either to allies or to those who have voluntarily submitted to us.” After a long time, silence was broken by one Koinos who summoned up courage and replied: “Moderation, in the midst of success, is, O king, the noblest of virtues, for though, at the head of so brave an army, you have nothing to dread from mortal foes, yet the visitations of the deity cannot be foreseen, and man cannot, therefore, guard against them”. When Koinos concluded, those present signified their approval of what he said by laud applause, while many with streaming tears expressed more aversion to encounter further dangers. (Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Alexander, p. 580)
Being unable to step into India, the western bank of Beas proved as Alexander’s last outpost in the east. He had supposed that the Ganges discharged its waters into the ocean, which bounded the earth on the east. What bigger a disappointment could be for him to have the world’s end within his reach but not to reach it. Sadly, this was also the occasion that shattered his dream of ekumenê.
The historian V.A.Smith is of the opinion that if Alexander had advanced further his army “might have been overwhelmed by the mere numbers of his adversaries”, and that the rebellious troops “may be credited with having prevented the annihilation of the Macedonian army”. H. G. Wells writes in The Outline of History: “Possibly he would have pushed eastward across the deserts to the Ganges valley, but his troops refused to go further. Possibly, had they not done so, then or later he would have gone on until he vanished eastward out of history. But he was forced to turn about”.
Alexander’s presence was a matter of least disturbance for the heartland of Indian power. No details are available as to what military preparations were, or ever, made by the ruler of Magadha to face Alexander the Great, who had been able to subdue only petty rajas and chiefs of tribes of the north-west. For his retreat from the western banks of the Beas, Alexander built a fleet of 1,000 ships. The return journey began in the southerly direction, sailing down the Jhelum and Sindhu rivers. Once again facing resistance from various tribes and republican states on the way, and then crushing them, Alexander reached Patella at the head of the Indus delta in the summer of 325 BC. From there he proceeded to Babylon, where he died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar (Bakht-e Nasar) at the age of thirty-two in mid June 323 BC.
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