Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander 9.8.4

9.8.4

Inde Sambagras adiit, validam Indiae gentem, quae populi, non regum imperio regebatur. LX milia peditum habebant, equitum VI milia: has copias currus D sequebantur. in duces spectatos virtute bellica elegerant.

Chapter VIII. — Alexander receives the submission of the Malli — Invades the Musicani and the Praesti, whose king Porticanus is slain — He next attacks King Sambus, many of whose cities surrendered — Musicanus having revolted is captured and executed — Ptolemy is wounded by a poisoned arrow in the kingdom of Sambus, but recovers — Alexander reaches Patala and sails down the Indus The Indian ambassadors were dismissed to their several homes, but in a few days they returned with presents for Alexander which consisted of 300 horsemen, 1030 chariots each drawn by four horses, 1000 Indian bucklers, a great quantity of linen-cloth, 100 talents of steel, some tame lions and tigers of extraordinary size, the skins also of very large lizards, and a quantity of tortoise shells. The king commanding Craterus to move forward in advance with his troops and to keep always near the river, down which he intended himself to sail, took ship along with his usual retinue, and dropping down stream came to the territories of the Malli. Thence he marched towards the Sabarcae, a powerful Indian tribe where the form of government was democratic and not regal. Their army consisted of 60,000 foot and 6000 cavalry attended by 500 chariots.

They had elected three generals renowned for their valour and military skill; but when those who lived near the river, the banks of which were most thickly studded with their villages, saw the whole river as far as the eye could reach covered with ships, and saw besides the many thousands of men and their gleaming arms, they took fright at the strange spectacle and imagined that an army of the gods and a second Father Bacchus, a name famous in that country, were coming into their midst. The shouts of the soldiers and the noise of the oars, together with the confused voices of the sailors encouraging each other, so filled their alarmed ears that they all ran off to the army and cried out to the soldiers that they would be mad to offer battle to the gods, that the number of ships carrying these invincible warriors was past all counting. By these reports they created such a terror in the ranks of their own army that they sent ambassadors commissioned to surrender their whole nation to Alexander.