The Chronology of India, from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century c5.32

c5.32

Alexander is rejoined at the Indus by Perdikkas, who had subjugated the Abastanoi. Here also he receives the submission of the Ossadioi, and founds a city to which he gives his own name. He next comes to the capital of the Sogdoi, where he constructs dockyards, thereafter reaching the dominions of Mousikanos, whose metropolis seems to have been at Alor. He then wars against Oxykanos and against Sambos, who ruled the mountainous country to the west of the Indus, and whose capital was Sindimāna (now Sehwān). He despatches Krateros with part of his army to Karmania by the route through the Arakhōsians and Sarangians. Towards the end of summer he reaches Patala, a city at the apex of the Delta (probably east of Haidarābād). From Patala he sails down the right arm of the Indus to the ocean, and afterwards down the left arm. He then starts with part of his remaining forces to return to Persia by way of Gedrōsia. The other part he places under the command of Nearkhos, who conducts the fleet from the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, starting on his voyage towards the end of September, after Alexander had, early in that month, taken his departure. Alexander, having crossed the river Arabios (now the Purāli), invades the Oreitai (Lus Bela tribes), whom he reduces to submission. In the country of the Oreitai, Ptolemy, afterwards king of Egypt, is dangerously wounded by a poisoned arrow. According to Diodōros Sikulos, this happened in Sindh, near Hermatelia. The fleet, having reached Alexander's Haven (somewhere near Karāchi), is detained twenty-four days. From the country of the Oreitai, Alexander enters Gedrōsia, and, after a terrible march of sixty days through its burning sands, in which many of his soldiers perish, he reaches its capital, Poura (perhaps Bampūr). After leaving Poura he receives tidings that Philip, whom he had appointed satrap of the Panjab, had been murdered in India by his mercenaries, and his death avenged by his Makedonian body-guards. Upon this, Alexander appoints Eudēmos and Taxilēs to administer the satrapy until he sends a successor.