The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.152

v1.c25.152

The greatest prince of the country between the confluence and the delta was one whom the Greeks called Musicanus (Mousikanos) possibly a title denoting ‘the chief of the Mūshikas².’ As in the case of the Paurava and his fellow chiefs, the dread of the foreigner was apt to be less than the dread of the strong neighbour. A native chief whom our texts call Sambus or Sabus (Çambhu ?), at feud with Musicanus, hastened to make friends with the invaders and was nominated by Alexander satrap of some hill district lying back from the river. Musicanus seems to have contemplated resistance; he sent no envoys to the European king. But he was not prepared for the rapidity of Alexander’s movements, who was again upon his enemies before they were aware. Submission seemed the only way; the Europeans were admitted to the goodly city, which was the rāja’s capital³, and a European garrison was put in its citadel. Subject however to the supremacy of Alexander, Musicanus was left his former state and authority, as the Paurava had been, and Āmbhi and the rāja of Abhisāra. Another chief of the district, ‘Oxycanus’ or ‘Porticanus,’ attempted resistance, but found that the walls in which he trusted were frail defence against the battering engines of the European. The people of the land, our Greek author says, were paralysed by the belief in Alexander’s super-human power.