The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.249

v1.c26.249

Whether the new appointment that Alexander had foreshadowed was ever made, is doubtful. It may be that circumstances proved too strong for him, and that the arrangement revealed by the partitions of Babylon and Triparadisus represents what he had perforce to assent to. In any case the dual system of control, which he had set up as a temporary make-shift, bore within it from the outset the seeds of intrigue and ultimate rupture. Eudamus, it will be observed, is not mentioned in connexion with either of the partitions. Yet he appears to have retained some sort of position as leader of the Hellenic 'outlanders' in the valleys of the Indus and Hydaspes. Ere long he drifted into conflict with the native Indian element. Before 317 B.C. he had Porus treacherously slain, seized his war-elephants, and marched, with all the forces he could muster, to join the coalition of Eastern satraps who had drawn together to oppose the arrogant pretensions of their colleague of Media (Diod. XIX, 14, 8). The thunder of the captains and the shouting had also reached the ears of Pithon, son of Agenor, and he too had abandoned his province to fling himself into the fray. Neither ever returned. Eudamus met his doom at the hands of Antigonus (Diod. XIX, 44, 1). Pithon fell fighting by the side of Demetrius at the battle of Gaza (Diod. XIX, 85, 2). Nor had either any successor in his Indian command, a fact that is surely full of significance. May not their withdrawal from India be most simply accounted for on the supposition that each had become alive to the hopelessness of his situation?