Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.12

c8.12

A wild panic shook the Empire to the centre. No one knew what would happen next, and in the distant colonies of the Panjāb things quickly began to look serious for the Macedonian garrison. A quarrel broke out between Eudamus and his native colleague, which ended in the treacherous assassination of the latter. The death of Porus further exasperated the native population, who broke into open revolt in 317 B.C., when Eudamus and Peithon, taking with them as much loot as they could lay hands on, and the flower of the Macedonian troops, evacuated the Panjāb, and went to join Eumenes in the scramble for power nearer home. No doubt they felt their position to be quite untenable long before they determined upon this move. The revolt was largely organized by Sandrakottus, or Chandragupta, to give him his proper name, the remarkable adventurer who founded the Maurya dynasty¹.