Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c13.s2.154

c13.s2.154

The Nandas of Magadha do not appear to have made any attempt to subjugate these states of the Uttarāpatha (North-West India). The task of reducing them was reserved for a foreign conqueror, *viz*., Alexander of Macedon. The tale of Alexander's conquest has been told by many historians including Arrian, Q. Curtius Rufus, Diodoros Siculus, Plutarch and Justin. We learn from Curtius that Scythians and Dahae served in the Macedonian army.² The expedition led by Alexander was thus a combined Śaka-Yavana enterprise. The invader met with no such general confederacy of the native powers like the one formed by the East Indian states against Kūṇika-Ajātaśatru. On the contrary he obtained assistance from many important chiefs like Āmbhi of Taxila, Sangæus (Sañjaya?) of Pushkarāvatī, Kophaios or Cophæus (of the Kābul region?), Assagetes (Aśvajit?), and Sisikottos (Śaśigupta) who got as his reward the satrapy of the Assakenians.³ The only princes or peoples who thought of combining against the invader were Poros and Abisares, and the Mālavas (Malloi), Kshudrakas (Oxydrakai), and the neighbouring autonomous tribes. Even in the latter case personal jealousies prevented any effective results. Alexander met with stubborn resistance from individual chiefs and clans, notably from Astes (Hastī or Ashṭaka?), the Aspasians, the Assakenians, the elder Poros, the Kathaians, the Malloi, the Oxydrakai, and the Brāhmaṇas of the kingdom of Mousikanos. Massaga, the stronghold of the Assakenians, was stormed with great difficulty, Poros was defeated on the banks of the Hydaspes (B.C. 326), the Malloi and the Oxydrakai were also no doubt crushed. But Alexander found that his Indian antagonists were different from the effete troops of Persia. Diodoros informs us that at Massaga, where Alexander treacherously massacred the mercenaries, "the women, taking the arms of the fallen, fought side by side with the men."¹ Poros, when he saw most of his forces scattered, his elephants lying dead or straying riderless, did not flee—as Darius Codomannus had twice fled—but remained fighting, seated on an elephant of commanding height, and received nine wounds before he was taken prisoner.² The Malloi almost succeeded in killing the Macedonian king. But all this was of no avail. A disunited people could not long resist the united forces of the Hellenic world led by the greatest captain of ancient Europe. Alexander succeeded in conquering the old Persian Provinces of Gandhāra and "India," but was unable to try conclusions with Agrammes king of the Gangaridae and the Prasii, *i.e.*, the last Nanda king of Magadha and the other Gangetic provinces in Eastern India. Plutarch informs us that the battle with Poros depressed the spirits of the Macedonians and made them very unwilling to advance further into India. Moreover, they were afraid of the "Gandaritai and the Praisiai" who were reported to be waiting for Alexander with an army of 80,000 horse, 200,000 foot, 8,000 war-chariots and 6,000 fighting elephants. As a matter of fact when Alexander was retreating through Karmania he received a report that his satrap Philippos, governor of the Upper Indus Province, had been murdered (324 B.C.). Shortly afterwards the Macedonian garrison was overpowered. The Macedonian governor of the Lower Indus satrapy had to be transferred to the north-west borderland beyond the Indus and no new satrap was appointed in his place. The successors of Alexander at the time of the Triparadeisos agreement in 321 B.C., confessed their inability to remove the Indian Rājās of the Pañjāb without royal troops under the command of some distinguished general. One of the Rājās, possibly Poros, was treacherously slain by Eudemos, an officer stationed in the Upper Indus satrapy. The withdrawal of the latter (*cir.* 317 B.C.) marks the ultimate collapse of the first serious attempt of the *Yavanas* to establish an empire in India.