Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.102

c11.102

The leading part in the destruction or expulsion of Alexander's commanders in India is, as already stated, assigned by Justin to Chandragupta. The earlier attempt of Samaxus, the Assakenians, the Brāhmaṇas of the Lower Indus valley, and Musicanus (Mousikanos) had ended in failure. The process of liberation is likely to have begun before the Partition of Triparadisus when the lament is already heard about the growing power of the Indian Rājās and the absence or at least inadequacy of royal "troops under the command of some distinguished general." "It seems however that the country" "emancipated from foreign thraldom" did not stretch at first beyond the Hydaspes (Jhelum) in the north-west. The Macedonian Regent claimed to dispose of territories extending eastwards as far as that river in 321 B.C. But soon the Magadhan frontier reached the Indus. According to a fragment quoted by Pliny, possibly from Megasthenes, "the Indus skirts the frontiers of the Prasii"⁶ that is, the Magadhan empire, doubtless during some part of the reign of Chandragupta as his predecessors did not control any part of the Punjab, and his successors seem to have exercised sway over the province as far as the north-western mountains. The Indians whose territory "bordered on the Paropanisadae" (in the Kabul valley) are known to have been under Pithon till c. 316 B.C. The district to which Eudamus clung, after the partition of Triparadisus which ignored him, may also have lain, like that of his predecessor Philippus, partly at any rate, beyond the Indus. These commanders had been partisans of Antigonus and Eumenes respectively. The execution of Eumenes in 316—15 B.C.¹ and the exhaustion of Antigonus in the war of 315 to 312—11 B.C.² left the way clear for Seleucus who returned to Babylon in 312—11 B.C., and soon made himself master of "the whole region from Phrygia to the Indus".³ Appian, to whom we are indebted for the information conveyed by the last few words, seems clearly to suggest that the Indus formed the boundary between the dominions of Seleucus and Chandragupta before the two kings came to blows. The former is said to have "crossed the Indus and waged war with Androcottus, king of the Indians, who dwelt on the banks of that stream."