Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s10.7

c9.s10.7

What was left of the Mālava people after the decimation of the war sent in their submission now, and the Kshudrakas, who had been holding aloof so long as the swiftness of Alexander's movements left them no chance of going to aid the Mālavas, also sent their representatives with full authority to conclude a treaty with the invader. These ambassadors, a hundred in number, says Curtius, all rode in chariots and were men of uncommon stature and of a very dignified bearing. Their robes were of linen and embroidered with inwrought gold and purple. Alexander accepted their excuses and entertained them on a sumptuous scale before he sent them back; they returned in a few days ‘with presents for Alexander which consisted of 300 horsemen, 1,030 chariots, each drawn by four horses, 1,000 Indian bucklers, a great quantity of linen cloth, 100 talents of steel, some tame lions and tigers of extraordinary size, the skins also of very large lizards, and a quantity of tortoise shells’. Alexander, demanded, according to Arrian, a thousand of their best men as hostages, and when they came, he did not like to keep them but sent them back. The two nations which had thus formally submitted were attached to the satrapy of Philip. But the campaign against the Mālavas was no unalloyed success. As a record of mere slaughter it stands out unique even in the blood-stained annals of Alexander's Indian campaigns. The deep wound in his chest, the result of a desperate expedient, left him weakened and indirectly hastened his end. The stout opposition encountered among the Brahmins of the Punjab and the cities of the Mālavas was indeed the beginning of the reaction that was soon to wipe out all traces of Alexander from India and to establish the empire of the Mauryas.