The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.16

c18.16

When the shock of battle came, the hosts of Chandragupta were too strong for the invader, and Seleukos was obliged to retire and conclude a humiliating peace. Not only was he compelled to abandon all thought of conquest in India, but he was constrained to surrender a large part of Ariāna to the west of the Indus. In exchange for the comparatively trifling equivalent of five hundred elephants, Chandragupta received the satrapies of the Paropanisadai, Aria, and Arachosia, the capitals of which were respectively the cities now known as Kābul, Herāt, and Kandahār. The satrapy of Gedrosia, or at least the eastern portion of it, seems also to have been included in the cession, and the high contracting powers ratified the peace by ‘a matrimonial alliance’, which phrase probably means that Seleukos gave a daughter to his Indian rival. This treaty may be dated in 303 B. C. As soon as it was concluded Seleukos started on his long march westward to confront Antigonos, whom he defeated and slew at Ipsos in Phrygia in 301 B. C.³ Ipsos being distant at least 2,500 miles from the Indus, the march to it must have occupied a year or more.