The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.2

c18.2

WHEN Alexander quitted the Panjāb he posted no Macedonian garrisons in that province, making over the care of his interests to king Pōros, who must have been independent in practice. Āmbhi, king of Taxila, was also entrusted with authority as a colleague of Pōros. After the assassination of Philippos, Alexander had sent orders from Karmania to Eudēmos, commandant of a Thracian garrison on the Indus, to act as Resident pending the appointment of a satrap, and to supervise the native princes. But the officer had no adequate force at his command to enforce his authority, which must have been purely nominal. He managed, however, to remain in India, probably somewhere in the basin of the Indus, until about 317 B. C., when he departed to help Eumenes against Antigonos, taking with him a hundred and twenty elephants, and a small force of infantry and cavalry. He had obtained the elephants by treacherously slaying a native prince, perhaps Pōros, with whom he had been associated as a colleague.¹