Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c16.25

c16.25

§ 66 The Greek writers with their palpable desire to magnify the glory of Alexander² would make us believe that the Kshudrakas and the Mālavas were crushed and annihilated by Alexander. But Patañjali discloses a different story. The former mentions the league as living, and one of them, the Kshudrakas, being victorious.³ The Macedonian writers themselves describe and admit their existing importance after the war. The two 'nations' sent "*hundred ambassadors*" who "*all rode in chariots and were men of uncommon stature and of a very dignified bearing. Their robes were of linen embroidered with in-wrought gold and purple.*" "*The gods, they said, were the authors of their submission and not fear.*" They were proud of their "liberty which for so many ages they had preserved inviolate." Alexander who was very vindictive against all those who had opposed him, in spite of the personal suffering to which he had been subjected by these opponents, treated the ambassadors with uncommon hospitality. "He "gave orders for the preparation of a splendid banquet to which "he invited the ambassadors." … "Here a hundred couches "of gold had been placed at a small distance of each other, "and these were hung round with tapestry curtains which "glittered with gold and purple" (Curtius, Bk. IX. Ch. 7).¹ Alexander entertained them with shows at which wine flowed. And the "ambassadors were dismissed to their several homes." (Ch. 8).² All this does not read like the description of a crushed enemy, but rather of one whose subordinate alliance was welcomed by Alexander after he had tested their valour. Alexander had not only to secure his rear in his retreat but had also to pacify and render confident the '*seditious*' Macedonians.