1 INVASION OF ALEXANDER. 65
2 in height, yet well proportioned and of pleasing demeanour. Alexander
3 sent Meroe, his bosom friend, to conduct the vanquished king to his
4 tent with all the honour due to his rank. As the Indian king reached the
5 royal pavilion, Alexander, accompanied by his high officers, advanced to
6 meet him, and, as he drew nearer, he was deeply impressed with the gran-
7 deur and nobility of his form, as well as with his kingly bearing. His
8 wonted loftiness of spirit had not forsaken him even in the midst of
9 the utter wreck of his power which he had just sustained from the
10 Macedonian arms. Alexander asked the fallen king what he would wish
11 him to do for him. “To treat me,” replied Porus, “like aking.” The Mace-
12 donian king, smiling, rejoined: “That I would do for my own sake, but tell
13 me what I may do for thee. “All my wishes,” answered the Indian mon-
14 arch, “are summed up in my first reply.” The nobility of these answers
15 so much pieased Alexander that he numbered Porus among his intimate
16 friends, and he not only replaced him on the throne of his ancestors, restor-
17 ing to him all his dominions, but added extensive territories to his former
18 kingdom.
19 The obsequies of the brave men who had fallen in the battle-field, on
20 the side of the Greeks, were performed with great splendour, and the most
21 costly sacrifices offered to the gods in honour of the important victory achiev-
22 ed. The event was also commemorated by the founding of two cities, one on
23 ‘the western bank of the Chindb, where the Grecian army had encamped,
24 which Alexander called Bucephalus, after his favourite charger, which had
25 died there of old age, after being his faithful companion in all his battles,
26 from his youth up, and the other on the battle-field, east of the river, which he
27 called Niczea (Victory). The ruins of Bucephalus have been traced near the
28 modern town of Jalalptir and the town of Nicza has been identified with
29 the modern Mong, east of the Chindb.*
30 Having spent a short time in resting his army, and having appeinted
31 Craterus to superintend the building of the new cities alluded to above,
32 Alexander made a survey of the whole country between the Jhelum and the
33 Chindb, called, in after times, the Chenut Doab. It is described by the
34 Grecian writers as a flat but beautiful country, densely populated and very
35 rich. It contained, according to Arrian, thirty-seven cities, the smallest
36 of which had not less than five thousand inhabitants, and a large number of
37 villages. The same authority mentions that a third city was built by
38 Alexander, on the bank of the Acesines (Chinéb), which the conqueror
39 crossed by means of boats and inflated hides. The country between that
40 river and the Hydraotes (Révi) was ruled by a king, whose name also hap-
41 pened to be Porus, and who was constantly at war with his rival of the same
42 name, who ruled the country west of the Acesines. This second Porus, ter-
43 rified at the approach of ‘Alexander, fled beyond the Hydraotes, and the
44 tee of his country was seized by the conqueror, and made over to his
45 rival.
46 The passage of the Hydraotes was effected without difficulty. According
47 to Major Rennel, whose opinion is confirmed by other authorities, Alexander
48 crossed the Hydraotes “ near the place where the city of Lahore now stands.”
49 The country on the left bank of the river was inhabited by a powerful and mar-
50 tial tribe called the Cathaei,+ or the modern Cathid, whose capital, Sanghala,
51 is mentioned as being a strong city, well fortified by nature and art. Rennel
52 * Alexander built another city in the Panjab in memory of his favourite pet dog Peritas, but
53 the site is not known.
54 tSome scholars maintain that they were the Khatris, a branch of the Kshatrya, or warrior
55 easte, Compare Rennel’s Memoirs with the work of Mr. R. N. Cust, called The Pictures of
56 Indian Life, published in 1881,
57 Meeting between the
58 two kings.
59 Alexander rein-
60 states Porus.
61 Obsequies of the
62 fallen soldiers on the
63 side of the Greeks.
64 Cities founded by
65 Alexander in honour
66 of the victory,
67 Country between
68 the Jhelum and the
69 Chinab.
70 Porus the Second,
71 His flight on the
72 invader’s approach.
73 Alexander crosses
74 the Ravi at a point
75 near Lahore,
76 Sangh4la, the capi-
77 tal of Cathaei.
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