Page:The Anabasis of Alexander.djvu/366

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344
The Anabasis of Alexander.

who said that the Delta formed by the river Indus was still larger than the Egyptian Delta.[1] This man surrendered to him the whole of his own land and entrusted both himself and his property to him. Alexander sent him away again in possession of his own dominions, with instructions to provide whatever was needful for the reception of the army. He then sent Craterus into Carmania with the brigades of Attains, Meleager, and Antigenes, some of the archers, and as many of the Companions and other Macedonians as, being now unfit for military service, he was despatching to Macedonia by the route through the lands of the Arachotians and Zarangians. To Craterus he also gave the duty of leading the elephants; but the rest of the army, except the part of it which was sailing with himself down to the sea, he put under the command of Hephaestion. "He transported Peithon with the cavalry-lancers and Agrianians to the opposite bank of the Indus, not the one along which Hephaestion was about to lead the army. Peithon was ordered to collect men to colonize the cities which had just been fortified, and to form a junction with the king at Patala, after having settled the affairs of the Indians of that region, if they attempted any revolutionary proceedings. On the third day of his voyage, Alexander was informed that the governor of the Patalians[2] had collected most of his subjects and was going away by stealth, having left his land deserted. For this reason Alexander sailed down the river with greater speed than before[3]; and when he arrived at Patala, he found both the country and the city deserted by the inhabitants and tillers of the soil. He however despatched the light-


  1. Cf. Arrian (Indica, ii.).
  2. Aristobulus, as quoted by Strabo (xv. 1), said that the voyage down the Indus occupied ten months, the fleet arriving at Patala about the time of the rising of Sirius, or July, 325 B.C.
  3. Curtius (ix. 34) calls this king Moeris.