Volume 2

The history of Hindostan; its arts, and its sciences, as connected with the history of the other great empires of Asia ... / By the author of Indian antiquities [T. Maurice].

  • Thomas Maurice
Date:
1795-1798[-1799]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of Hindostan; its arts, and its sciences, as connected with the history of the other great empires of Asia ... / By the author of Indian antiquities [T. Maurice]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [671 ] ■ opposition of the Malli had roused his resentment; and he was deter- mined completely to bend the neck of that high-spirited people beneath the Macedonian yoke. The Oxydracas also had again leagued with them to obstruct the progress of his army in the southern provinces, and he now meditated against both nations the severest vengeance. Before, however, he formed his grand attack upon these confederated people, he landed with a strong force, and penetrated to a considerable distance into the adjacent country, in order to overawe the inhabitants and prevent their send- ing any succours to his enemies. After widely ravaging that terri- tory, the king returned to his fleet, where Craterus, Hephaestion, and Philip, had already arrived with the detachments they com- manded. Effectually to accomplish what he resolutely designed, Alexander having first ordered the forces under Philip, together with the elephants, to be transported across the Hydaspes, now made a four- fold division of his army. He commanded Hephsestion, with the first of those divisions, to proceed five days march before the others. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, with the second, was ordered to follow, at the distance of three days march, in the rear. He sent Craterus and Philip towards the point of junction of the two rivers; and he himself, with the third and greatest body of the army, pressed on into the centre of the enemy’s country, who, thus urged and sur- rounded from every quarter, must submit either to unconditional surrender or inevitable slaughter. The fleet, in the mean time, received orders to sail down the river to the confluence of the Acesines and Hydraotes, and there to await the arrival of these respective divisions. Alexander himself, taking with him the auxiliary foot, the eques- trian archers, and half of the auxiliary horse, immediately ad- vanced rapidly, but silently, through a desert of considerable extent, into the very heart of the enemy’s country; and, after marching the greater part of that night, the next morning arrived at the pre-