![]() Haeckal calls this a monstrous fraud, a stage managed drama.Īlexander didn't attempt to make his proposal palatable to his men. The founding of two cities, Nicea, and Becephalia across the Hydaspes (Jhelum) are said to be typical of alexander's frontier policy.Īrrian and later historians have remarked upon the 'Mutiny on the Hyphases'. The explanation put forward is that Porus new kingdom, (which was strengthened and enlargened) was intended to be a buffer state at the borders of the empire. Ref: Waldemar Haeckel "The conquest of Alexander the Great" / also discussing David Lonsdale's view But as for why Alexander turned back his army refused to continue, so he was going back to rest and gather a new force for another campaign. Unfortunately Alexander dies in Babylon and the empire falls apart. The journey home is its own adventure, but this post is getting long, so in short they travel South to the Indian ocean, part of the army sails back to Babylon and the other part marches. Of course Alexander is not very happy about this, he goes and sulks for a couple days hoping everyone will change their minds, but they don't and eventually he agrees to turn home. We're tired, so let's go home, you can raise another army of young idiots and go off on round two and we'll all be happy. His argument boils down to, it's great that we're rich, but I'd like to see my parents and take a break, also a lot of the original guys are dead now, so the money doesn't do them much good. It's almost like a scene out of a movie where the villan kills someone then asks if anyone else wants to voice an objection.īut it's likely a sign of how upset everyone was that a guy called Coenus stands up and explains that, while he is completely onboard with Alexander's world conquest plans, he knows some other guys who aren't and he's just speaking for them. On a personal note, it feels a lot like he doesn't expect anyone will. So he gets up and says all this, trying to inspire his men, and when he's done, he says that if anyone disagrees they should speak up. Plus he doesn't want to leave anyone behind to cause problems, which is understandable. This is of course, not true at all, but Alexander basically says, hey guys, we're pretty close, I'd like to take over the world. We also get a interesting take on how the ancients viewed geography, Alexander seems to be of the view that they are almost to the edge of the world island, ie the shore of the Eastern Sea that surrounds the world. He pretty much calls anyone who wants to go back a coward. Upon hearing this Alexander calls a meeting with his lieutenants and proceeds to give a speech, basically saying that they were free men and could do whatever they wanted, but then reminded them that he had conquored the world and shared the spoils(is your all rich) along with the dangers(is I've fought in every battle with you). Well, because his whole army said, "hey bro we're tired and want to go home".Īt this point the army was facing yet another river crossing, which would no doubt be very dangerous, even unopposed(during the last river crossing a number of men had died due to boats capsizing) Everyone starts grumbling, and Arrian records that even those who were moderate 'bewailed their lot' ie started complaining. So why did Alexander stop and turn around? At this point generally speaking, he is heading southeast-ish and stops at the river Hyphasis, pretty much intending to conquor the rest of India. He wages a war against Porus's neighbors, the Glauganicians and beats them, takes a bunch more cities crosses another river and pretty much wipes the floor with all comers. He founds 2 cities, one where the battle against Porus was fought and the other at the ford where he crossed the Hydaspes.įrom there, he spends some time consolidating his control. But Alexander wasn't trying to completely reshuffle the administrative state, he mainly just wanted to be in charge, similar to the old Persian method of leaving local elites in power but putting Persian governors in charge.Īfterwards, Alexander set off on a few different things. This feels weird to us today where wars tend to be fought over regime change. One he spoke to Porus, as you mentioned and Arrian indicates that he did think Porus was a very cool guy, notably because he fought pretty much until the last of his troops had routed then rode off on his elephant like a boss.Īlexander sends a messenger to call him back, talks and then basically gives Porus back his kingdom as part of the larger Macedonian Empire. ![]() I'll pull most of this from Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander, books 5 and 6 cover this in more detail.įollowing his defeat of Porus, Alexander did a couple of things. Well the reason that doesn't make any sense is that's not at all what happened.
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