through Ecbatana to Rhagæ, and found that the king had fled through the Caspian gates towards Bactri. Darius fell a victim to the treason of Bessus, satrap of that province, who had overpowered and thrown him into chains. Alexander pressed after them to the borders of Parthia, and found the corpse of the king, who had been murdered by the conspirators. He sent it to be buried in state at Persepolis, and himself encamped at Hecatompylus. Here he dismissed a number of his Greek auxiliaries who desired to return home, and with his Macedonian troops marched into Hyrcania, a wild and rugged district to the south east of the Caspian. Having subdued the Mardians and other hostile tribes, he entered the capital, Zandracarta, where the mercenaries who had fought against him surrendered. The Athenians and Spartans were subjected to a temporary confinement; the rest he forgave, and they were set at liberty or incorporated into his army.
The subjugation of Persia proper completed, we enter upon a new career of conquest, where one is more astounded by the vastness and variety of the regions traversed, than by the number and magnitude of Alexander's previous victories. His eastern marches realize for the first time in authentic history, the fabled wanderings of the heroes, and conduct us through realms yet untraversed by a European army. We are confused by the mere names of the cities, nations, and tribes he visited. The course of those marvellous marches will never perhaps be exactly determined, and a bare outline of their results is all that can be offered here.—Alexander left Zandracarta after a sojourn of fifteen days, and passing through Aria, where he founded the city of Herat, penetrated southwards into Drangiana. He rested for some time at Prophthasia, the capital of that district, and the scene of one of the three tragedies which have left a stain upon his glory. We will anticipate a little in order to review them together. In adapting himself to the manners of his new subjects, the conqueror had assumed, with the tiara, much of the absolutism of an Asiatic despot. He claimed a divine right for his sovereignty, he paraded the response of the oracle of Ammon, and, too readily accustomed to the servile homage of the East, could not brook the censure which his arrogance excited among his old captains. Chief of these was Parmenio; his son Philotas was bound to the monarch by the ties of a long friendship. He presumed upon this to speak freely of Alexander's excesses; whether there was deeper ground for suspicion against him is unknown, but he had enemies in the camp who took advantage of a plot, formed by one of the minor officers, to accuse Philotas. He was arrested, tried, and condemned on very insufficient evidence. A confession was wrested from him by torture, implicating Parmenio, and while the son was executed on the spot, a messenger was sent to have the father cut off in Media. Similar was the fate of Calisthenes, the kinsman of Aristotle, and litterateur of the army. When in 328 b.c. Alexander was in Bactria, a conspiracy formed against his life by the royal pages was detected. They were executed, and the philosopher who had offended the king by his cynical manners was involved in the charge. There was no proof of his guilt, but he was imprisoned, and seven months after died in chains. The well-known assassination of Cleitus, which took place during the previous winter, was a sudden crime repented of as soon as it was committed; but it illustrates the fits of fury, aggravated by intemperance, to which Alexander was occasionally subject.—From Prophthasia the conqueror marched (330 b.c.) through the territory of the Ariaspians, and up the banks of the Etymander. Passing into Archosia, he founded another city on the site of the modern Candahar, and directing his course eastward, arrived at the pass by which he was to cross the Indian Caucasus. Having surmounted this lofty range, he halted for a few days at Drapsaca, a strongly fortified town on the highlands of the northern slope. Hence, after a tiresome march he reached the Oxus, and consumed six days in the passage of that river. Bessus had fled before him into Sogdiana, but he was overtaken by his own treachery. Two of his followers, Spitamenes and Dataphernes, delivered him up to the conqueror. He was conveyed to Zariaspa, the capital where Cleitus was killed, and put to death in the following year after a cruel mutilation. It was a part of Alexander's policy to visit with severity all offences against the royal dignity. Meanwhile, he proceeded through the rich country which surrounds Samarcand, and reaching the northern limit of his course on the shores of the Jaxartes, founded there a distant Alexandria. Remote Scythian races sent him embassies. He was pleased to accept their friendship, and retrace his steps. Spitamenes had a second time turned traitor, and roused the Sogdians to revolt. The reconquest of the country was only accomplished after two years' hard fighting. On one occasion, a large detachment of Macedonian troops was entirely cut to pieces, and Alexander, in revenge, perpetrated a cruel massacre in the vale of the Polytimus. The year 328 b.c. was marked by the capture of the Sogdian rock, an insulated precipice crested by a strong fortification. Here Roxana, daughter of the chief Oxyartes, was taken, and, won by her beauty, the victor made her his wife. This affiance secured for him the goodwill of some of the native rulers: yet many more battles followed with Spitamenes, till at length the most persevering enemy Alexander had found in Asia was overwhelmed and slain. It was his desire to extend his empire on every side to the extreme limits of the old dominion of Cyrus. He was encouraged in his purpose of invading India by a visit which he received from Taxiles, ruler of an extensive district between the Indus and the Hydaspes, at war with neighbouring princes, and anxious to secure a formidable ally. Alexander left Zariaspa in 327 b.c., at the head of an army of 120,000 foot and 15,000 horse, largely recruited from the Asiatic tribes. He crossed the Caucasus, and in the same summer reached the site of Cabul. Skirting the mountains to the north of the Cophen river, he defeated the inhabitants and captured the cities on his route. On the banks of the Indus he came before the stronghold Aornus, the most celebrated of the rock fortresses, whose threatening aspect invariably provoked his attack. Hercules, it was fabled, was, ages before, baffled before this fastness; it was the more worthy prey for his successor. A select body of troops succeeded in scaling a rock, separated from the citadel by a wide gorge. Alexander carried a mound over this, and the place was captured. Early in 326 b.c. he crossed the Indus by a bridge of boats, and after being entertained by Taxiles in the capital which bore his name, marched without opposition to the Hydaspes. Porus, sovereign of the district south of that stream, had collected an immense army on the opposite bank, fronted by an imposing array of some three hundred elephants. Many days passed, during which Alexander sought to deceive Porus as to his real intentions. At length in a stormy night a large division of his army crossed in a secluded part of the river. A fierce battle followed, in which the valour of the Indian king so commended itself to the conqueror, that he consented to govern the country indirectly, and left Porus with a nominal independence, annexing to his dominions a portion of the neighbouring territory. On opposite banks of the Hydaspes Alexander founded two cities, Nicæa and Bucephala, the grave and memorial of his famous steed. He easily subdued the unwarlike Clausians who lay to the west of the Acesines, and passing that river, took possession of the country which had been resigned by the flight of another Porus, an enemy to the first prince of that name. South of the Hydraotes, the Cathæi, and their capital Sangala (Lahore), opposed an obstinate resistance. The city was at length taken and razed; seventeen thousand of the barbarians were slain during the war. The conquest of the Punjaub was complete, and the victor arrived at the banks of the Hyphasis.
III. Here, in the ninth year of his reign, Alexander had reached the limits of the known world and the goal of his conquests. His own restless spirit was unbroken. Beyond that river lay new empires, the pathway to future triumphs. But the army was indisposed to enter on a fresh train of indefinite and perilous adventures. His old Macedonian warriors, "souls that had wrought, and fought, and toiled with him," were at last grown weary of wars and wanderings. They recoiled from the immensity of the Indian plains—the rivers and nations, and citadels of hostile men: the Ganges was in a land of exile, and the distant ocean they heard of
" Far, far away did seem to moan and rave
On alien shores."
They resolved to advance no farther. Alexander shut himself up for three days in sullen silence, mourning their weak hearts. But the determination of his soldiers was inflexible. Twelve great altars were reared to mark the term of their triumphs, and they once more turned towards the West. Alexander had fitted out a fleet on the Hydaspes. He himself in one of the ships sailed with it down the river, while the main body of the army, under the command of his favourite Hephæstion, marched
