Chapter XVI · —Campaign against Oxykanos and Sambos

Then he took the archers and the Agrianians and the cavalry which was sailing with him, and marched against the governor of a district in that part of the country whose name was Oxykanos, because he neither came himself nor sent envoys to offer the surrender of himself and his country.[177] At the first assault he took by storm the two largest cities under the rule of Oxykanos, in the second of which that chief himself was taken prisoner. The booty he gave to the army, but the elephants he led away and reserved for himself. The other cities in the same country surrendered without attempting resistance wherever he advanced; so much were the minds of all the Indians paralysed with abject terror by Alexander and the success of his arms.

He then advanced against Sambos, whom he had appointed satrap of the Indian mountaineers, and who was reported to have fled on hearing that Mousikanos had been pardoned by Alexander, and was ruling his own land, for he and Mousikanos were on hostile terms. But when Alexander approached the city called Sindimana,[178] which formed the metropolis of the country of Sambos, the gates were thrown open on his arrival, and the members of the household of Sambos with his treasure (of which they had reckoned up the amount) and his elephants went forth to meet him. Sambos, these men informed him, had fled, not from hostility to Alexander, but from fears to which the pardon of Mousikanos had given rise. He captured besides another city,[179] which had at this time revolted, and he put to death all those Brachmans who had instigated the revolt. These Brachmans are the philosophers of the Indians, and of their philosophy, if so it may be called, I shall give an account in my work which describes India.