Chapter VIII · —Alexander conquers Porus—Builds Nicaea and Boucephala, and reduces the Adrestae, Gesteani, Praesidae, and Gangaridae—Advances to the Cuphites (Beäs), beyond which the army refuses to follow him—He agrees to return, and leaves memorials of his progress

One of the Indian kings called Porus, a man remarkable alike for his personal strength and noble courage, on hearing the report about Alexander, began to prepare war against his coming. Accordingly, when hostilities broke out, he ordered his army to attack the Macedonians, from whom he demanded their king, as if he was his private enemy. Alexander lost no time in joining battle, but his horse being wounded at the first charge, he fell headlong to the ground, and was saved by his attendants who hastened up to his assistance. Porus again, when fainting from the number of his wounds, was taken prisoner. His defeat he took so much to heart that when he had received quarter from the victor, he neither wished to take food nor would allow his wounds to be attended to, and indeed could scarcely be induced to wish for life. Alexander, out of respect for his valour, restored him in safety to his sovereignty. There he built two cities, one which he called Nicaea, and the other Boucephala, after the name of his horse. Moving thence he conquered the Adrestae, the Gesteani, the Praesidae, and the Gangaridae,[402] after defeating their armies with great slaughter. When he reached the Cuphites,[403] where the enemy awaited him with 200,000 cavalry, his soldiers, worn out not less by the number of their victories than by their incessant toils, all besought him with tears to bring at last the war to a close—besought him to have some remembrance of his native country and the duty of returning to it—to have some consideration for the years of his soldiers, to whom scarcely so much of life now remained as would suffice them for returning home. Some pointed to their hoary hair, others to their wounds, others to their bodies withered with age or seamed with scars. None, they said, except themselves had brooked a continuous service under two kings, Philip and Alexander; and now at last they entreated he would send them home where their bodies, wasted as they were to skeletons, might be buried in the tombs of their fathers, seeing it was from no want of will they failed to second his wishes, but from the incapacity of age. If, however, he would not spare his soldiers, he should at all events spare himself, and not wear out his good fortune by subjecting it to too severe a strain. Alexander was moved by these well-grounded entreaties, and, as if he had now reached the goal of victory, ordered a camp to be made of an unusual size and splendour, in order that the work, while calculated to terrify the enemy by its vastness, might be left to render himself an object of admiration to future ages. Never did the soldiers apply themselves with such alacrity to any work as they did to this; and when it was finished they retraced their way to the parts whence they had come as joyfully as if they were returning from a field of victory.