Note 106 — Chapter XVI · —The plan of attack adopted by Alexander

This passage, as interpreted by Droysen, Thirlwall, and indeed as generally understood, intimates that Alexander ordered Koinos to station himself opposite the enemy’s right, and not on the Macedonian extreme right. Thus Moberly, who holds the general view, remarks (Alexander in the Punjaub, p. 61):—“Coenus was ordered to station himself opposite the enemy’s right; then, in case of Porus withdrawing all his cavalry from the right, in order to meet Alexander’s attack on the left, Coenus was to pass from one wing to the other, apparently in front of the Macedonian line, and to attack the Indian cavalry in the rear as soon as, in advancing to meet Alexander, they had got some little distance from their supports.... Distance can be got over quickly by cavalry.” Köchly and Rüstow, however, in their History of the Greek Military System, advocate a different view. “Alexander,” they say, “must have sent Koinos to the extreme right wing with the order, that if the cavalry broke from the line against himself (Alexander) he was to fall upon their rear. Had he been detached to oppose the right wing of Pôros he would have been too far off to support Alexander’s front attack by an attack on the enemy’s rear.” This seems the preferable view.