Note 95 — Chapter VIII · —Alexander arrives at Taxila—Receives an embassy from Abisares and advances to the Hydaspês

We learn from Curtius that Alexander, before taking hostile action against Pôros, demanded from him through an envoy called Cleochares that he should pay tribute and come to meet him on the frontiers of his dominions. To this Pôros replied that in compliance with the second request he would meet Alexander at the place appointed, but would attend in arms. Alexander was perhaps justified by the laws of war in exacting submission from the tribes west of the Indus, since these had been subject to Darius, whom he had overthrown, and to whose rights he had succeeded, but the tribes of the Panjâb, those at least that lay to the east of the Hydaspês, had never, so far as is known, been under Persian domination, and hence his invasion, according to modern ideas, was altogether indefensible. He could, however, justify himself on the ground of the principles held by the Greeks of his day, who considered that their superiority in wisdom and virtue to the rest of mankind gave them a natural right to attack, plunder, and enslave all barbarians except such only as were protected by a special treaty. Such a view, repugnant as it seems to every principle of justice, was held nevertheless by Aristotle, who no doubt impressed it on the mind of his illustrious pupil. Hence Alexander, in attacking Pôros, was not conscious, like Caesar, when he invaded Britain, of perpetrating an unwarrantable aggression for which some kind of an excuse had to be trumped up.