Note 338 — Chapter LXXXVII · —Alexander marches against Pôros—The appearance presented by the Indian army with its elephants

Alexander’s campaign, in which he conquered the country extending from the Hindu Kush to the Indus, took place in the year 327 B.C. In the year following he marched eastward through the Panjâb as far as the Hyphasis, conquering on his way Pôros and the Kathaians, and from the Hyphasis he retraced his way to the Hydaspês. He then sailed down that river, and then down the Akesinês into which it falls, until about the end of the year he reached the Indus. It will be seen from Arrian, v. 19, that the battle with Pôros was fought in the archonship of Hêgemôn at Athens, whose year of office, it is otherwise known, extended from the 28th of June 327 to the 17th of July 326 B.C. Hêgemôn was succeeded by Chremês, so that Diodôros antedates his archonship. He was archon after the defeat of Pôros and not before. With regard to the two consuls named, it does not appear that they ever held the consulship simultaneously. Publius Cornelius (Scipio Barbatus) was consul in 328 B.C. along with C. Plautius Decianus. In the following year Spurius Postumius Albinus was master of the horse to the Dictator Claudius Marcellus, but I can find nowhere in the lists the name of Aulus Postumius as holding any office about that time. In Smith’s Classical Dictionary the year 327 B.C. appears as the annus mirabilis of Alexander’s life, for early in the spring he completes the conquest of Sogdiana and marries Roxana. Thereafter he returns to Baktra, then marches to invade India, and crossing the Hydaspês defeats Pôros. He then marches to the Hyphasis, and thence returns to the Hydaspês. In the autumn he sails down the Hydaspês to the Indus! See vol. iii. p. 1346 and vol. i. s.v. Alexander III. The events of two years are thus compressed into the space of a single year. Clinton’s chronology, which is very confused for the period from 327 to 323, seems to have been followed.