The crossing was accomplished before dawn without the loss of a single man. Alexander drew his men into formation, expecting to receive a counter-attack at any moment. His scouts then returned with disturbing news: the Macedonians had not landed on the opposite bank of the Hydaspes, but on an island in the stream! An additional crossing would be needed before he could engage the enemy. His men were now stranded uselessly, while back at the main Macedonian camp the diminished size of Craterus’s holding force would become obvious as the sun rose.
It was not in Alexander’s character to rage at Aambhi’s bad advice, but only to apply himself with greater resolution. The island had at least shielded his army from the eyes of Porus’s scouts. His men proceeded across the arm of the Hydaspes without delay, sinking up to their necks in raging snowmelt. Weapons disappeared in the current; horses and men lost their footing and floated away. Nevertheless, the Macedonians completing their second crossing of the morning just as a mounted detachment of Indians finally sighted them. The horsemen attacked, but upon seeing that the phalanx was safely across and deployed, turned and fled. There was a skirmish as the Cavalry Companions intercepted the Indians. One of Porus’s sons was killed after a brave struggle, but the bulk of his force escaped.
From across the river, Craterus witnessed riders arrive in Porus’s camp with news of Alexander’s appearance on the east bank. The Pauravas king ordered his men to march north, leaving only a token force to prevent Craterus from following him. The last of his elephants departed just as the bodies and sarissas of the drowned Macedonians floated past the Indian camp.
The armies met on flat ground. Hoping to nullify Alexander’s skill at wide cavalry sweeps, and knowing that the horses of the Macedonians were terrified of the larger creatures, Porus pushed his elephants far forward. Aambhi, however, had told Alexander that the Indian mahouts had never faced an army of well-drilled pikemen. Alexander sent word to his infantry to be ready as he feinted with his cavalry. The Pauravas took the bait, sending out their horsemen to chase away the Macedonians. Just as the Indian army split in two, Alexander ordered the Foot Companions forward, brandishing their sarissas under the snouts of the elephants.
For a few moments, the battle hung in the balance as Porus’s infantry held firm against the Macedonian attack. His elephants, tusks raised, charged into the Macedonian ranks, snorting and trampling, plucking unlucky phalangites out of the ranks with their trunks. The victims were suspended helplessly by their legs before the Indians dispatched them. Archers stationed on the elephant’s backs fired into the phalanxes from above, doing further damage.
The Macedonians tried to use their pikes against the eyes of the elephants. The elephants were most sensitive about wounds to their trunks, which they held out of reach of the soldiers. The Pauravas’ mahouts were much more skilled than those hired by the Persians at Gaugamela. Porus’ elephant corps did its job very well, keeping the Macedonians away from the Indian center just as it was ordered to do. The heads of the creatures were armored, so it was difficult work to damage them. The Pauravas sallied out against the phalanx several times, their tuskers working terrible carnage against the Foot Companions, who often could not generate enough force behind their sarissas to pierce their thick hides. The Macedonians finally used their war axes against the elephants, chopping at their trunks until they were severed or too mangled for use. In agony, their eyes put out, the giants soon went out of control, thrashing at anything in their reach, including their Indian masters.
The Paurava cavalry, having made no headway against the mounted Companions and Thessalians, added to the chaos by returning to the center. The Indians’ fate was sealed when Craterus appeared in their rear, charging on the double upon them. Porus tried to organize his army into a defensive square, but as Arridaeus had envisioned, his surviving elephants could not turn around quickly enough. With the luxury to charge the Indians at a run, the Macedonians put their lances right through the shields and leather armor of the enemy. This triggered the final panic, and sealed the victory for the Macedonians.
Surrounded, Porus’s army became a bloody, mud-spattered confusion of men, horses, and elephants, all doing as much damage to each other as to the Macedonians. Alexander ordered the phalanx on his left to withdraw, opening a path for the survivors to escape. For it seems that already, before the battle was over, Alexander had plans for Porus and his gallant fighters.
To my mind this victory came as hard as of any fought by the Macedonians in Asia. Alexander’s infantry was the most demoralized after this battle than after any other. The thousand men lost at the Hydaspes, and the way many of them had been crushed to death, made the Macedonians very reluctant to meet any more elephants in the future. And India, as everyone knows, is the wrong place to go if you fear these animals!
Alexander sent Aambhi to solicit Porus’s surrender. But when the latter rode before the Indian king and addressed him in his own tongue, Porus turned his elephant to attack, declaring “A crown yields only to a crown, not a dog!” Aambhi escaped, telling Alexander a story that the Paurava monarch preferred death to capture. But Alexander saw through this, having a better understanding the proud king’s mind. He then obliged Aambhi to return with him as his translator.
Confronting Porus, Alexander dismounted and made such signals as to indicate he wished to parley. Porus, staring down on his adversary from the biggest war elephant on the field, halted. While he was not out of his mind as Aambhi suggested, he must have been troubled by the nine wounds he had received that day, and the ordeal of witnessing all three of his grown sons killed. He might have tried to run his enemy down right then, but with his army destroyed and his kingdom’s fate sealed, such spite would have gained him nothing. Instead, he stepped onto his elephant’s bent front leg. The beast gently lowered its master to the ground before Alexander.
The Paurava king was a giant nearly eight feet tall, with a crest on his helmet that made him seem taller still. His posture there was unbowed and unafraid, though he had no fewer than three arrows still stuck in his body. Alexander seemed little more than a child standing before his father-except that it was the Macedonian who had given the lesson that day.
“Tell me why you fought me,” Alexander asked him, “when you see your rival here has profited by forswearing the sword?”
Porus answered, “If you had come to me in friendship, it is you who would have profited.”
“I can ask for no worthier opponent. Therefore tell me how you should be treated, and it shall be so.”
“As a king. No more, no less.”
“It shall be as you wish for your kingdom. And for yourself, whatever you desire is yours. What may I give you?”
“I have given you my answer. Give to a king as a king ought.”
And give Alexander did. Perhaps because he was angry at the poor intelligence on the river crossing, or perhaps because Porus presented the kind of ally he trusted more at his back, he did not give the Pauravas kingdom to Aambhi. Instead, he confirmed Porus as ruler for all lands between the Hydaspes and the Acesines, and went on to enlarge his kingdom with lands around the Hydraotes. In return, he stipulated that Porus would contribute as many garrison troops and all the elephants he could spare to the Macedonian army. Porus, for his part, accepted his responsibility, and discharged it faithfully in the campaigns that followed against the Cathaei tribe, so that Alexander’s realm ran to the west bank of the Hyphasis. Beyond that river beckoned the great Ganges plain.