“I beg the magistrate’s indulgence, due to the breadth of the prosecution’s indictment. My intention is to show what difficulties the management of Rohjane presented for the Macedonians, and how my presence was beneficial to Alexander. I also believe it essential to my defense to establish the nature of my relationship with the Queen. If you recall, I was accused of using her in a plot against the King.”
“It is nothing to me if you squander your time, Machon,” said Polycleitus, waving his hand. “Only that you are aware that you will get no further indulgence from me.”
It would not be true to say that Rohjane was the most observant of Zoroastrians. How could she be, if she was obliged to spend her life in the company of unbelievers? Still, her customs raised so much curiosity around the camp that Alexander brought out Gobares to render some explanation. The question of cow urine was again raised, albeit in a less obviously dismissive way.
“What you Greeks don’t grasp is the comprehensiveness of the prophet’s vision,” he told us. “For when he tells us that Ahuramazda created the six Amesha Spentas, and they in turn made the elements of the world, and that Angra Mainyu seeks the ultimate corruption of all those elements, the revelation means what it implies. The corruption of fire is smoke; of living beings, death and decay. Water may also be polluted by contact with the things of the Hostile Spirit-dirt, blood, the dead. Therefore, we may not defile water by washing certain things with it, such as that which a menstruating woman has touched, gazed, or breathed upon.
“The effluent of the cow is holy to us, as it is to the Indians. It has special power to cleanse other substances without corruption adhering to it. So when we wish to purify something, we use the cow first, before exposing it to water.”
“And so you may refresh yourselves by standing under a pissing cow?” asked Perdiccas.
“More or less. Those with certain scruples may opt to strain it through muslin into a clean vessel.”
“Show us,” ordered Alexander.
We all went out to the stock pens. Since it was dark, we bore torches. The eyes of the animals shone back at us as we waited at the gate for the telltale sound of divinity manifesting itself upon the ground.
“It is not usual to wait for the pajow to appear, but to take it as a blessing when it does…” said Gobares.
“I feel the same about wine…” Craterus remarked. “…hand over that jug!”
At last Gobares heard what he was listening for. As he ran out into the yard with a basin in his outstretched hands, I looked to Alexander. Despite his drunk-or perhaps because of it-he had the look of a man who was hopeless to comprehend what he was seeing. In that moment I felt sympathy for him, for as the new Great King he took upon himself obligations as well as palaces. Everything inherent in his character compelled him to understand the people he would rule. Yet as he watched Gobares at his strange lustrations it was clear that, despite his new Persian diadem and tunic, he feared that he would never succeed. When he went back to his tent that night it was without Bagoas or Rohjane.
Alexander turned away from India, but that didn’t mean he wanted to go home. That left the alternatives of proceeding north, where there was nothing but savages and wasteland, and south, to the Indus delta. The choice was obvious: the entire army, the King decided, would sail down the great river to the sea, with the double objects of exploring this unknown territory and rounding out the limits of his empire. The plan was to go south along the Hydaspes just above the confluence with the Acesines. From there the other tributaries, the Hydraotes and the Hyphasis, would add to the great stream until they joined the Indus proper for the unknown distance to the ocean.
In the center would proceed a fleet of boats under the immediate command of Nearchus of Crete. This man had been with Alexander since the beginning, but not being a Macedonian had limited his prospects for advancement. On the water, however, Nearchus’ value was undeniable. In many respects he was the sort of man that complimented the best aspects of Alexander’s character: loyal, resourceful, possessed of a fervent curiosity. Would that there had been more Nearchuses and fewer Peithons on the campaign!
The floating contingent was made up of Alexander’s court, the lighter auxiliaries, a few select units of cavalry, and most of the supplies. The heavy infantry and cavalry marched on the right bank of the river with Craterus, while the elephants, siege train, and Hypaspists went on the left, under Hephaestion.
When all was prepared, Aristander the soothsayer conducted a sacrifice in the center of the Hydaspes. The blood of the bull was poured into the river to honor it, and also the deities of the Indus and all her tributaries, as well as father Zeus-Ammon, uncle Poseidon, brother Heracles, and Ocean. Afterward the Persian allies held rites in honor of Ahuramazda and Haurvatat, Zoroastrian god of water. Their libations did not use blood, but cow’s milk sprinkled with marjoram leaves, ladled into the river with a copper spoon. Alexander presided with equal reverence over both ceremonies, and for a moment the confluence of these rites, and therefore their peoples, seemed more propitious than ever before.
Many armies have come and gone in the eternal history of the Indus. Yet the river had probably never seen anything like the Macedonians who passed that way. On the stream were almost a thousand boats, their oars stroking the water to matched drumbeats, the colored flags of each unit snapping on their staffs. Along the banks marched 100,000 men, 50,000 followers, and 200 elephants, spread along columns that covered miles on both shores. The dust raised by their feet was visible as twin plumes towering and mingling as they rose into the sky. Villages surrendered days before this host was glimpsed; saffron-robed natives, awed by the spectacle, gaped from beaches and hilltops.
It was remarkable that anyone would dare resist such a force. Yet the Brahmins persisted in their defiance, convincing two of the local kings to oppose Alexander. The first, King Musicanus, first pretended to submit, then killed all the Macedonians left in his kingdom after Alexander had passed. Peithon was sent back to deal with him, assaulting his city walls with siege equipment the Indians had never seen before. The Indians died by the thousands, with the survivors sold as slaves under the auspices of Oxyartes, Rohjane’s father. Musicanus was brought before Alexander in chains and hung next to the Brahmins who provoked his treachery. But before the last Brahmin was killed, he cried out to Alexander.
“Beware O Alexander, lest you lose all!”
“What do you mean?” the King asked the man.
“The only ground any man truly owns,” he replied, “is that under his own feet.”
This advice, exclaimed Alexander, reminded him something Diogenes the Cynic might say. He therefore let this last Brahmin go free.
The other defiant kingdom was that of the Mallians. I was not present at the conquest of Multan, their capital, so I cannot appraise Aeschines’ account of what happened there. What is certain is that during his attack on the mud-brick wall of the town, he somehow got himself inside the city with his guards still outside. Alone among the Mallians, he drove off repeated attacks as he was heard to cry out, in a voice full of joy, random phrases that verged on nonsense, such as “There it is!” and “Upon the color of it!”. He was finally pierced by a lance, falling backward with only the shield of Achilles to protect him. Though almost a thousand years old, the relic warded off all blows until the outraged Macedonians broke in to his rescue. Alexander’s men, seeing the King fall, focused their wrath on the survivors. Every single Mallian in the town was slaughtered that day, down to the youths, the infants, and the unborn babes.
Alexander suffered a deep chest-wound in the brawl. His condition deteriorating to the point where it seemed he would die, he was carried in stages back to the river. There he hovered near death for a week.