History

The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great

Classical Sources, Ancient Geography, and the Indo-Greek Encounter in Northwestern IndiaBy John Watson McCrindle

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In *The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great*, John Watson McCrindle reconstructs the Macedonian king's eastern campaign through a critical synthesis of Greek, Roman, and Indian evidence. Drawing especially on Arrian, Curtius Rufus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Strabo, the work follows Alexander from his crossing of the Indus and encounters with Taxila and Porus to the battles, negotiations, and difficult retreat that defined the expedition's limits. McCrindle's method combines translation, historical commentary, geographical identification, and comparison of variant classical accounts. Its prose belongs to the learned nineteenth-century tradition of imperial-era classical scholarship: documentary and explanatory, yet animated by the drama of military travel and intercultural encounter. The book is therefore both a narrative history and an apparatus for reading the ancient sources critically. McCrindle was a Scottish scholar of India whose career as an educator and translator cultivated a sustained interest in the relationship between classical historiography and South Asian history. Writing at a time when European scholars were systematically assembling knowledge of India from Sanskrit, Buddhist, Persian, and Greco-Roman materials, he sought to make ancient testimonies accessible while testing them against geography, ethnography, and indigenous traditions. His work reflects the period's philological rigor, as well as its imperial intellectual framework, and remains valuable precisely because it reveals how Alexander's invasion was interpreted in the nineteenth century. This book will reward readers of ancient history, classical studies, South Asian historiography, and the history of cross-cultural contact. It offers a carefully mediated introduction to the surviving evidence, clarifies the uncertainties surrounding Alexander's campaign, and invites reflection on how military conquest becomes historical memory. Readers should approach its colonial assumptions critically, but will find in it a substantial, informative, and still stimulating guide to one of antiquity's most consequential encounters.

War & Battle Journey Exploration Political Intrigue Hero Survival Mythological World Rebellion

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Rating★★★★ 3.7 (34)

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GenreHistory

Length17 hrs 15 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateMar 25, 2022

LanguageEnglish

1The History of the Jewish People & The Jewish-Roman Wars (Annotated)

2INTRODUCTION

3Arrian

4Q. Curtius Rufus

5Plutarch

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6Diodoros the Sicilian

7Justinus Frontinus

8The Life of Alexander the Great

9ARRIAN

10ARRIAN’S ANABASIS

11Fourth Book

12Chapter XXII.—Alexander crosses the Indian Kaukasos to invade India and advances to the river Kôphên

13Chapter XXIII.—Alexander wars against the Aspasians

14Chapter XXIV.—Operations against the Aspasians

15Chapter XXV.—Defeat of the Aspasians—The Assakenians and Gouraians attacked

16Chapter XXVI.—Siege of Massaga

17Chapter XXVII.—Massaga taken by storm—Ora and Bazira besieged

18Chapter XXVIII.—Bazira captured—Alexander marches to the rock Aornos

19Chapter XXIX.—Siege of Aornos

20Chapter XXX.—Capture of Aornos—Advance to the Indus

21Fifth Book

22Chapter I.—Alexander at Nysa

23Chapter II.—Alexander permits the Nysaians to retain their Autonomy—Visits Mount Mêros

24Chapter III—How Eratosthenes views the legends concerning Heraklês and Dionysos—Alexander crosses the Indus

25Chapter IV.—General description of the Indus and of the people of India

26Chapter V.—The rivers and mountains of Asia

27Chapter VI.—Position and boundaries of India and how its plains may have been formed

28Chapter VII.—The bridging of rivers

29Chapter VIII.—Alexander arrives at Taxila—Receives an embassy from Abisares and advances to the Hydaspês

30Chapter IX.—Alexander on reaching the Hydaspês finds Pôros prepared to dispute its passage

31Chapter X.—Alexander’s devices to deceive Pôros and steal the passage of the river

32Chapter XI.—Arrangements made by Alexander for crossing the Hydaspês unobserved

33Chapter XII.—Alexander crosses the Hydaspês

34Chapter XIII.—Incidents of the passage of the river

35Chapter XIV.—Skirmish with the son of Pôros at the landing-place

36Chapter XV.—The arrangements made by Pôros for the conflict

37Chapter XVI.—The plan of attack adopted by Alexander

38Chapter XVII.—Description of the battle of the Hydaspês—Defeat of Pôros

39Chapter XVIII.—Sequel of the battle and surrender of Pôros

40Chapter XIX.—Alexander makes Pôros his firm friend and ally—Founds two cities—Death of his famous horse Boukephalas

41Chapter XX.—Alexander conquers the Glausai, receives embassies from Abisarês and other chiefs, and crosses the Akesinês

42Chapter XXI.—Pursuit after Pôros, nephew of the great Pôros—Conquest of the country between the Akesinês and the Hydraôtês—Passage of the latter river

43Chapter XXII.—Alexander marches against the Kathaians—Takes Pimprama, and lays siege to Sangala

44Chapter XXIII.—Alexander drives the Kathaians into Sangala, which he invests on every side

45Chapter XXIV.—Alexander captures Sangala, razes it to the ground, and advances to the river Hyphasis

46Chapter XXV.—Alexander finding the army unwilling to advance beyond the Hyphasis, convokes his officers and addresses them on the subject

47Chapter XXVI.—Continuation of Alexander’s Speech

48Chapter XXVII—Koinos, replying to Alexander, states the grievances of the army

49Chapter XXVIII.—Alexander mortified by the refusal of his army to advance, secludes himself in his tent, but in the end resolves to return

50Chapter XXIX.—Alexander erects altars on the banks of the Hyphasis to mark the limits of his advance, recrosses the Hydraôtês and Akesinês and regains the Hydaspês