The Anabasis of Alexander/Book IV/Chapter XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII.
Sieges of Massaga and Ora.
Alexander now sent Alcetas with his own brigade to recover the men who had been severely wounded, and to recall to the camp those who were assailing the enemy. On the fourth day he brought up another bridge against the wall in like manner upon another military engine. The Indians, as long as the ruler of the place survived, defended themselves gallantly; but when he was struck and killed with a missile hurled from an engine, and as some of their number had fallen in the siege, which had gone on without any cessation, while most of them were wounded and unfit for service, they sent a herald to Alexander. He was glad to preserve the lives of brave men; so he came to terms with the Indian mercenaries on this condition, that they should be admitted into the ranks with the rest of his army and serve as his soldiers. They therefore came out of the city with their arms, and encamped by themselves upon a hill which was facing the camp of the Macedonians; but they resolved to arise by night and run away to their own abodes, because they were unwilling to take up arms against the other Indians. When Alexander received intelligence of this, he placed the whole of his army round the hill in the night, and intercepting them in the midst of their flight, cut them to pieces. He then took the city by storm, denuded as it was of defenders; and captured the mother and daughter of Assacenus.[1] In the whole siege five-and-twenty of Alexander's men were killed. Thence he despatched Coenus to Bazira,[2] entertaining an opinion that the inhabitants would surrender, when they heard of the capture of Massaga. He also despatched Attains, Alcetas, and Demetrius the cavalry officer to another city, named Ora, with instructions to blockade it until he himself arrived. The men of this city made a sortie against the forces of Alcetas; but the Macedonians easily routed them, and drove them into the city within the wall. But affairs at Bazira were not favourable to Coenus, for the inhabitants showed no sign of capitulating, trusting to the strength of the place, because not only was it situated on a lofty eminence, but it was also thoroughly fortified all round. When Alexander learnt this, he started off to Bazira; but ascertaining that some of the neighbouring barbarians were about to get into the city of Ora by stealth, being despatched thither by Abisares[3] for that very purpose, he first marched to Ora. He ordered Coenus to fortify a certain strong position to serve as a basis of operations against the city of Bazira, and then to come to him with the rest of his army, after leaving in that place a sufficient garrison to restrain the men in the city from enjoying the free use of their land. But when the men of Bazira saw Coenus departing with the larger part of his army, they despised the Macedonians, as not being able to contend with them, and sallied forth into the plain. A sharply contested battle ensued, in which 500 of the barbarians fell, and over seventy were taken prisoners. But the rest, fleeing for refuge into the city,[4] were now more securely shut off from the country by the men in the fort. The siege of Ora proved an easy matter to Alexander, for he no sooner attacked the walls than at the first assault he got possession of the city, and captured the elephants which had been left there.
- ↑ Curtius (viii. 37, 38) says that the name of the queen was Cleophis, and that after the surrender she gained Alexander's favour. He also informs us that the king died just before Alexander's arrival.
- ↑ Probably Bajour, north-west of Peshawur. The position of Ora cannot be fixed.
- ↑ This was the king of the Indian mountaineers. See Arrian, v. 8 infra.
- ↑ On the ground of εν τη πόλει ξυμφυγόντες not being classical Greek, Krüger has substituted εν τη πόλη ξυμπεθευγόντες, and Sintenis εις την πόλιν ξυμφυγόντες. No one however ought to expect Arrian to be free from error, writing, as he did, in the middle of the second century of the Christian era.