Indian campaign of Alexander the Great

Indian campaign of Alexander the Great

The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great began in 327 BC and lasted until 325 BC. After conquering the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Macedonian army undertook an expedition into the Indus Valley in northwestern South Asia. Within two years, Alexander the Great expanded the Macedonian Empire, a Hellenistic kingdom, to include Gandhara and the Indus Valley (present-day Punjab and Sindh), surpassing the earlier frontiers established by the Persian Achaemenid conquest. Following annexation of Gandāra (a former Persian satrapy), Alexander and his troops advanced into Punjab, where he received submission of the king Omphis of the city of Taxila, and confronted Porus, another regional king. In 326 BC, Alexander defeated the Pauravas under Porus in the Battle of the Hydaspes, although the engagement was possibly the Macedonians' most costly battle. Alexander's continued eastward march was leading his army into a confrontation with the Nanda Empire, based in Magadha. According to Greek sources, the Nanda army was five times the size of the Macedonian army; Alexander's troops — increasingly exhausted, homesick, and anxious by the prospects of having to further face large Indian armies throughout the Indo-Gangetic Plain — mutinied at the Hyphasis River, refusing to advance his push to the east. After a meeting with his army general Coenus, during which he was informed of his soldiers' laments, Alexander relented under the conviction that it was better to return. He subsequently turned southward, advancing through southern Punjab as well as Sindh, where he conquered more tribes along the lower areas of the Indus River, before finally turning westward to reach Macedon by crossing the hazardous Gedrosian desert.

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History of Chinese Americans.

Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum.

Indian campaign of Alexander the Great

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