Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

688 ALEXANDER'S FLEET.As a last act before leaving the Five Rivers country, Alexandersolemnly invested Porus with the sovereignty of allIndia east of the Hydaspes, so far as he had overcome it,embracing seven nations and lands containing more than twothousand cities ; and clothed Taxiles with equal authorityover the territory he had assigned to him. He prescribedthe relations which the smallerindependent princes — Sopeithes,Phegeus, Abisares — should bear to them, and the tributeall should pay.He then got his vesselstogether, some eighty thirty-oaredwar vessels, two hundred horse transports, and seven hundredof all other kinds, river-craft, old and new, — the number isgiven by Arrian, on the authority of Ptolemy, as not far shortoftwo thousand, — and gave the command of thirty-three ofthe war vessels, as honorable distinction, to thirty-three of hisbest subordinates. Of these, twenty-four were Macedonians,•— the seven somatophylaxes and Peucestas, shortly to be aneighth, Craterus, the phalanx-strategos, Attains, Nearchus ofthe hyjjaspists, a civilian Laomedon, Androsthenes, who latersailed around Arabia, and others, many of whom were probablystaff officers. Among the Greeks were Eumenes, thesecretary, and the king's intimate Medius. Among the foreigners,Bagoas, the Persian, and two C3'prians, sons of kings.The rest are not well-known names, or prominent. Havingthus, with great ceremony and magnificence, settled the preliminariesof his departure, he himself embarked with theshield-bearing guards, the Agrianians, and the body-guard ofcavalry, — some eight thousand men, all told. It is probablethat the baggage and camp-followers monopolized the greaterpart of the small craft.The start was made in early November. Craterus, withpart of the cavalry and infantry, marched along the rightbank of the river; and along the left Hephaestion led the