CHAPTER VI.

SPITAMENES DRIVEN INTO THE DESERT.

But Aristobulus says the greater part of this army was destroyed by an

ambuscade, the Scythians having hidden themselves in a park and fallen

upon the Macedonians from their place of concealment, when Pharnuches

was in the very act of retiring from the command in favour of the

Macedonians who had been sent with him, on the ground of his not being

skilled in military affairs, and of his having been sent by Alexander

rather to win the favour of the barbarians than to take the supreme

command in battles. He also alleged that the Macedonian officers

present were the king’s Companions. But Andromachus, Menedemus, and

Caranus declined to accept the chief command, partly because it did

not seem right to make any alteration on their own responsibility

contrary to Alexander’s instructions to them, and partly because in

the very crisis of danger, they were unwilling, if they met with any

defeat, not only individually to take a share of the blame, but also

collectively to exercise the command unsuccessfully. In this confusion

and disorder the barbarians fell upon them, and cut them all off,

so that not more than forty horsemen and 300 foot preserved their

lives.[523] When the report of this reached Alexander, he was chagrined

at the loss of his soldiers, and resolved to march with all speed

against Spitamenes and his barbarian adherents. He therefore took half

of the Companion cavalry, all the shield-bearing guards, the archers,

the Agrianians, and the lightest men of the phalanx, and went towards

Maracanda, where he ascertained Spitamenes had returned and was again

besieging the men in the citadel. Having travelled 1,500 stades in

three days, at the approach of dawn on the fourth day he came near the

city;[524] but when Spitamenes was informed of Alexander’s approach,

he did not remain, but abandoned the city and fled. Alexander pursued

him closely; and coming to the place where the battle was fought, he

buried his soldiers as well as the circumstances permitted, and then

followed the fugitives as far as the desert. Returning thence, he laid

the land waste, and slew the barbarians who had fled for refuge into

the fortified places, because they were reported to have taken part in

the attack upon the Macedonians.[525] He traversed the whole country

which the river Polytimetus waters in its course; but the country

beyond the place where the water of this river disappears is desert;

for though it has abundance of water, it disappears into the sand.[526]

Other large and perennial rivers in that region disappear in a similar

way:—the Epardus, which flows through the land of the Mardians; the

Areius, after which the country of the Areians is named; and the

Etymander, which flows through the territory of the Euergetae.[527] All

of these are rivers of such a size that none of them is smaller than

the Thessalian river Peneius, which flows through Tempē and discharges

itself into the sea. The Polytimetus is much too large to be compared

with the river Peneius.[528]