CHAPTER XXII.

INVASION OF THE LAND OF THE CATHAEANS.

Meantime he received information that the tribe called Cathaeans

and some other tribes of the independent Indians were preparing for

battle, if he approached their land; and that they were summoning to

the enterprise all the tribes conterminous with them who were in like

manner independent. He was also informed that the city, Sangala by

name,[704] near which they were thinking of having the struggle, was

a strong one. The Cathaeans themselves were considered very daring

and skilful in war; and two other tribes of Indians, the Oxydracians

and Mallians, were in the same temper as the Cathaeans. For a short

time before it happened that Porus and Abisares had marched against

them with their own forces and had roused many other tribes of the

independent Indians to arms, but were forced to retreat without

effecting anything worthy of the preparations they had made. When

Alexander was informed of this, he made a forced march against the

Cathaeans, and on the second day after starting from the river

Hydraotes he arrived at a city called Pimprama, inhabited by a

tribe of Indians named Adraistaeans, who yielded to him on terms of

capitulation. Giving his army a rest the next day, he advanced on the

third day to Sangala, where the Cathaeans and the other neighbouring

tribes had assembled and marshalled themselves in front of the city

upon a hill which was not precipitous on all sides. They had posted

their waggons all round this hill and were encamping within them in

such a way that they were surrounded by a triple palisade of waggons.

When Alexander perceived the great number of the barbarians and the

nature of their position, he drew up his forces in the order which

seemed to him especially adapted to his present circumstances, and sent

his horse-archers at once without any delay against them, ordering

them to ride along and shoot at them from a distance; so that the

Indians might not be able to make any sortie, before his army was in

proper array, and that even before the battle commenced they might be

wounded within their stronghold. Upon the right wing he posted the

guard of cavalry and the cavalry regiment of Clitus; next to these

the shield-bearing guards, and then the Agrianians. Towards the left

he had stationed Perdiccas with his own regiment of cavalry, and the

battalions of foot Companions. The archers he divided into two parts

and placed them on each wing. While he was marshalling his army, the

infantry and cavalry of the rear-guard came up. Of these, he divided

the cavalry into two parts and led them to the wings, and with the

infantry which came up he made the ranks of the phalanx more dense and

compact. He then took the cavalry which had been drawn up on the right,

and led it towards the waggons on the left wing of the Indians; for

here their position seemed to him more easy to assail, and the waggons

had not been placed together so densely.