with his
cavalry in pursuit of Darius. Learning that Bessus, the Bactrian
satrap, held him a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of
saving him, but he found him mortally wounded (330 B.C.). He mourned
over his fallen enemy, and caused him to be buried with all the
customary honors, while he hunted down Bessus, who himself aspired to
the throne, chasing him over the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara).

Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of Parmenio was
implicated, he put both father and son to death, though Parmenio
himself was innocent of any knowledge of the affair. This cruel
injustice excited universal displeasure. In 329 he penetrated to the
farthest known limits of Northern Asia, and overthrew the Scythians on
the banks of the Jaxartes. In the following year he subdued the whole
of Sogdiana, and married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was
the daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and was said to
be the fairest of all the virgins of Asia. The murder of his
foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken brawl, was followed, in 327 B.C.,
by the discovery of a fresh conspiracy, in which Callisthenes, a
nephew of Aristotle, was falsely implicated. For challenging
Alexander's divinity, he was cruelly tortured and hanged.

In 327 B.C., proceeding to the conquest of India, hitherto known only
by name, Alexander crossed the Indus near to the modern Attock, and
pursued his way under the guidance of a native prince to the Hydaspes
(Jhelum). He there was opposed by Porus, another native prince, whom
he overthrew after a bloody contest, and there he lost his charger
Bucephalus; thence he marched as lord of the country, through the
Punjab, establishing Greek colonies. He then wished to advance to the
Ganges, but the general murmuring of his troops obliged him, at the
Hyphasis (modern Sutlej), to commence his retreat. On regaining the
Hydaspes, he built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it
down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its
way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the
ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence
to the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division
of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (Beluchistan).
During this march his forces suffered fearfully from want of food and
water. Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander, little more
than a fourth part a