Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK ONE
- BOOK TWO
- ALEXANDER'S CONQUESTS IN THE WEST
- THE WAR AGAINST PORUS OF INDIA
- THE QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS
- THE END OF THE WAR AGAINST PORUS
- THE MARVELS OF INDIA
- THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON
- ALEXANDER'S DEATH
- WAR BETWEEN ALEXANDER'S BARONS
- THE AVENGING OF ALEXANDER
- Appendix 1 How Nectanebus fathered Alexander [from the 13th-century Prose Alexander]
- Appendix 2 Aristotle's advice to Alexander [an interpolation into Wauquelin's text]
- Appendix 3 Jacques de Longuyon's excursus on the Nine Worthies [from Les Voeux du Paon (‘The Vows of the Peacock’), c.1310]
THE MARVELS OF INDIA
from BOOK TWO
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- BOOK ONE
- BOOK TWO
- ALEXANDER'S CONQUESTS IN THE WEST
- THE WAR AGAINST PORUS OF INDIA
- THE QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS
- THE END OF THE WAR AGAINST PORUS
- THE MARVELS OF INDIA
- THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON
- ALEXANDER'S DEATH
- WAR BETWEEN ALEXANDER'S BARONS
- THE AVENGING OF ALEXANDER
- Appendix 1 How Nectanebus fathered Alexander [from the 13th-century Prose Alexander]
- Appendix 2 Aristotle's advice to Alexander [an interpolation into Wauquelin's text]
- Appendix 3 Jacques de Longuyon's excursus on the Nine Worthies [from Les Voeux du Paon (‘The Vows of the Peacock’), c.1310]
Summary
Here follow the great wonders found by Alexander in the deserts of India.
After conquering these men and their mountain refuge Alexander rode on, and he hadn't gone far before he came upon strange and massive stones which the people of those parts called the Bounds of Hercules. Determined to surpass Hercules's feats, Alexander resolved to go beyond these bounds and rode on past with his whole army.
There he found a people whom he subjugated with ease, for they were feeble and unarmed.
Then he entered the land of the Orasinis and the Dasques and overcame them likewise, for they were all but savages. And as he passed through the forests and the deserts where tribes called Aristiens, Cancestiens, Parsidiens and Gangratiens dwelt he brought them, too, under his dominion, and little wonder, for they were hunter-gatherers clad in animal-skins and tree-bark – that was their only armour; and their only offensive weapons were sticks torn from trees, and rocks and stones and the like.
Having conquered these various peoples Alexander left the wilds and entered a kingdom of vast expanse, boasting many fine cities. It was called Confite; and when the people of the land learned of Alexander's coming they massed their forces and advanced to meet him with two hundred thousand men; but they were routed utterly and most of them were left slaughtered in the field. The reason they were so quickly vanquished was their inexperience in battle.
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- The Medieval Romance of AlexanderThe Deeds and Conquests of Alexander the Great, pp. 205 - 248Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012