for him
as much as if he had lost one of his most intimate friends. He founded
a city as a memorial of him upon the banks of the Hydaspes, which he
named Boukephalia. It is also recorded that when he lost a favourite
dog called Peritas, which he had brought up from a whelp, and of which
he was very fond, he founded a city and called it by the dog's name.
The historian Sotion tells us that he heard this from Potamon of
Lesbos.

LXII. The battle with King Porus made the Macedonians very unwilling
to advance farther into India. They had overcome Porus with the
greatest difficulty, as he brought against them a force of twenty
thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, and now offered the most
violent opposition to Alexander, who wished to cross the river Ganges.
This river, they heard, was thirty-two furlongs wide and a hundred
cubits deep, while its further banks were completely covered with
armed men, horses and elephants, for it was said that the kings of the
Gandaritae and Praesiae were awaiting his attack with an army of eighty
thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, eight thousand
war chariots, and six thousand elephants; nor was this any
exaggeration, for not long afterwards Androkottus, the king of this
country, presented five hundred elephants to Seleukus, and overran and
subdued the whole of India with an army of six hundred thousand men.

Alexander at first retired to his tent in a rage, and shut himself up
there, not feeling any gratitude to those who had prevented his
crossing the Ganges, but regarding a retreat as an acknowledgment of
defeat. However, after his friends had argued with him, and his
soldiers had come to the door of his tent, begging him with tears in
their eyes to go no farther, he relented, and gave orders for a
retreat. He now contrived many ingenious devices to impress the
natives, as, for instance, he caused arms, and bridles and mangers for
horses to be made of much more than the usual size, and left them
scattered about. He also set up altars, which even to the present day
are reverenced by the kings of the Praesiae, who cross the river to
them, and offer sacrifice upon them in the Greek fashion. Androkottus
himself, who was then a lad, saw Alexander himself and afterwards used
to declare that Alexander might easily have conquered the whole
country, as the then king was hated by his subjects on account of his
mean and wicked disposition.

LXIII. After this, Alexander wi