Book 15
1.31
The dogs in the territory of Sopeithes are said to possess remarkable courage: Alexander received from Sopeithes a present of one hundred and fifty of them. To prove them, two were set at a lion; when these were mastered, two others were set on; when the battle became equal, Sopeithes ordered a man to seize one of the dogs by the leg, and to drag him away; or to cut off his leg, if he still held on. Alexander at first refused his consent to the dog’s leg being cut off, as he wished to save the dog. But on Sopeithes saying, I will give you four in the place of it, Alexander consented; and he saw the dog permit his leg to be cut off by a slow incision, rather than loose his hold.
1.32
The direction of the march, as far as the Hydaspes, was for the most part towards the south. After that, to the Hypanis, it was more towards the east. The whole of it, however, was much nearer to the country lying at the foot of the mountains than to the plains. Alexander therefore, when he returned from the Hypanis to the Hydaspes and the station of his vessels, prepared his fleet, and set sail on the Hydaspes.
1.32
All the rivers which have been mentioned (the last of which is the Hypanis) unite in one, the Indus. It is said that there are altogether fifteenSo also Arrian, who takes the number from Megasthenes. Pliny says that nineteen rivers unite with the Indus. considerable rivers which flow into the Indus. After the Indus has been filled by all these rivers, so as to be enlarged in some places to the extent of a hundred stadia, according to writers who exaggerate, or, according to a more moderate estimate, to fifty stadia at the utmost, and at the least to seven, [and who speak of many nations and cities about this river,]Probably an interpolation. it discharges itself by two mouths into the southern sea, and forms the island called Patalene.
