expedition against the mardians.

he then marched forward against the mardians477 taking with him the shield-bearing guards, the archers, the 190agrianians, the brigades of coenus and amyntas, half of the companion cavalry, and the horse-lancers; for he had now a troop of horse-lancers. traversing the greater part of the land of the mardians, he killed many of them in their flight, some indeed having turned to defend themselves; and many were taken prisoners. no one for a long time had invaded their land in a hostile manner, not only on account of its ruggedness, but also because the people were poor, and besides being poor were warlike. therefore they never feared that alexander would attack them, especially as he had already advanced further than their country. for this reason they were caught more easily off their guard. many of them, however, escaped into the mountains, which in their land are very lofty and craggy, thinking that alexander would not penetrate to these at any rate. but when he was approaching them even here, they sent envoys to surrender both the people and their land to him. he pardoned them, and appointed autophradates, whom he had also recently placed over the tapurians, viceroy over them. returning to the camp, from which he had started to invade the country of the mardians, he found that the grecian mercenaries of darius had arrived, accompanied by the envoys from the lacedaemonians who were on an embassy to king darius. the names of these men were, callicratidas, pausippus, monimus, onomas, and dropides, a man from athens. these were arrested and kept under guard; but he released the envoys from the sinopeans,478 because these people had no share in the commonwealth of the greeks; and as they were in subjection to the persians, they did not seem to be doing anything unreasonable in going on an embassy to their own king. he also released the rest of 191the greeks who were serving for pay with the persians before the peace and alliance which had been made by the greeks with the macedonians. he likewise released heraclides, the ambassador from the chalcedonians479 to darius. the rest he ordered to serve in his army for the same pay as they had received from the persian king, putting them under the command of andronicus, who had led them, and had evidently been taking prudent measures to save the lives of the men.