Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of ancient warfare answers with me, Murray,

your weekly fix of 10 minutes of ancient warfare related stuff to take a break from whatever's

going on in the modern world. Today, I'm going to be answering two questions

on the same topic, so two birds with one stone, from Gregorio Gagaliglio, I believe, 775, a comment

from YouTube, and also J-Soth-2675, another comment from YouTube, both on the same topic, roughly.

Gregorio's question was, how many Macedonian and Indian casualties were there at the Battle of Idaspi,

or the Hydaspe's River, fought probably in July 326 BC, more of that in the moment.

And the second one from J-Soth is, is it possible or even likely that the battle

of Hydaspe against King Porus was fabricated? Are there any Indian sources that agree a battle took

place? Great content, as always. And thank you for your time. Thank you, J-Soth, for asking a question.

And Hugh Gregorio. Now, first question, we do have multiple Greek and Latin sources

for the battle, so we can begin to break down the casualties. They, of course, as so often in

ancient sources, don't agree. So your question of how many is in fact complicated by the fact

that our sources don't actually agree,

but there's a reason, there's some logic.

I'll get to that.

And secondly, the short answer to your question, J-Soth, is I don't believe that it was

fabricated.

I do believe that it is a battle that took place, but there are extenuating circumstances.

The reason for such a question, of course, is that in

none of the very rich Indian tradition of history and other writings is porous even mentioned.

And so the idea has sprung up that because we have the Nanda Empire at the same time in northern

...