Taxiles
Taxiles
Taxiles — the Greek form of the dynastic title derived from the city name Takshashila; his personal name was Omphis (Ambhi in the Indian sources) — was king of the Gandhara kingdom centred on Taxila (Takshashila, modern Bhir Mound 35 km northwest of Islamabad) on the upper Indus. He had sent envoys to Alexander during the Bactrian campaign offering submission, and in early 326 BC rode out to meet the Macedonian column north of the Indus bridge with 200 talents of silver, 3,000 oxen, 10,000 sheep, and 30 war-elephants — the first Indian elephant-corps the Macedonian army would command (Arr. *Anab.* 5.3.5–6 + 5.8.2; Plut. *Alex.* 59.4; Curt. 8.12.4–11; Diod. 17.86.4). Alexander confirmed him as king under Macedonian suzerainty and enrolled the Taxilan elephant corps under Macedonian command for the Hydaspes campaign against Porus. The Indian philosophers at Taxila whom Alexander encountered — the *gymnosophistai* (naked-wise-men) of the Brahmanical tradition — included both Dandamis, who refused Alexander's invitation to court and lectured his envoys on the futility of ambition, and Calanus, who agreed to follow the army and travel with it to Pasargadae (Arr. *Anab.* 7.2.2–4; Plut. *Alex.* 65; Strabo 15.1.63–68). After Alexander's death Taxiles aligned with Eudamus against Porus; his dynasty was displaced by Chandragupta Maurya c. 320 BC.