Porus

Porus was the Indian king who fought Alexander the Great at the Hydaspes and was left ruling more territory than he had held before. He ruled the Paurava kingdom between the Jhelum and Chenab rivers in the Punjab, and is known almost entirely through Greek and Roman sources; no Indian text names him. He refused Alexander's demand for submission and tribute, and gathered his army on the far bank of the swollen Jhelum in the monsoon of 326 BC — some thirty thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry, three hundred chariots and around two hundred war elephants, which the Macedonians had not previously faced in numbers. Alexander could not force a direct crossing. He spent weeks making noisy feints up and down the bank until the Indians stopped responding, then crossed at night some twenty-seven kilometres upstream in a storm with a picked force. The battle was the hardest Alexander fought. The elephants broke into the Macedonian phalanx and were eventually driven back into the Indian lines by javelins and sarissas, trampling their own troops. Porus fought from an elephant and was wounded several times. Asked how he wished to be treated, he is reported to have answered: as a king. Alexander restored his kingdom and added to it, making him a satrap. The battle also killed Alexander's horse Bucephalus, and a city was founded in its name. It was after the Hydaspes that the Macedonian army refused to advance further east, and Alexander turned back. Porus was assassinated some years later by Eudemus, one of Alexander's officers, around 317 BC.

• Lived: 370 BCE – 315 BCE
• Nationality: Pakistani
• Roles: ruler, military_leader