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Percy Gardner struggled mightily against a compelling connection between numismatics and history. When he associated the elephant battle on the Franks medallion with an invasion of nomads during the reign of Eucratides or his son, this line of argument required the total rejection of a more obvious historical attribution. The fighting became desperate and at times undisciplined due to the mud, rampaging elephants, and crowded lines of opposing infantry. Porus turned his elephant and attacked Taxiles. The existing accounts of Porus' surrender are quite at odds given the overall state of the sources. A personal duel between Alexander and Porus is described. Numismatists have learned to trace the size and sequence of a mintage based upon die linkage.

The views of Alexander must conform to the evidence of the medallions and not vice versa. It first introduces the physical objects, allowing them first to speak for themselves rather than for one modern camp or another. It then proceeds with a closer look at the actual images on the medallic coins, beginning with the least controversial: the reverse of the large so-called decadrachms. The large medallions depict Alexander on horseback attacking a fleeing elephant on which two Indians ride, one of them probably Porus rising up and twisting back to fend off his enemy, but too late to save his faithful attendant, who has taken the thrust of Alexander's sarissa. Alexander has his glory, but not without some respect also being accorded his worthy adversaries. All five of the battle scenes on the three types of medallion presented move in the same direction, from left to right.

The impressive artwork on the elephant medallions provides a fine series of images straight from the scrapbook of Alexander's campaign against Porus. The important features of these medallions are addressed. Even if these medallions functioned both as medals and coins, it might be a surprise that so little care was taken to keep them to a more consistent standard, given their special nature. The heavy rains that covered the embarkation the night before protected Alexander's troops from two of Porus' most dangerous military units on the day of battle itself. The medallions capture the course of a memorable battle in which rainstorms unexpectedly defeated the chariots and then the archers. On the elephant medallions, Alexander claimed personal powers of environmental modification for military purposes. Five years after Alexander's demise, a Macedonian officer assassinated Porus and confiscated his elephants in order to use them in the ongoing wars of imperial succession.

Having learned that King Darius was murdered by his relative Bessus, who himself subsequently proclaimed to be the rightful Achaemenid king, Alexander III the Great started the pursuit of Bessus. After Bessus’ death, Alexander marched further east, entering ‘India’, in fact the Punjab. After an encounter with one of the kings of this region, King Porus, Alexander moved south over the River Indus to the Indian Ocean. From there he finally returned to Babylon (overcoming many hardships) and died there, either from natural causes or due to having been poisoned.

The campaign in the Punjab saw Alexander, supported by his Indian ally Taxiles, attack Porus, who lived beyond the Hydaspes River. The battle, at the beginning of the monsoon season, involved a division of the Macedonian forces. One part faced Porus at the river crossing, where the current and the elephants in the Indian army made a direct attack virtually impossible. Alexander took a portion of his army and marched upstream. Once across the river, he drew Porus away from his defensive position and defeated the Indian ruler in a battle fought primarily by cavalry, although the Macedonian pikemen inflicted injuries on the elephants, which became a danger to their own troops. After the Hydaspes victory, Alexander advanced to the Hyphasis (Beas), where the army refused to cross in order to march to the Ganges. The whole episode was contrived, since Alexander clearly had no intention of going farther east. His failure to reach the eastern end of the world was thus attributed to the timidity and war-weariness of his soldiers. During the descent of the Indus river system, Alexander received a near-fatal wound at the hands of the Mallians. Once he recovered, Alexander conducted a series of bloody massacres as he sailed to the mouth of the Indus and accomplished his goal of sailing out into the ocean. Although the Indian campaign was by far the bloodiest of the expedition, there was little long-term gain from the conquest.