Ινδικη 1.2

1.2

ἀλλὰ οὔτε μεγάλοι τὰ σώματα, κατάπερ οἱ ἐντὸς τοῦ Ἰνδοῦ ᾠκισμένοι, οὔτε ἀγαθοὶ ὡσαύτως τὸν θυμὸν οὐδὲ μέλανες ὡσαύτως τοῖσι πολλοῖσιν Ἰνδοῖσιν.

I. The regions beyond the river Indus on the west are inhabited, up to the river Kôphen, by two Indian tribes, the Astakenoi and the Assakenoi, who are not men of great stature like the Indians on the other side of the Indus, nor so brave, nor yet so swarthy as most Indians. They were in old times subject to the Assyrians, then after a period of Median rule submitted to the Persians, and paid to Kyros the son of Kambyses the tribute from their land which Kyros had imposed. The Nysaioi, however, are not an Indian race, but descendants of those who came into India with Dionysos, — perhaps not only of those Greeks who had been disabled for service in the course of the wars which Dionysos waged against the Indians, but perhaps also of natives of the country whom Dionysos, with their own consent, had settled along with the Greeks. The district in which he planted this colony he named Nysaia, after Mount Nysa, and the city itself Nysa. But the mountain close by the city, and on the lower slopes of which it is built, is designated Meros, from the accident which befell the god immediately after his birth. These stories about Dionysos are of course but fictions of the poets, and we leave them to the learned among the Greeks or barbarians to explain as they may. In the dominions of the Assakenoi there is a great city called Massaka, the seat of the sovereign power which controls the whole realm. And there is another city, Peukelaitis, which is also of great size and not far from the Indus. These settlements lie on the other side of the river Indus, and extend in a westward direction as far as the Kophen.