Ινδικη 10.1

10.1

λέγεται δὲ καὶ τάδε, μνημήια ὅτι Ἰνδοὶ τοῖσι τελευτήσασιν οὐ ποιέουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὰς ἀρετὰς γὰρ τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἱκανὰς ἐς μνήμην τίθενται τοῖσιν ἀποθανοῦσι καὶ τὰς ᾠδὰς εἳ αὐτοῖσιν ἐπᾴδονται.

X. It is farther said that the Indians do not rear monuments to the dead, but consider the virtues which men have displayed in life, and the songs in which their praises are celebrated, sufficient to preserve their memory after death. But of their cities it is said that the number is so great that it cannot be stated with precision, but that such cities as are situated on the banks of rivers or on the sea-coast are built of wood, for were they built of brick they would not last long — so destructive are the rains, and also the rivers when they overflow their banks and inundate the plains ; those cities, however, which stand on commanding situations and lofty eminences are built of brick and mud. The greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite, — the Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers elsewhere; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it. Megasthenes says further of this city that the inhabited part of it stretched on either side to an extreme length of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six plethra in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with five hundred and seventy towers and had four-and-sixty gates.