Ἰνδική 31.9

31.9

καὶ ταῦτα ὅτι ψεύδεα ἐξελέγχει Νέαρχος, οὐκ ἐπαινέω αὐτὸν ἔγωγε τῆς σχολῆς τε καὶ σοφίης, οὔτε κάρτα χαλεπὰ ἐξελεγχθῆναι ἐόντα, ταλαίπωρόν τε ἐὸν γινώσκων τοὺς παλαιοὺς λόγους ἐπιλεγόμενον ἐξελέγχειν ἐόντας ψευδέας.

When they were sailing along the Ikhthyophagi coast, they were told about an island which was said to be about 100 stadia distant from the mainland, and uninhabited. Its name was Nosala, and it was according to the local tradition sacred to the sun. No one willingly visited this island, and if any one was carried to it unawares, he was never more seen. Nearkhos states that a transport of his fleet, manned with an Egyptian crew, disappeared not far from this island, and that the pilots accounted for their disappearance by saying that they must have landed on the island in ignorance of the danger which they would thereby incur. Nearkhos, however, sent a galley of 30 oars to sail round the island, instructing the men not to land, but to approach as near as they could to the shore, and hail the men, shouting out the name of the captain or any other name they had not forgotten. No one answered to the call, and Nearkhos says that he then sailed in person to the island, and compelled his company much against their will to go on shore. He too landed, and showed that the story about the island was nothing but an empty fable. Concerning this same island he heard also another story, which ran to this effect: it had been at one time the residence of one of the Nereids, whose name, he says, he could not learn. It was her wont to have intercourse with any man who visited the island, changing him thereafter into a fish, and casting him into the sea. The sun, however, being displeased with the Nereid, ordered her to remove from the island. She agreed to do this, and seek a home elsewhere, but stipulated that she should be cured of her malady. To this condition the sun assented, and then the Nereid, taking pity upon the men whom she had transformed into fish, restored them to their human shape. These men were the progenitors of the Ikhthyophagi, the line of succession remaining unbroken down to the time of Alexander. Now, for my part I have no praise to bestow on Nearkhos for expending so much time and ingenuity on the not very difficult task of proving the falsehood of these stories, for, to take up antiquated fables merely with a view to prove their falsehood, I can only regard as a contemptible piece of folly.