Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.59

6.59

non tamen est diligentiae locus: adeo diversa et incredibilia traduntur. Alexandri Magni comites in eo tractu Indiae, quem is subegerit, scripserunt V??? oppidorum fuisse, nullum Coo minus, gentiumVIIII, Indiamque tertiam partem esse terrarum omnium, multitudinem populorum innumeram, probabili sane ratione: Indi enim gentium prope soli numquam migravere finibus suis. colliguntur a Libero Patre ad Alexandrum Magnum reges eorum CLIII annis VI. CCCCLI; adiciunt et menses III. amnium mira vastitas;

In this region, the appearance of the heavens is totally changed, and quite different is the rising of the stars; there are two summers in the year, and two harvests, while the winter intervenes between them during the time that the Etesian winds are blowing: during our winter too, they enjoy light breezes, and their seas are navigable. In this country there are nations and cities which would be found to be quite innumerable, if a person should attempt to enumerate them. For it has been explored not only by the arms of Alexander the Great and of the kings who succeeded him, by Seleucus and Antiochus, who sailed round even to the Caspian and Hyrcanian Sea, and by Patrocles, the admiral of their fleet, but has been treated of by several other Greek writers who resided at the courts of Indian kings, such, for instance, as Megasthenes, and by Dionysius, who was sent thither by Philadelphus, expressly for the purpose: all of whom have enlarged upon the power and vast resources of these nations. Still, however, there is no possibility of being rigorously exact, so different are the accounts given, and often of a nature so incredible. The followers of Alexander the Great have stated in their writings, that there were no less than five thousand cities in that portion of India which they vanquished by force of arms, not one of which was smaller than that of Cos;

that its nations were eight in number, that India forms one-third of the whole earth, and that its populations are innumerable—a thing which is certainly far from improbable, seeing that the Indians are nearly the only race of people who have never migrated from their own territories. From the time of Father Liber to that of Alexander the Great, one hundred and fifty-three kings of India are reckoned, extending over a period of six thousand four hundred and fifty-one years and three months. The vast extent of their rivers is quite marvellous; it is stated that on no one day did Alexander the Great sail less than six hundred stadia on the Indus, and still was unable to reach its mouth in less than five months and some few days: and yet it is a well-known fact that this river is not so large as the Ganges. Seneca, one of our fellow-countrymen, who has written a treatise upon the subject of India, has given its rivers as sixty-five in number, and its nations as one hundred and eighteen. The difficulty too would be quite as great, if we were to attempt to enumerate its mountains. The chains of Emaüs, of Emodus, of Paropanisus, and of Caucasus, are all connected, the one with the other; and from their foot, the country of India runs down in the form of a vast plain, bearing a very considerable resemblance to that of Egypt. However, that we may come to a better understanding relative to the description of these regions, we will follow in the track of Alexander the Great.