Naturalis historia 6.79

6.79

nec non et Nysam urbem plerique Indiae adscribunt montemque Merum, Libero Patri sacrum, unde origo fabulae, lovis femine editum; item Aspaganos gentem, vitis et lauri et buxi pomorumque omnium in Graecia nascentium fertilem. quae memoranda ac prope fabulosa de fertilitate terrae et genere frugum arborumque aut ferarum ac volucrum et aliorum animalium traduntur, suis quaeque locis in reliqua parte operis commemorabuntur, quattuor satrapiae mox paulo, ad Taprobanen insulam festinante animo.

The greater part of the geographers, in fact, do not look upon India as bounded by the river Indus, but add to it the four Satrapies of the Gedrosi, the Arachotæ, the Arii, and the Paropauisidæ, the river Cophes thus forming the extreme boundary of India. All these territories, however, according to other writers, are reckoned as belonging to the country of the Arii. (21.) Many writers, too, place in India the city of Nysa, and the mountain of Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus; in which circumstance originated the story that he sprang from the thigh of Jupiter. They also place here the nation of the Astacani, whose country abounds in the vine, the laurel, the box-tree, and all the fruits which are produced in Greece. As to those wonderful and almost fabulous stories which are related about the fertility of the soil, and the various kinds of fruits and trees, as well as wild beasts, and birds, and other sorts of animals, they shall be mentioned each in its proper place, in a future portion of this work. I shall also very shortly have to make some further mention of the four Satrapies, it being at present my wish to hasten to a description of the island of Taprobane.