Lectures on Ancient Indian Numismatics (Carmichael Lectures, 1921) c6.58

c6.58

But if the Greeks really conquered some region near the north-west frontiers of India and were settled there, as no doubt numismatic considerations lead us to conclude, is there any reference to such a fact in any one of the accounts drawn up by the Macedonian historians of India about the time of Alexander’s invasion? If the Greeks really established a colony in a border province of India, it is inconceivable that such a thing which would be of supreme interest to a Greek should be ignored by any historian of Alexander’s time. Do we then, as a matter of fact, find any reference to it in the work of any Greek historian? This is the natural question that must arise here and which you will no doubt expect me to tackle even though I may have to deviate strictly from the subject of to-night’s lecture. And I am glad to say that there are two passages in the Fifth Book of Arrian’s work which in my opinion answer this question and thus corroborate the numismatic evidence.¹ The passages in question, to which Mr. Hemchandra Raychaudhuri was the first to draw my attention, give a description of the city and people of Nysa which was situated between the Kophen and the Indus. The deputies of Nysa, who waited upon Alexander, themselves told the Macedonian monarch that their city was founded by Dionysos as he was returning to the shores of Greece after conquering the Indian nation and that he called it Nysa after the name of his nurse Nysa, and in proof of their statement that Dionysos was their founder adduced the fact that ivy which grew nowhere else in the land of the Indians grew in their city. In fact, anybody who carefully reads these passages will be convinced that Dionysos here is a real Hellenic deity and not any Hindu god in Hellenic garb and that the account clearly points to Nysa having been a Greek colony.