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The Classical Accounts of India c12: V. The Geography of Strabo

The Classical Accounts of India c12

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English

Contents

V. The Geography of Strabo

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For Introduction, see above, p. 93

I. Book XV, I

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1. The parts still left of Asia are those outside the Taurus except Cilicia and Pamphylia and Lycia, I mean the parts extending from India as far as the Nile and lying between the Taurus and the outer sea on the south. After Asia one comes to Libya, which I shall describe later, but I must now begin with India, for it is the first and largest country that lies out towards the east.

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2. But it is necessary for us to hear accounts of this country with indulgence, for not only is it farthest away from us, but not many of our people have seen it; and even those who have seen it, have seen only parts of it, and the greater part of what they say is from hearsay; and even what they saw they learned on a hasty passage with an army through the country. Wherefore they do not give out the same accounts of the same things, even though they have written these accounts as though their statements had been carefully confirmed. And some of them were both on the same expedition together and made their sojourns together, like those who helped Alexander to subdue Asia, yet they all frequently contradict one another. But if they differ thus about what was seen, what must we think of what they report from hearsay?

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3. Moreover, most of those who have written anything about this region in much later times, and those who sail there at the present time, do not present any accurate information either. At any rate, Apollodorus, who wrote *The Parthica*, when he mentions the Greeks who caused Bactriana to revolt from the Syrian kings who succeeded Seleucus Nicator, says that when those kings had grown in power they also attacked India, but he reveals nothing further than what was already known, and even contradicts what was known, saying that those kings subdued more of India than the Macedonians; that Eucratidas, at any rate, held a thousand cities as his subjects. Those other writers, however, say that merely the tribes between the Hydaspes and the Hypanis were nine in number, and that they had five thousand cities, no one of which was smaller than the Meropian Cos, and that Alexander subdued the whole of this country and gave it over to Porus.

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4. As for the merchants who now sail from Aegypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf as far as India, only a small number have sailed as far as the Ganges; and even these are merely private citizens and of no use as regards the history of the places they have seen. But from India, from one place and from one king, I mean Pandion, or another Porus, there came to Caesar Augustus presents and gifts of honour and the Indian sophist who burnt himself up at Athens, as Calanus had done, who made a similar spectacular display of himself before Alexander.

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5. If, however, one should dismiss these accounts and observe the records of the country prior to the expedition of Alexander, one would find things still more obscure. Now it is reasonable to suppose that Alexander believed such records because he was blinded by his numerous good fortunes; at any rate, Nearchus says that Alexander conceived an ambition to lead his army through Gedrosia when he learned that both Semiramis and Cyrus had made an expedition against the Indians, and that Semiramis had turned back in flight with only twenty people and Cyrus with seven; and that Alexander thought how grand it would be, when those had met with such reverses, if he himself should lead a whole victorious army safely through the same tribes and regions Alexander, therefore, believed these accounts.

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6. But as for us, what just credence can we place in the accounts of India derived from such an expedition made by Cyrus, or Semiramis? And Megasthenes virtually agrees with this reasoning when he bids us to have no faith in the ancient stories about the Indians; for, he says, neither was an army ever sent outside the country by the Indians nor did any outside army ever invade their country and master them, except that with Heracles and Dionysus and that in our times with the Macedonians. However, Sesostris, the Aegyptian, he adds, and Tearco the Aethiopian advanced as far as Europe; and Nabocodrosor, who enjoyed greater repute among the Chaldaeans than Heracles, led an army even as far as the Pillars Thus far, he says, also Tearco went and Sesostris also led his army from Iberia to Thrace and the Pontus; and Idanthyrsus the Scythian overran Asia as far as Aegypt; but no one of these touched India, and Semiramis too died before the attempt; and, although the Persians summoned the Hydraces as mercenary troops from India, the latter did not make an expedition to Persia, but only came near it when Cyrus was marching against the Massagetae.

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7. As for the stories of Heracles and Dionysus, Megasthenes with a few others considers them trustworthy; but most other writers, among whom is Eratosthenes, consider them untrustworthy and mythical, like the stories current among the Greeks. For instance, in the *Bacchae* of Euripides Dionysus says with youthful bravado as follows: "I have left behind me the gold-bearing glades of Lydia and of Phrygia, and I have visited the sun-stricken plains of Persia, the walled towns of Bactria, the wintry land of the Medes, and Arabia the Blest, and the whole of Asia." In Sophocles, also, there is someone who hymns the praises of Nysa as the mountain sacred to Dionysus: "Whence I beheld the famous Nysa, ranged in Bacchic frenzy by mortals, which the horned Iacchus roams as his own sweetest nurse, where—what bird exists that singeth not there?" And so forth. And he is also called "Metrotraphes " And Homer says of Lycurgus the Edonian as follows: "who once drove the nurses of frenzied Dionysus down over the sacred mount of Nysa " So much for Dionysus. But, regarding Heracles, some tell the story that he went in the opposite direction only, as far as the extreme limits on the west, whereas others say that he went to both extreme limits.

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8 From such stories, accordingly, writers have named a certain tribe of people "Nysaeans," and a city among them "Nysa," founded by Dionysus; and they have named a mountain above the city "Merus," alleging as the cause of the name the ivy that grows there, as also the vine, which latter does not reach maturity either; for on account of excessive rains the bunches of grapes fall off before they ripen; and they say that the Sydracae are descendants of Dionysus, judging from the vine in their country and from their costly processions, since the kings not only make their expeditions out of their country in Bacchic fashion, but also accompany all other processions with a beating of drums and with flowered robes, a custom which is also prevalent among the rest of the Indians. When Alexander, at one assault, took Aornus, a rock at the foot of which, near its sources, the Indus River flows, his exalters said that Heracles thrice attacked this rock and thrice was repulsed; and that the Sibae were descendants of those who shared with Heracles in the expedition, and that they retained badges of their descent, in that they wore skins like Heracles, carried clubs, and branded their cattle and mules with the mark of a club. And they further confirm this myth by the stories of the Caucasus and Prometheus, for they have transferred all this thither on a slight pretext, I mean because they saw a sacred cave in the country of the Paropamisadae, for they set forth that this cave was the prison of Prometheus and that this was the place whither Heracles came to release Prometheus, and that this was the Caucasus the Greeks declared to be the prison of Prometheus.

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9. But that these stories are fabrications of the flatterers of Alexander is obvious; first, not only from the fact that the historians do not agree with one another, and also because, while some relate them, others make no mention whatever of them; for it is unreasonable to believe that exploits so famous and full of romance were unknown to any historian, or, if known, that they were regarded as unworthy of recording, and that too by the most trustworthy of the historians; and, secondly, from the fact that not even the intervening peoples, through whose countries Dionysus and Heracle and their followers would have had to pass in order to reach India, can show any evidence that these made a journey through their country. Further, such accoutrement of Heracles is much later than the records of the Trojan War, being a fabrication of the authors of the *Heracleia*, whether the author was Peisander or someone else The ancient statues of Heracles are not thus accoutred.

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10 So, in cases like these, one must accept everything that is nearest to credibility I have already in my first discussion of the subject of geography¹ made decisions, as far as I could, about these matters. And now I shall unhesitatingly use those decisions as accepted, and shall also add any thing else that seems required for the purpose of clearness. It was particularly apparent from my former discussion that the summary account set forth in the third book of his geography by Eratosthenes of what was in his time regarded as India, that is, when Alexander invaded the country, is the most trustworthy; and the Indus River was the boundary between India and Ariana, which latter was situated next to India on the west and was in the possession of the Persians at that time, for later the Indians also held much of Ariana, having received it from the Macedonians And the account given by Eratosthenes is as follows .

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11. India is bounded on the north, from Ariana to the eastern sea, by the extremities of the Taurus, which by the natives are severally called "Paropamisus" and "Emodus" and "Imaus"

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and other names, but by the Macedonians “Caucasus”; on the west by the Indus River; but the southern and eastern sides, which are much greater than the other two, extend out into the Atlantic sea, and thus the shape of the country becomes rhomboidal, each of the greater sides exceeding the opposite side by as much as three thousand stadia, which is the same number of stadia by which the cape² common to the eastern and southern coast extends equally farther out in either direction than the rest of the shore. Now the length of the western side from the Caucasian Mountains to the southern sea is generally called thirteen thousand stadia, I mean along the Indus River to its outlets, so that the length of the opposite side, the eastern, if one adds the three thousand of the cape, will be sixteen thousand stadia. These, then are the minimum and maximum breadths of the country. The lengths are reckoned from the west to the east; and, of these, that to Palibothra can be told with more confidence, for it has been measured with measuring-lines,³ and there is a royal road of ten thousand stadia. The extent of the parts beyond Palibothra is a matter of guess, depending upon the voyages made from the sea on the Ganges to Palibothra; and this would be something like six thousand stadia. The entire length of the country, at its minimum, will be sixteen thousand stadia, as taken from the *Register of Days' Journeys* that is most commonly accepted, according to Eratosthenes; and, in agreement with him, Megasthenes states the same thing, though Patrocles says a thousand stadia less. If to this distance, however, one adds the distance that the cape extends out into the sea still farther towards the east, the extra three thousand stadia will form the maximum length;⁴ and this constitutes the distance from the outlets of the Indus River along the shore that comes next in order thereafter, to the aforesaid cape, that is, to the eastern limits of India. Here live the Coniaci, as they are called.

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12. From this one can see how much the accounts of the other writers differ. Ctesias says that India is not smaller than the rest of Asia; Onesicritus that it is a third part of the inhabited world : Nearchus that the march merely through the plain itself takes four months; but Megasthenes and Deimachus are more moderate in their estimates, for they put the distance from the southern sea to the Caucasus at “above twenty thousand stadia,” although Deimachus says that “at some places the distance is above thirty thousand stadia;” but I have replied to these writers in my first discussion of India.⁵ At present it is sufficient to say that this statement of mine agrees with that of those writers who ask our pardon if, in anything they say about India, they do not speak with assurance.

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13. The whole of India is traversed by rivers. Some of these flow together into the two largest rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, whereas others empty into the sea by their own mouths. They have their sources, one and all, in the Caucasus; and they all flow first towards the south, and then, though some of them continue to flow in the same direction, in particular those which flow into the Indus, others bend towards the east, as, for example, the Ganges. Now the Ganges, which is the largest of the rivers in India, flows down from the mountainous country, and when it reaches the plains bends towards the east and flows past Palibothra, a very large city, and then flows on towards the sea in that region and empties by a single outlet. But the Indus empties by two mouths into the southern sea, encompassing the country called Patalene, which is similar to the Delta of Aegypt. It is due to the vapours arising from all these rivers and to the Etesian winds, as Eratosthenes says, that India is watered by the summer rains and that the plains become marshes. Now in the rainy seasons flax is sown, and also millet, and, in addition to these, sesame and rice and bosmorum, and in the winter seasons wheat and barley and pulse and other edibles with which we are unacquainted. I might almost say that the same animals are to be found in India as in Aethiopia and Aegypt, and that the Indian rivers have all the other river animals except the hippopotamus, although Onesicritus says that the hippopotamus is also to be found in India. As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.

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14. As for Taprobane, it is said to be an island situated in the high sea within a seven days' sail towards the south from the most southerly parts of India, the land of the Coniaci; that it extends in length about eight thousand stadia⁶ in the direction of Aethiopia, and that it also has elephants. Such are the statements of Eratosthenes; but my own description will be specially characterised by the addition of the statements of the other writers, wherever they add any accurate information.

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15. Onesicritus, for example, says of Taprobane that it is “five thousand stadia in size,” without distinguishing its length or breadth; and that it is a twenty days’ voyage distant from the mainland, but that it is a difficult voyage for ships that are poorly furnished with sails and are constructed without belly-ribs on both sides; and that there are also other islands between Taprobane and India, though Taprobane is farthest south; and that amphibious monsters are to be found round it, some of which are like kine, others like horses, and others like other land-animals

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16 Nearchus, speaking of the alluvia deposited by the rivers, gives the following examples that the Plain of the Hermus River, and that of the Cayster, as also those of the Maeander and the Caicus, are so named because they are increased, or rather created, by the silt that is carried down from the mountains over the plains—that is all the silt that is fertile and soft; and that it is carried down by the rivers, so that the plains are, in fact, the offspring, as it were, of these rivers and that it is well said that they belong to these This is the same as the statement made by Herodotus in regard to the Nile and the land that borders thereon, that the land is the gift of the Nile; and for this reason Nearchus rightly says that the Nile was also called by the same name as the land Aegyptus

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17. Aristobulus says that only the mountains and their foot-hills have both rain and snow, but that the plains are free alike from rain and snow, and are inundated only when the rivers rise, that the mountains have snow in the winter-time, and at the beginning of spring-time the rains also set in and ever increase more and more, and at the time of the Etesian winds the rains pour unceasingly and violently from the clouds, both day and night, until the rising of Arcturus, and that, therefore, the rivers, thus filled from both the snows and the rains, water the plains. He says that both he himself and the others noted this when they had set out for India from Paropamisadae, after the setting of the Pleiades, and when they spent the winter near the mountainous country in the land of the Hypasians and of Assacanus, and that at the beginning of spring they went down into the plains and to Taxila, a large city, and thence to the Hydaspes River and the country of Porus; that in winter, however, no water was to be seen, but only snow; and that it first rained at Taxila, and that when, after they had gone down to the Hydaspes River and had conquered Porus, their journey led to the Hypanis River towards the east and thence back again to the Hydaspes, it rained continually, and especially at the time of the Etesian winds; but that when Arcturus rose, the rain ceased; and that after tarrying while their ships were being built on the Hydaspes River, and after beginning of the Pleiades, and, after occupying themselves all autumn and winter and the coming spring and summer with their voyage down to the seacoast, they arrived at Patalene at about the time of the rising of the Dog Star, that the voyage down to the seacoast therefore took ten months, and that they saw rains nowhere, not even when the Etesian winds were at their height, and that the plains were flooded when the rivers were filled, and the sea was not navigable when the winds were blowing in the opposite direction, and that no land breezes succeeded them.

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18 Now this is precisely what Nearchus says too, but he does not agree with Aristobulus about the summer rains, saying that the plains have rains in summer but are without rains in winter Both writers, however, speak also of the risings of the rivers Nearchus says that when they were camping near the Acesines River they were forced at the time of the rising to change to a favourable place higher up, and that this took place at the time of the summer solstice, whereas Aristobulus gives also the measure of the height to which the river rises, forty cubits, of which cubits twenty are filled by the stream above its previous depth to the margin and the other twenty are the measure of the overflow in the plains They agree also that the cities situated on the top of mounds become islands, as is the case also in Aegypt and Aethiopia, and that the overflows cease after the rising of Arcturus, when the waters recede, and they add that although the soil is sown when only half-dried, after being furrowed by any sort of digging-instrument, yet the plant comes to maturity and yields excellent fruit The rice, according to Aristobulus, stands in water enclosures and is sown in beds, and the plant is four cubits in height, not only having many ears but also yielding much grain, and the harvest is about the time of the setting of the Pleiades, and the grain is winnowed like barley; and rice grows also in Bactriana and Babylonia and Susis, as also in Lower Syria Megillus says that rice is sown before the rains, but requires irrigation and transplanting, being watered from tanks. Bosmorum, according to Onesicritus, is a smaller grain than wheat; and it grows in lands situated between rivers. It is roasted when it is threshed out, since the people take an oath beforehand that they will not carry it away unroasted from the threshing-floor, to prevent the exportation of seed.

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19. Aristobulus, comparing the characteristics of this country that are similar to those of both Aegypt and Aethiopia, and again those that are opposite thereto, I mean the fact that the Nile is flooded from the southern rains, whereas the Indian rivers are flooded from the northern, inquires why the intermediate regions have no rainfall; for neither the Thebais as far as Syene and the region of Meroe nor the region of India from Patalene as far as the Hydaspes has any rain But the country above these parts, in which both rain and snow fall, are cultivated, he says, in the same way as in the rest of the country that is outside India; for, he adds, it is watered by the rains and snows. And it is reasonable to suppose from his statements that the land is also quite subject to earthquakes, since it is made porous by reason of its great humidity and is subject to such fissures that even the beds of rivers are changed. At any rate, he says that when he was sent upon a certain mission he saw a country of more than a thousand cities, together with villages, that had been deserted because the Indus had abandoned its proper bed, and had turned aside into the other bed on the left that was much deeper, and flowed with precipitous descent like a cataract, so that the Indus no longer watered, by its overflows, the abandoned country on the right, since that country was now above the level, not only of the new stream, but also of its overflows

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20. The flooding of the rivers and the absence of land breezes is confirmed also by the statement of Onesicritus; for he says that the seashore is covered with shoal-water, and particularly at the mouths of the rivers, on account of the silt, the flood-tides, and the prevalence of the winds from the high seas. Megasthenese indicates the fertility of India by saying that it produces fruit and grain twice a year. And so says Eratosthenes. who speaks of the winter sowing and the summer sowing, and likewise of rain; for he says that the finds that no year is without rain in both seasons; so that, from this fact, the country has good seasons, never failing to produce crops; and that the trees there produce fruits in abundance, and the roots of plants, in particular those of large reeds, which are sweet both by nature and by heating, since the water from the sky as well as that of the rivers is warmed by the rays of the sun. In a sense, therefore, Eratosthenes means to say that what among other proples is called "the ripening,” whether of fruits or of juices, is called among those people a “heating,” and that ripening is as effective in producing a good flavour as heating by fire. For this reason also, he adds, the branches of the trees from which the wheels of carriages are made are flexible; and for the same reason even wool⁷ blossoms on some. From this wool, Nearchus says, finely threaded cloths are woven and the Macedonians use them for pillows and as padding for their saddles. The Serica also are of this kind, Byssus⁸ being dried out of certain barks. He states also concerning the reeds,⁹ that they produce honey, although there are no bees, and in fact that there is a fruit-bearing tree from the fruit of which honey is compounded, but that those who eat the fruit raw become intoxicated.

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21. In truth, India produces numerous strange trees, among which is the one whose branches bend downwards and whose leaves are no smaller than a shield. Onesicritus, who even in rather superfluous detail describes the country of Musicanus, which, he says, is the most southerly part of India, relates that it has some great trees whose branches have first grown to the height of twelve cubits, and then, after such growth, have grown downwards, as though bent down, till they have touched the earth; and that they then, thus distributed, have taken root underground like layers, and then, growing forth, have formed trunks: and that the branches of these trunks again, likewise bent down in their growth, have formed another layer, and then another, and so on successively, so that from only one tree there is formed a vast sunshade, like a tent with many supporting columns.¹⁰ He says also of the size of the trees that their trunks could hardly be embraced by five men. Aristobulus also, where he mentions the Acesines and its confluence with the Hyarotis,¹¹ speaks of the trees that have their branches bent downwards and of such size that fifty horsemen—according to Onesicritus, four hundred—can pass the noon in shade under one tree. Aristobulus mentions also another tree, not large, with pods, like the bean, ten fingers in length, full of honey, and says that those who eat it cannot easily be saved from death. But the accounts of all writers of the size of the trees have been surpassed by those who say that there has been seen beyond the Hyarotis a tree which casts a shade at noon of five stadia. And as for the wool-bearing trees, Aristobulus says that the flower contains a seed, and that when this is removed the rest is combed like wool.

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22. Aristobulus speaks also of a self-grown grain, similar to wheat, in the country of Musicanus, and of a vine from which wine is produced, although the other writers say that India has no wine, and therefore, according to Anacharsis, it also has no flutes, or any other musical instruments except cymbals and drums and castanets, which are possessed by the jugglers. Both he and other writers speak of this country as abounding in herbs and roots both curative and poisonous, and likewise in plants of many colours. And Aristobulus adds that they have a law whereby any person who discovers anything deadly is put to death unless he also discovers a cure for it, but if that person discovers a cure he receives a reward from the king. And he says that the southern land of India, like Arabia and Aethiopia, bears cinnamon, nard, and other aromatic products being similar to those countries in the effect of the rays of sun, although it surpasses them in the copiousness of its waters, and that therefore its air is humid and proportionately more nourishing and more productive; and that this applies both to the land and to the water, and therefore, of course, both land and water animals in India are found to be larger than those in other countries, but that the Nile is more productive than other rivers, and produces huge creatures, among others the amphibious kind, and that the Aegyptian women sometimes actually bear four children. Aristotle reports that one woman actually bore seven, and he, too, calls the Nile highly productive and nourishing because of the moderate heat of the sun's rays, which, he says, leave the nourishing element and evaporate merely the superfluous.

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23. It is probably from the same cause, as Aristotle says, that this too takes place—I mean that the water of the Nile boils with one-half the heat required by any other. But in proportion, he says, as the water of the Nile traverses in a straight course a long and narrow tract of country and passes across many "climata" and through many atmospheres, whereas the streams of India spread into greater and wider plains, lingering for a long time in the same "climata," in the same proportion those of India are more nourishing than those of the Nile; and on this account their river animals are also larger and more numerous; and further, he says, the water is already heated when it pours from the clouds.

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24. To this statement Aristobulus and his followers, who assert that the plains are not watered by rain, would not agree.

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But Onesicritus believes that rain-water is the cause of the distinctive differences in the animals; and he adduces as evidence that the colour of foreign cattle which drink it is changed to that of the native animals. Now in this he is correct; but no longer so when he lays the black complexion and woolly hair of the Aethiopians on merely the waters and censures Theodectes, who refers the cause to the sun itself, saying as follows. "Nearing the borders of these people the Sun, driving his chariot, discoloured the bodies of men with a murky dark bloom, and curled their hair, fusing it by unincreasable forms of fire." But Onesicritus might have some argument on his side; for he says that, in the first place, the sun is no nearer to the Aethiopians than to any other people, but is more nearly in a perpendicular line with reference to them and on this account scorches more, and therefore it is incorrect to say, "Nearing the borders the sun," since the sun is equidistant from all peoples, and that, secondly, the heat is not the cause of such a discoloration, for it does not apply to infants in the womb either, since the rays of the sun do not touch them. But better is the opinion of those who lay the cause to the sun and its scorching, which causes a very great deficiency of moisture on the surface of the skin And I assert that it is in accordance with this fact that the Indians do not have woolly hairs, and also that their skin is not so unmercifully scorched, I mean the fact that they share in an atmosphere that is humid. And already in the womb children, by seminal impartation, become like their parents in colour, for congenital affections and other similarities are also thus explained. Further, the statement that the sun is equidistant from all peoples is made in accordance with observation, not reason, and in accordance with observations that are not casual, but in accordance with the observation, as I put it, that the earth is no larger than a point as compared with the sun's globe; since in accordance with the kind of observation whereby we feel differences in heat—more heat when the heat is near us and less when it is far away—the sun is not equidistant from all; and it is in this sense that the sun is spoken of as "nearing the borders" of the Aethiopians, not in the sense Onesicritus thinks.

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25. The following, too, is one of the things agreed upon by all who maintain the resemblance of India to Aegypt and Aethiopia: that all plains which are not inundated are unproductive for want of water. Nearchus says that the question formerly raised in reference to the Nile as to the source of its floodings is answered by the Indian rivers, because it is the result of the summer rains; but that when Alexander saw crocodiles in the Hydaspes and Aegyptian beans in the Acesines, he thought he had found the sources of the Nile and thought of preparing a fleet for an expedition to Aegypt, thinking that he would sail as far as there by this river, but he learned a little later that he could not accomplish what he had hoped; “for between are great rivers and dreadful streams, Oceanus first.” into which all the Indian rivers empty; and then intervene Ariana, and the Persian and the Arabian Gulfs and Arabia itself and the Troglodyte country.

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Such, then, are the accounts we have of the winds and the rains, and of the flooding of the rivers, and of the inundation of the plains.

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26. But I must tell also the several details concerning the rivers, so far as they are useful for the purpose of geography and so far as I have learned their history. For the rivers in particular, being a kind of natural boundary for both the size and the shape of countries, are very convenient for the purposes of the whole of our present subject; but the Nile and the Indian rivers offer a certain advantage as compared with the rest because of the fact that apart from them the countries are uninhabitable, being at the same time navigable and tillable, and that they can neither be travelled over otherwise nor inhabited at all Now as for the rivers worthy of mention that flow down into the Indus, I shall tell their history, as also that of the countries traversed by them; but as for the rest there is more ignorance than knowledge For Alexander, who more than any other uncovered these regions, at the outset, when those who had treacherously slain Dareius set out to cause the revolt of Bactriana, resolved that it would be most desirable to pursue and overthrow them He therefore approached India through Ariana, and, leaving India on the right, crossed over Mt. Paropamisus to the northerly parts and Bactriana; and, having subdued everything there that was subject to the Persians and still more, he then forthwith reached out for India too, since many men had been describing it to him, though not clearly. Accordingly he returned, passing over the same mountains by other and shorter roads, keeping India on the left, and then turned immediately towards India and its western boundaries and the Cophes River and the Choaspes, which latter empties into the Cophes River near a city Plemyrium, after flowing past Gorys, another city, and flowing forth through both Bandobene and Gandaritis. He learned by inquiry that the mountainous and northerly part was the most habitable and fruitful, but that the southerly part was partly without water and partly washed by rivers and utterly hot, more suitable for wild beasts than for human beings. Accordingly, he set out to acquire first the part that was commended to him, at the same time considering that the rivers which it was necessary to cross, since they flow transversely and cut through the country which he meant to traverse, could more easily be crossed near their sources. At the same time he also heard that several rivers flowed together into one stream, and that this was always still more the case the farther forward they advanced, so that the country was more difficult to cross, especially in the event of lack of boats. Afraid of this, therefore, he crossed the Cophes and began to subdue all the mountainous country that faced towards east

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27 After the Cophes he went to the Indus, then to the Hydaspes, then to the Acesines and the Hyarotis, and last to the Hypanis, for he was prevented from advancing farther, partly through observance of certain oracles and partly because he was forced by his army, which had already been worn out by its labours, though they suffered most of all from the waters, being continually drenched with rain. Of the eastern parts of India, then, there have become known to us all those parts which lie this side the Hypanis, and also any parts beyond the Hypanis of which an account has been added by those who, after Alexander, advanced beyond the Hypanis, as far as the Ganges and Palibothra. Now after the Cophes follows the Indus, and the region between these rivers is occupied by Astaceni, Masiani, Nysaei, and Hypasii; and then one comes to the country of Assacanus, where is a city Mesoga, the royal seat of the country; and now near the Indus again, one comes to another city, Peucolaitis, near which a bridge that had already been built afforded a passage for the army.

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28. Between the Indus and the Hydaspes lies Taxila, a city which is large and has most excellent laws, and the country that lies round it is spacious and very fertile, immediately bordering also on the plains. Both the inhabitants and their king, Taxiles, received Alexander in a kindly way, and they obtained from Alexander more gifts than they themselves presented, so that the Macedonians were envious and said that Alexander did not have anyone, as it seemed, on whom to bestow his benefactions until he crossed the Indus. Some say that this country is larger than Aegypt. Above this country in the mountains lies the country of Abisarus, who, according to the ambassadors that came from him, kept two serpents, one eighty cubits in length and another one hundred and forty, according to Onesicritus, who cannot so properly be called arch-pilot of Alexander as of things that are incredible; for though all the followers of Alexander preferred to accept the marvellous rather than the true, Onesicritus seems to surpass all those followers of his in the telling of prodigies. However, he tells some things that are both plausible and worthy of mention, and therefore they are not passed by in silence even by one who disbelieves them At any rate, others too speak of the serpents, saying that they are caught in the Emodi mountains and kept in caves

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29 Between the Hydaspes and the Acesines is, first the country of Porus, extensive and fertile, containing about three hundred cities; and secondly, the forest near the Emodi mountains, from which Alexander cut, and brought down on the Hydaspes, a large quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and other logs of all kinds fit for shipbuilding, from which he built a fleet on the Hydaspes near the cities founded by him on either side of the river where he crossed and conquered Porus Of these cities, he named one Bucephalia, after Bucephalas, the horse which fell during the battle with Porus (the horse was called Bucephalas¹ from the width of his forehead, he was an excellent war-horse and was always used by Alexander in his fights); and he called the other Nicaea, after his victory In the forest above-mentioned both the number and the size of the long-tailed apes are alike described as so extraordinary that once the Macedonians, seeing many of these standing as in front-line array on some bare hills (for this animal is very human-like in mentality, no less so than the elephant), got the impression that they were an army of men, and they actually set out to attack them as human enemies, but on learning the truth from Taxiles, who was then with the king, desisted. The capture of the animal is effected in two ways. It is an imitative animal and takes to flight up in the trees. Now the hunters, when they see an ape seated on a tree, place in sight a bowl containing water and rub their own eyes with it; and then they put down a bowl of bird-lime instead of the water; go away, and lie in wait at a distance; and when the animal leaps down and besmears itself with the bird-lime, and when, upon winking, its eyelids are shut together, the hunters approach and take it alive. Now this is one way, but there is another. They put on baggy breeches like trousers and then go away, leaving behind them others that are shaggy and smeared inside with bird-lime; and when the animals put these on, they are easily captured.

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30. Some put both Cathaea and the country of Sopeithes, one of the provincial chiefs, between these two rivers,¹³ but others on the far side of the Acesines and the Hyarotis, as bordering on the country of the second Porus, who was a cousin¹⁴ of the Porus captured by Alexander. The country that was subject to him is called Gandaris. As for Cathaea, a most novel regard for beauty there is reported, I mean that it is prized in an exceptional manner, as, for example, for the beauty of its horses and dogs; and in fact, Onesicritus says that they choose the handsomest person as king, and that a child is judged in public after it is two months old as to whether it has the beauty of form required by law and is worthy to live or not, and that when it is judged by the appointed magistrate it is allowed to live or is put to death; and that the men dye their beards with many most florid colours for the sole reason that they wish to beautify themselves; and that this practice is carefully followed by numerous other Indian peoples also (for the country produces marvellous colours, he says), who dye both their hair and their garments, and that the people, though shabby in every other way, are fond of adornment. The following too is reported as a custom peculiar to the Cathaeans: the groom and bride choose one another themselves, and wives are burned up with their deceased husbands for a reason of this kind—that they sometimes fell in love with young men and deserted their husbands or poisoned them; and therefore the Cathaeans established this as a law, thinking that they would put a stop to the poisoning. However, the law is not stated in a plausible manner, nor the cause of it either. It is said that in the country of Sopeithes there is a mountain of mineral salt sufficient for the whole of India. And gold and silver mines are reported in other mountains not far away, excellent mines, as has been plainly shown by Gorgus the mining expert. But since the Indians are inexperienced in mining and smelting, they also do not know what their resources are, and handle the business in a rather simple manner.

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31. Writers narrate also the excellent qualities of the dogs in the country of Sopeithes. They say, at any rate, that Alexander received one hundred and fifty dogs from Sopeithes; and that, to prove them, two were let loose to attack a lion, and, when they were being overpowered, two others were let loose upon him, and that then, the match having now become equal, Sopeithes bade someone to take one of the dogs by the leg and pull him away, and if the dog did not yield, to cut off his leg; and that Alexander would not consent to cutting off the dog's leg at first, wishing to spare the dog, but consented when Sopeithes said that he would give him four instead; and that the dog suffered the cutting off of his leg by slow amputation before he let go his grip.

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32. Now the march to the Hydaspes was for the most part towards the south, but from there to the Hypanis it was more towards the east, and as a whole it kept to the foothills more than to the plains At all events, Alexander, when he returned from the Hypanis to the Hydaspes and the naval station, proceeded to make ready his fleet and then to set sail on the Hydaspes. All the above-mentioned rivers, last of all the Hypanis, unite in one river, the Indus, and it is said that the Indus is joined by fifteen noteworthy rivers all told, and that after being filled so full by all that it is widened in some places, according to writers who are immoderate, even to the extent of one hundred stadia, but, according to the more moderate, fifty at the most and seven at the least (and there are many tribes and cities all about it), it then empties into the southern sea by two mouths and forms the island called Patalene Alexader conceived this purpose¹ after dismissing from his mind the parts towards the east; first, because he had been prevented from crossing the Hypanis, and, secondly, because he had learned by experience the falsity of the report which had preoccupied his mind, that the parts in the plains were burning hot and more habitable for wild beasts than for a human race; and therefore he set out for these parts, dismissing those others, so that the former became better known than those others.

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33 Now the country between the Hypanis and the Hydaspes is said to contain nine tribes, and also cities to the number of five thousand—cities no smaller than Cos Meropis, though the number stated seems to be excessive. And as for the country between the Indus and the Hydaspes, I have stated approximately the peoples worthy of mention by which it is inhabited;¹⁶ and below them, next in order, are the people called Sibae, whom I have mentioned before¹⁷ and the Malli and the Sydracae, large tribes. It was in the country of the Malli that Alexander was in peril of death, being wounded in the capture of some small city; and as for the Sydracae, I have already spoken of them as mythically akin to Dionysus.¹⁸ Near Patalene, they say, one comes at once to the country of Musicanus, and to that of Sabus, where is Sindomana, and also to the country of Porticanus and others, who, one and all, were conquered by Alexander, these peoples dwelling along the river-lands of the Indus; but last of all to Patalene, a country formed by the Indus, which branches into two mouths. Now Aristobulus says that these mouths are one thousand stadia distant from one another, but Nearchus adds eight hundred; and Onesicritus reckons each of the two sides of the included island, which is triangular in shape, at two thousand, and the width of the river, where it branches into the mouths, at about two hundred; and he calls the island Delta, and says that it is equal in size to the Aegyptian Delta, a statement which is not true. For it is said that the Aegyptian Delta has a base of one thousand three hundred stadia, though each of the two sides is shorter than the base In Patalene there is a noteworthy city, Patala, after which the island is named

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34. Onesicritus says that most of the seaboard in this part of the world abounds in shoals, particularly at the mouths of the rivers, on account of the silt and the overflows and also of the fact that no breezes blow from the land, and that this region is subject for the most part to winds that blow from the high sea. He describes also the country of Musicanus, lauding it rather at length for things of which some are reported as common also to other Indians, as, for example, their length of life, thirty years beyond one hundred (and indeed some say that the Seres live still longer than this), and their healthfulness, and simple diet, even though their country has an abundance of everything Peculiar to them is the fact that they have a kind of Laconian common mess, where they eat in public and use as food the meat of animals taken in the chase, and that they do not use gold or silver, although they have mines; and that instead of slaves they use young men in the vigour of life, as the Cretans use the Aphamiotae and the Laconians the Helots; and that they make no accurate study of the sciences except that of medicine, for they regard too much training in some of them as wickedness, for example, military science and the like, and that they have no process at law except for murder and outrage, for it is not in one’s power to avoid suffering these, whereas the content of contracts is in the power of each man himself, so that he is required to endure it if anyone breaks faith with him, and also to consider carefully who should be trusted and not to fill the city with lawsuits. This is the account of those who made the expedition with Alexander.

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35 But there has also been published a letter of Craterus to his mother Aristopatra, which alleges many other strange things and agrees with no one else, particularly in saying that Alexander advanced as far as the Ganges And he says that he himself saw the river and monsters on its banks, and a magnitude both of width and of depth which is remote from credibility rather than near it Indeed, it is sufficiently agreed that the Ganges is the largest of known rivers on the three continents, and after it the Indus, and third and fourth the Ister and the Nile; but the several details concerning it are stated differently by different writers, some putting its minimum breadth at thirty stadia and others even at three, whereas Megasthenes says that when its breadth is medium it widens even to one hundred stadia and that its least depth is twenty fathoms.¹⁹

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36. It is said that Palibothra lies at the confluence of the Ganges and the other river a city eighty stadia in length and fifteen in breadth, in the shape of a parallelogram, and surrounded by a wooden wall that is perforated so that arrows can be shot through the holes, and that in front of the wall lies a trench used both for defence and as a receptacle of the sewage that flows from the city, and that the tribe of people amongst whom this city is situated is called the Prasii and is far superior to all the rest; and that the reigning king must be surnamed after the city, being called Palibothrus in addition to his own family name, as, for example, King Sandrocottus to whom Megasthenes was sent on an embassy. Such is also the custom among the Parthians; for all are called Arsaces, although personally one king is called Orodes, another Phraotes, and another something else

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37 Writers are agreed that the country as a whole on the far side of the Hypanis is best, but they do not describe it accurately, and because of their ignorance and of its remoteness magnify all things or make them more marvellous. For example, the stories of the ants that mine gold and of other creatures, both beasts and human beings, which are of peculiar form and in respect to certain natural powers have undergone complete changes, as, for example, the Seres, who, they say, are long-lived, and prolong their lives even beyond two hundred years. They tell also of a kind of aristocratic order of government that was composed outright of five thousand counsellors, each of whom furnishes the new commonwealth with an elephant Megasthenes says that the largest tigers are found among the Prasii, even nearly twice as large as lions, and so powerful that a tame one, though being led by four men, seized a mule by the hind leg and by force drew the mule to itself; and that the long-tailed apes are larger than the largest dogs, are white except their faces, which are black (the contrary is the case elsewhere), that their tails are more than two cubits long, and that they are very tame and not malicious as regards attacks and thefts, and that stones are dug up of the colour of frankincense and sweeter than figs or honey; and that in other places there are reptiles two cubits long with membranous wings like bats, and that they too fly by night, discharging drops of urine, or also of sweat, which putrefy the skin of anyone who is not on his guard, and that there are winged scorpions of surpassing size, and that ebony is also produced; and that there are also brave dogs, which do not let go the object bitten till water is poured down into their nostrils; and that some bite so vehemently that their eyes become distorted and sometimes actually fall out, and that even a lion was held fast by a dog, and also a bull, and that the bull was actually killed, being overpowered through the dog's hold on his nose before he could be released.

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38. Megasthenes goes on to say that in the mountainous country there is a River Silas on which nothing floats, that Democritus, however, disbelieves this, inasmuch as he had wandered over much of Asia. But Aristotle also disbelieves it, although there are atmospheres so thin that no winged creature can fly in them Besides, certain rising vapours tend to attract to themselves and "gulp down", as it were, whatever flies over them, as amber does with chaff and the magnet with iron; and perhaps there might also be natural powers of this kind in water. Now these things border, in a way, on natural philosophy and on the science of floating bodies, and therefore should be investigated there; but in this treatise I must add still the following, and whatever else is close to the province of geography.

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