The Classical Accounts of India c19: XII. Dionysios Periegetes
The Classical Accounts of India c19
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XII. Dionysios Periegetes
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Dionysios is distinguished from a host of writers of the same name by the surname of Periegetes from his authorship of a work in hexameter verse which contains a *Description of the whole world* Nothing is known for certain either of the age or the country of this Dionysios, but he probably wrote towards the end of the third century A D. His poem became so popular that it was translated into Latin verse and used as a schoolbook for teaching geography The original consists of 1187 lines, of which 85 are devoted to the description of India and its conquest by Bacchus The work is one of considerable poetic merit The following extracts are based upon the English Translation of McCrindle (M V, 187-90)
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Ll 1080-1165. Direct now they attention eastwards to the part of Asia that still is left over, for the delineation of the continent is now nearing its completion. Hard by the Persian waters of the ocean dwell the Carmanians under the orient sun—settled not far off from the Persian land in separate spheres of the country, some along the shores of the sea and others in the interior. To the east of these stretches away the land of the Gedrosians, lying on the verge of the vast ocean, next to whom in the orient dwell the Scythians of the South, on the banks of the river Indus, which welling from fountains amid the soaring peaks of Caucasus, and rushing with furious speed straight south, goes, in ending its course, to encounter the tide of the Erythraean. The river has two mouths, and dashes against the island enclosed between them, called in the tongue of the natives, Patalene Many, need I say, are the races of men whom it disparts. On the side where the sun sinks to his couch, are the Oreitans and Aribes and the Arachotians clad in linen mantles, and the Satraidans and the dalesmen of Parnasos¹—all bearing the common name of Areianians. Far from delectable is the land of their abode—here a wilderness of barren sand, and there a dense jungle But withal there are ways by which help comes to these poor mortals, for the earth yields them unalloyed wealth in another form—for they find the stone of red coral everywhere, and everywhere again the veins of underlying rocks give birth to beauteous tablets of the golden-hued and azure sapphire-stone, which they detach from the parent rock and part with at prices which yield them a livelihood. But on the eastern side the lovely land of the Indians lies outspread, the last of all lands, on the very lips of the ocean where the ascending sun with his earliest beams scatters heat and radiance over the works of gods and men. Hence the complexions of the dwellers there are dark, their limbs exquisitely sleek and smooth, and the hair of their head surpassing soft, and dark-blue like the hyacinth. They are variously occupied—some by mining seek for the matrix of gold, digging the soil with well-curved pickaxes; others ply the loom to weave textures of linen; others saw the tusks of elephants and burnish them to the brightness of silver; and others along the courses of mountain torrents search for precious stones—the green beryl, or the sparkling diamond, or the pale-green translucent jasper, or the yellow-stone of the pure topaz, or the sweet amethyst, which with a milder glow imitates the hue of purple. For India enriches her sons with wealth in every form, being everywhere watered with perennial streams; nay, having moreover its meadows bedecked even with perpetual verdure, for while in one place the fields are covered with crops of grain, they flourish elsewhere with whole forests of the red-hued reed.
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Attend to me now while I tell thee of the shape of India, and of its rivers and high-soaring mountains, and of the races of men who possess it. It has four sides which make oblique angles at their points of junction, so that it thus somewhat resembles a rhombus in shape. On the west its frontier is determined by the waters of the Indus, on the south by the billows of the Erythraean sea, on the east by the Ganges, and in the quarter of the polar Bears by Caucasus. Many are the men who possess this country, and happy the lives they lead, but they do not form a single community bearing a common name; on the contrary, they are separated into various tribes, each with a name of its own. Thus those called Dardanians have their seats by the mighty flood of the Indus, where the tortuous Akesines, sweeping down from his rock, is received by the navigable waters of the Hydaspes. After these follows third the Kophes with its silver eddies—and between them dwell the Sibai and Taxilans and then the Skodroi. Next come the wild tribes of the Peukalensians, beyond whom lie the seats of the Gargaridae, worshippers of Bacchus, where, swiftest of streams, the Hypanis, and the divine Magarses carry down the shining seeds of gold. Rushing down from the heights of Emodos² these rivers take their course to the regions of the Ganges, sweeping on to the frontiers of the realms of Kolis in the south. Now, the land here projects into the deep-whirling ocean in steep precipices, over which the fowls of heaven in swift flight can hardly wing their way, whence men have named the Rock Aornis. Then again, hard by the fair-flowing Ganges is wondrous spot of holy ground greatly honoured, having once on a time been trodden by the infuriated Bacchus, when his soft fawn-skins were exchanged for shields, and his thyrsi rushed into swords of steel, and their ivy-wreaths and curling tendrils of the vine became coils of snakes, because at that time the people in their folly paid no heed to the festival of the god. Hence arose the name they gave the place, that of the Nysaean track, and hence along with their children they began to celebrate the orgies with all the due rites. But the god himself, when he had crushed the dark-coloured Indian races, advanced to the mountains of Emodos, at whose base rolls the mighty stream of the Eastern Ocean.
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² The Himalayas
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Priscian, the celebrated grammarian, translated the poem of Dionysios into Latın hexameter verse, in which occur the following lines, to which I can find nothing correspondent in the original text :—
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Some of the Indians are so tall that they can mount elephants with as much ease as they mount horses. Others who pursue wisdom go about naked, and, what is wonderful, look with eyes undazzled on the sun, and, while concentrating their vision on his rays, concentrate also their minds on the holy themes, and in his light grasp the meaning of the secret signs of what is to be. Indigenous here is the green parrot adorned round the neck with a ring of red feathers—the bird which imitates the accents of the human tongue.
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¹ Evidently Mount Paropanisus (Hindu Kush).
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FOOTNOTES.