The Classical Accounts of India c21: XIV. Miscellaneous Notices

The Classical Accounts of India c21

Language: English

c21.s1 1. Polybius — 2 parts
c21.s2 2. Pausanias — 6 parts
c21.s3 3. Totius Orbis Descriptio — 4 parts
c21.s4 4. Anonymi Geographiae Expositio Compendiaria — 3 parts
c21.s5 5. Dion Cassius — 5 parts
c21.s6 6. Ammianus Marcellinus — 2 parts
c21.s7 7. Sextus Aurelius Victor — 2 parts
c21.s8 8. Joannes Malala — 2 parts
c21.s9 9. Appian — 2 parts
c21.s10 10. Eusebius Pamphili — 3 parts
c21.s11 11. Propertius — 2 parts
c21.s12 12. Horace — 6 parts
c21.s13 13. Virgil — 6 parts
c21.s14 14. Phlegon — 2 parts
c21.s15 15. Nicolaus Damascenus — 3 parts
c21.s16 16. Athenaeus — 2 parts
c21.s17 17. Polyaenus — 4 parts
c21.s18 18. Solinus — 30 parts

XIV. Miscellaneous Notices

1. Polybius

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Polybius, the historian, was born at Megalopolis in Arcadia about 204 B.C. His *History*, which consisted of forty books, of which some are lost, has been described as the History of the growth of the Roman power to the downfall of the independence of Greece (from 220 B.C. to 146 B.C.). Polybius died at the age of 82.

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XI. 34. Antiochus (the Great) received the young prince (Demetrius, son of Euthydemus), and judging from his appearance, conversation, and the dignity of his manners that he was worthy of royal power, he first promised to give him one of his own daughters, and secondly conceded the royal title to his father. And having on the other points caused a written treaty to be drawn up, and the terms of the treaty to be confirmed on oath, he marched away, after liberally provisioning his troops, and accepting the elephants belonging to Euthydemus. He crossed the Caucasus and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus, the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had 150 altogether;¹ and having once more provisioned his troops set out again personally with his army, leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him. Having traversed Arachosis and crossed the river Erymanthus,² he came through Drangene to Carmania; and as it was now winter, he put his men into winter quarters there.—*Shuckburg's Trans.*

2. Pausanias

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Pausanias, who appears to have been a native of Lydia, and who belonged to the age of the Antonines, was the author of a work called *Hellados Periegesis*, that is, an Itinerary of Greece, in which the objects worth notice are described.

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IV. xxxiv. The rivers of Greece do not breed animals that kill human beings like the Indus, the Egyptian Nile, the Rhine, the Danube, the Euphrates, and the Phasis, for these rivers produce monsters the most noted for preying on human flesh and resembling in shape the shads of the Hermos and Maeander, but darker in colour and stronger. The Indus and the Nile have both of them crocodiles. The Nile has besides the hippopotamus, which is as deadly an enemy to man as the crocodile.

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IV. xxxii. But I know that the Chaldaeans and the Indian sages have asserted that the soul of man is immortal.

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IX. xxi. The wild beast described in the *Indika* of Ktesias, which is called by the Indians Martikhora, and by the Greeks Androphagos (man-eater), I take to be the tiger. In each jaw it has three rows of teeth, and at the tip of its tail it is armed with stings, by which it defends itself in close fight, and which it discharges against distant foes, just like an arrow shot by an archer. This report which the Indians, it appears to me, receive by tradition, is not true, but has arisen from their dread of this ferocious beast. They have been mistaken even as to its colour, for when the tiger is seen by them in the sunlight, it appears to be all of one red colour through the speed with which it runs, or, should it not be running, through the agility with which it is ever turning its body from this to that side, especially as one cannot without risk get a near view of it.

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VIII. xxix. (*From the passage which precedes the following quotation we learn that a Roman emperor, when advancing against Antioch, had dug a canal into which he diverted the waters of the river Orontes*). When the old bed had been left dry, there was found in it an earthen coffin about eleven cubits in length containing a human body, with all its parts and of the same size as the coffin. When the Syrians consulted the oracle of the Klarian Apollo, the response declared that the body was that of Orontes, and that he belonged to the Indian nation. Now if the earth in the beginning was humid and full of moisture, and, being warmed by the sun, made the first men, where in the world was there a moister country than India, or one better fitted to produce bigger men, when even to our day it breeds animals of a marvellous appearance and of extraordinary size?

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III. xii. 3. Traders to India tell us that the Indians give their own wares in exchange for those of the Greeks without employing money, even though they have gold and copper in abundance.

3. Totius Orbis Descriptio

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A Latin translation of a lost Greek original composed either at Antioch or Alexandria between A.D. 350 and 353.

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Section 16. Next comes India Major, from which silk and all kinds of necessaries are said to be exported. Its people live like their next neighbours and spend their years agreeably, inhabiting a country of great extent and fertility, which it takes 210 days to traverse.

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17. Beyond and adjoining these is a country which is said to be inhabited by men remarkably industrious—good at fighting and at work of every kind. India Minor accordingly seek their aid as often as war is waged upon them by the Persians. They are abundantly supplied with everything, and the country they inhabit takes 150 days to traverse.

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18. Beyond these lie the inhabitants of India Minor, who are governed from India Major. They have elephants without number, which they dispose of to the Persians. Their country is traversed in fifteen days.

4. Anonymi Geographiae Expositio Compendiaria

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An unknown writer who follows Eratosthenes and Ptolemy.

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VI. 24 All the rest of the continent as far as China (Thinas) is of vast extent and inhabited by many nations, and belongs to the Indians, whose dominions are bounded by the Sinae on the east, by Gedrosia on the west, by the Paropanisadae, Arachosia, the Sogdiani and Sacae, Scythia, and finally Serica¹ on the north.

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25 To this continent belongs also an immense island in the Indian Sea, called formerly Simunda, but now Salice, which they say produces all the necessaries of life and metals of all kinds. The men who inhabit it are reported to encircle their heads with tresses of hair like those of women.

5. Dion Cassius

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Dion Cassius, the grandson by the mother's side of the famous orator, Dion Chrysostom,⁴ was born at Nicaea in Bithynia, about A D 155 When about twenty-five years of age he proceeded to Rome where he twice held the consulship He was the author of several works, of which the greatest is his *History of Rome* (*Romaike Istoria*), contained in eighty books, which embrace the whole history down to A D 229 Much of the work has been lost, but the books, which still exist complete, are among the most valuable

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*Hist. Rom.* IX. 58. Many embassies came to him (Augustus), and the Indians having previously proclaimed a treaty of alliance, concluded it now with the presentation, among other gifts, of tigers, animals which the Romans, and, if I mistake not, the Greeks as well, saw then for the first time. They gave also a lad without arms, like the statues of Mercury one sees, but who made up for the want of hands by employing his feet, with which he could bend a bow, throw a dart, and play on the trumpet.

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Dion then relates that one of the Indians, Zarmaros, burned himself, after the manner of his country, on a funeral pile, in presence of Augustus and the Athenians. Strabo, who mentions the incident, calls Zarmaros Zarmanochegas.⁵ Florus, in his *Epitome of Roman History* (iv. 12), mentions that the ambassadors complained of the length of the journey, which occupied four years, and that among their presents were precious stones, pearls, and elephants. Florus wrote in the days of Trajan. Orosius, who flourished about 420 A.D., states in his *History* (vi. 12) that an embassy from the Scythians and the Indians reached Caesar (Augustus) at Tarraco in Hither Spain, having thus traversed the world from end to end.

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And to Trajan after he had arrived in Rome there came a great many embassies from barbarian courts, and especially from the Indians, and he offered shows . . . . . in which wild beasts without number were slaughtered, because Trajan made the deputies who came from the kings sit in the seats of the senators when viewing the show.

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**LXVII. 28** He (Trajan) having reached the ocean (at the mouth of the Tigris) saw a vessel setting sail for India

6. Ammianus Marcellinus

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Ammianus Marcellinus was a native of Antioch in Syria. He settled in Rome and there composed his "History" (fourth century A D.)

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**XXII. vii. 10** Embassies from all quarters flocked to him (the Emperor Julian in 361 A.D.), the Indian nations vying with emulous zeal in sending their foremost men with presents, as far as from the Divi (Maldives) and the Serendivi (Cylonese).

7. Sextus Aurelius Victor

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This historian was of humble origin but, by the cultivation of literature, rose even to the consular office. He flourished in the middle of the fourth century under the Emperor Constantius and his successors. He was the author of a work *De Caesaribus*, consisting of short biographies of the emperors from Augustus to Constantius. The quotation given below is from an Epitome of Victor.

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*Epit.* **XVI.** Yea, even the Indians, Bactrians, Hyrcanians sent ambassadors, having had knowledge of the justice of a prince so mighty (of the Emperor Julian).

8. Joannes Malala

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Malala was a native of Antioch and a Byzantine historian He wrote subsequently to the death of Justinian but how long after that event is not known His *History* is full of absurd stories but is valuable for the history of Justinian and his immediate predecessors

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P. 477. At the same time (A.D. 530) an ambassador of the Indians was sent to Constantinople.

9. Appian

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Appian flourished early in the second century A D

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*De Bell. Civ.* V 9. They (the people of Palmyra) being merchants, bring from Persia to Arabia Indian commodities, which they dispose of to the Romans.

10. Eusebius Pamphili

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Eusebius Pamphili of Caesareia the Father of Ecclesiastical History, was born in Palestine in the year A D 264 While attending the Nicene Council, he sat at the right hand of Constantine the Great He died, three years after the death of the emperor, in 340 We are indebted to him for the notice of the mission of Pantainos to India

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*De Vita Constant.* IV. 50. Ambassadors from the Indians of the East brought presents . . . which they presented to the king (Constantine the Great) as an acknowledgement that his sovereignty extended to their ocean. They told him, too, how the Princes of India had dedicated pictures and statues in his honour in token that they recognised him as their autocrat and king"

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*E.H.* V 10. They say that he (Pantainos) showed such a zeal for the divine word that he was consecrated to preach the Gospel of Christ to the nations of the East, being sent all the way to the Indians. For there were even up till that time many evangelists of the word*, who, with a holy zeal of imitating the Apostles, sought to contribute to the spread and upbuilding of the divine word. One of these was Pantainos, and he is said to have gone to the Indians. There, report says, he found that the Gospel according to Matthew had been introduced before his arrival, and was in the hands of some of the natives, who acknowledged Christ, and to whom Bartholomew, one of the Apostles, had preached, and left with them that Gospel written in the Hebrew character and preserved to this day.⁹

11. Propertius

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Sextus Propertius was the greatest of the Elegiac poets of Rome His poems as they have come down to us consist of four books containing 4046 lines of elegiac verse He flourished in the first half of the first century B.C.

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Book. IV. Elegy 3.—Thee but now did Bactra see *marching* through the traversed and retraversed east—thee but now the Seric foe on his armed steed and the wintry Getae and Britannia in her painted battle-car, and the sun-scorched tawny Indian on his orient steed.¹⁰

12. Horace

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Horace, the famous Roman poet, was born in 65 BC and composed his *Odes* about 24 B.C

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*Odes.* I. 12. He (Augustus) whether he drives along in proper triumph the Parthians . . or the Seres and Indians who dwell hard by the confines of the East . . . ..shall rule with equity the wide world.

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*Odes.* I. 22 The regions which Hydaspes laves, the river of romance.

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*Odes.* III 24. Although possessed of wealth beyond the untouched treasures of the Arabs and opulent India.

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*Odes.* IV 14. You (Augustus) the Cantabrians . . . . . .. revere and the Medes and the Indians.

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*Epistles.* I. 6. What deem you of .. ....the gifts of the sea which enriches the far distant Arabs and Indians?

13. Virgil

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Virgil, the great Roman poet and author of the *Georgics* (composed between 37 and 30 BC) and *Aeneid* (finished in 19 BC)

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*Georg.* I. 57. India produces ivory

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*Georg.* II. 116-17. India alone produces black ebony.

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*Georg.* II. 122-24. Why speak of......the forests which India bears hard by the Ocean—the utmost corner of the worldforests where no shot of the arrow can reach the sky that tops the trees, and the natives are not slow when they take up the quiver?

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Georg. II. 136-39. But neither Median forests, wealthiest of climes, nor lovely Ganges, nor Hermus, whose mud is gold, may vie with the glories of Italy. No, nor Bactra, nor India, nor Panchaia, with all the richness of its incense-bearing sands.

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*Aeneid*. IX. 30-31. Like Ganges with his seven calm streams proudly rising through the silence.¹¹

14. Phlegon

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An extract from the book *On Marvels* by Phlegon, of Tralles in Asia Minor, a Greek writer who flourished in the second century A.D.

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Megasthenes says that the women of the Pandaian realm bear children when they are six years of age.¹²

15. Nicolaus Damascenus

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Nicolaus Damascenus, Greek historian and philosopher of Damascus, flourished in the time of Augustus The two following passages are preserved by Johannes Stobaios, mentioned above (Stab, *Serm* 12)

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Among the Indians one who is unable to recover a loan or a deposit has no remedy at law. All the creditor can do is to blame himself *for trusting a rogue*.¹³

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He who causes an artisan to lose his eye or his hand is put to death. If one is guilty of a very heinous offence the king orders his hair to be cropped, this being a punishment to the last degree infamous ¹⁴

16. Athenaeus

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Athenaeus (of Naucratis in Egypt) Greek rhetorician and grammarian (2nd-3rd century A D), author of *Deipnosophistae* or authorities on banquets

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IV. p. 153. Megasthenes, in the second book of his *Indica*, says that when the Indians are at supper a table is placed before each person, this being like a tripod. There is placed upon it a golden bowl, into which they first put rice, boiled as one would boil barley and then they add many dainties prepared according to Indian receipts.¹⁵

17. Polyaenus

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Polyaenus, a Macedonian (second century A.D.), lived at Rome and wrote a book called Strategica or *Strategemata*, a historical collection of stratagems I. 1. 1-3. Dionysos, in his expedition against the Indians, in order that the cities might receive him willingly, disguised the arms with which he had equipped his troops, and made them wear soft raiment and fawn-skins. The spears were wrapped round with ivy, and the thyrsus had a sharp point. He gave the signal for battle by cymbals and drums instead of the trumpet, and by regaling the enemy with wine diverted their thoughts from war to dancing. These and all other Bacchic orgies were employed in the system of warfare by which he subjugated the Indians and all the rest of Asia.

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Dionysos, in the course of his Indian campaign, seeing that his army could not endure the fiery heat of the air, took forcible possession of the three-peaked mountain of India. Of these peaks one is called Korasibie, another Kondaskê, but to the third he himself gave the name of Mêros, in remembrance of his birth. Thereon were many fountains of water sweet to drink, game in great plenty, tree-fruits in unsparing profusion, and snows which gave new vigour to the frame. The troops quartered there made a sudden descent upon the barbarians of the plain, whom they easily routed, since they attacked them with missiles from a commanding position on the heights above.

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Dionysos, after conquering the Indians, invaded Baktria, taking with him as auxiliaries the Indians and Amazons. That country has for its boundary the river Saranges. The Baktrians seized the mountains overhanging that river with a view to attack Dionysos, in crossing it, from a post of advantage. He, however, having encamped along the river, ordered the Amazons and the Bakkhai to cross it, in order that the Baktrians, in their contempt for women, might be induced to come down from the heights. The women then assayed to cross the stream, and the enemy came downhill, and advancing to the river endeavoured to beat them back. The women then retreated, and the Baktrians pursued them as far as the bank; then Dionysos, coming to the rescue with his men, slew the Baktrians, who were impeded from fighting by the current, and he crossed the river in safety. ¹⁶

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I. 3. 4. Herakles begat a daughter in India whom he called Pandia. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to southward and extends to the sea, while he distributed the people subject to her rule into 365 villages, giving orders that one village should each day bring to the treasury the royal tribute, so that the queen might always have the assistance of those men whose turn it was to pay the tribute in coercing those who for the time being were defaulters in their payments.¹⁷

18. Solinus

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Gaius Julius Solinus, Latin grammarian and compiler (first half of the third century AD), was the author of *Collectanea rerum memorabilium*, a description of curiosities in a chorographical framework

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52. 5. Father Bacchus was the first who invaded India, and was the first of all who triumphed over the vanquished Indians. From him to Alexander the Great 6451 years are reckoned with 3 months additional, the calculation being made by counting the kings who reigned in the intermediate period to the number of 153.¹⁸

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52. 6-17. The greatest rivers of India are the Ganges and Indus, and of these some assert that the Ganges rises from uncertain sources and inundates the country in the manner of the Nile, while others incline to think that it rises in the Scythian mountains. [The Hypanis is also there, a very noble river, which formed the limit of Alexander’s march, as the altars erected on its banks prove.]

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The least breadth of the Ganges is eight miles, and its greatest twenty. Its depth where it is shallowest is fully a hundred feet. The people who live in the furthest-off part are the Gangarides, whose king possesses 1000 horse, 700 elephants, and 60,000 foot in apparatus of war.

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Of the Indians some cultivate the soil, very many follow war, and others trade. The noblest and richest manage public affairs, administer justice, and sit in council with the kings. There exists also a fifth class, consisting of those most eminent for their wisdom, who, when sated with life, seek death by mounting a burning funneral pile. Those, however, who have become the devotees of a sterner sect, and pass their life in the woods, hunt elephants which, when made quite tame and docile, they use for ploughing and for riding on

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In the Ganges there is an island extremely populous, occupied by a very powerful nation whose king keeps under arms 50,000 foot and 4000 horse. In fact no one invested with kingly power ever keeps on foot a military force without a very great number of elephants and foot and cavalry.

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The Prasian nation, which is extremely powerful, inhabits a city called Palibotra, whence some call the nation itself the Palibotri. Their king keeps in his pay at all times 60,000 foot 30,000 horse, and 8000 elephants.

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Beyond Palibotra is Mount Maleus, on which shadows in winter fall towards the north, in summer towards the south, for six months alternately. In that region the Bears are seen but once a year, and not for more than fifteen days, as Beton informs us, who allows that this happens in many parts of India. Those living near the river Indus in the regions that turn southward are scorched more than others by the heat, and at last the complexion of the people is visibly affected by the great power of the sun. The mountains are inhabited by the Pygmies.

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But those who live near the sea have no kings.

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The Pandaean nation is governed by females, and their first queen is said to have been the daughter of Hercules. The city Nysa is assigned to this region, as is also the mountain sacred to Jupiter, Meros by name, in a cave on which the ancient Indians affirm Father Bacchus was nourished; while the name has given rise to the well-known fantastic story that Bacchus was born from the thigh of his father. Beyond the mouth of the Indus are two islands, Chryse and Argyre, which yield such an abundant supply of metals that many writers allege their soils consist of gold and of silver.¹⁹

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² This important and interesting episode of Indian history is known only from this passage

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⁴ The Helmund in Kandahar It is also called Erymandros and Etymandros by Classical writers

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¹ Sinae and Serica probably refer respectively, to South-East and North-West China

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⁴ See p. 431

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⁵ See p 282

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⁶ This embassy reached Constantinople in the last year of the Emperor Constantine the Great, 336-7 A.D

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⁷ Pantainos, who seems to have been of Sicilian parentage, was educated, if not also born, in Alexandria The priniples of Stoicism, which he first embraced, he abandoned for those of Christianity. In A D. 181 he was appointed Head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria He was alive in AD 211.

Cites (4)

Res gestae — Ammianus Marcellinus, Latin
Ἰνδική — Λούκιος Φλάουιος Ἀρριανός, Ancient Greek
Indus Civilisation
Pāṭaliputra