The Classical Accounts of India c23.4

c23.4

NICOLAUS DAMASCENUS, in a fragment preserved by Strabo, relates that at Antioch Epidaphne he fell in with three Indian ambassadors, then on their way to the court of Augustus. They were, as their letter showed, the survivors of a larger embassy, to the other members of which the length of the journey principally had proved fatal. Their letter was written on parchment and in the name of Porus and in Greek. It set forth that Porus, though lord over six hundred kings, much valued the friendship of, and was ready to open his dominions to, Caesar, and to assist him on all just and lawful occasions. The presents they brought with them were in the charge of eight well-anointed slaves naked all but their girdles, and consisted of a youth whose arms had been amputated at the shoulders in childhood, a sort of Hermes, some large vipers, a snake ten cubits long, a river tortoise of four cubits, and a partridge somewhat larger than a vulture. With the ambassadors was that Indian, who burned himself at Athens—not to escape from present ills, but because, hitherto successful in everything he had undertaken, he now feared, lest any longer life should bring him misery and disappointment; and so smiling, naked and perfumed, he leaped into the buring pile. On his tomb was placed this inscription :—