The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c35.s7: Chapters XV and XVI. Alexander the Great; India in Early Greek and Latin Literature
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c35.s7
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Chapters XV and XVI. Alexander the Great; India in Early Greek and Latin Literature
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1. ANCIENT AUTHORS.
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Arrian (Flavius Arrianus), a Greek, or Hellenised native, of Bithynia, and an official of the Roman empire; consul suffectus c. 130 A.D. and still alive in 171–2 A.D. Two of his works bear on India:
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(*a*) ᾿Αλεξάνδρου ᾿Ανάβασις, Alexandri Anabasis; recent edn. that of A. G. Roos (Leipzig, 1907). [The most trustworthy of the ancient accounts of Alexander's expedition which have come down to us, based mainly on the accounts of Ptolemy and Aristobulus.]
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—— Trans. J. W. M'Crindle. (In The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great. 2nd edn. Westminster, 1896.)
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(*b*) ᾿Ινδική, Indica. (Included in edn. of Arrian's Scripta Minora by A. Eberhard. Leipzig, 1885.) [A brief account of the geography, manners, and customs of India, drawn from Nearchus, Megasthenes, and Eratosthenes.]
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—— Trans. M'Crindle. (In Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian. London, 1877.)
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Diodorus, of Agyrion in Sicily; travelled in the Eastern Mediterranean c. 60 B.C.; lived till after 36 B.C. [See Pauly-Wissowa, v, 663.] He wrote a history of the world, under the title Βιβλιοθήκη; edn. of Books I–XV by F. Vogel (Leipzig, 1888, 1890, 1893), of Books XVI–XVIII by C. T. Fischer (Leipzig, 1906). [Book II, chaps. 35–42, gives an account of India taken from Megasthenes; trans. M'Crindle in Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian. Book XVII contains an account of Alexander's expedition, derived in part from Clitarchus; trans. M'Crindle in The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great. Book XIX, chaps. 33–4, contains the account of the *satī* (*v. sup.* pp. 414–15); trans. M'Crindle in Ancient India as described in Classical Literature (Westminster, 1901), pp. 202 f.]
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Quintus Curtius Rufus; nothing known of his life, fixed by his style to the first century A.D.; title of his Latin work, Historiae Alexandri Magni; ed. E. Hedicke (Leipzig, 1908). [The rhetorical character of the book points to Clitarchus as its main source.] Trans. of the part relating to India by M'Crindle (in The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great).
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Plutarch, of Chaeronea in Boeotia; c. 45–125 A.D. [Chaps. 57–67 of his Life of Alexander are concerned with India. Edn. of the Lives by K. Sintenis (Leipzig; vol. III, 1881); trans. by M'Crindle in The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great.]
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Justin (Marcus Junianus Justinus); second half of second century A.D.; composed an Epitome of the (now lost) Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus, a man of Gallic origin, who published his Latin Historiae some time between 20 B.C. and 14 A.D.; edn. of Justin's Epitome, together with a series of short summaries by another hand of the contents of the 44 Books of the lost work (the Prologi), by I. Ruehl (Leipzig, 1886). [Book XII contained an account of Alexander's campaigns in India; trans. of Justin's Epitome of the Book in M'Crindle, The Invasion of India. The chief source of Trogus was probably a Greek work Περὶ Βασιλέων by Timagenes of Alexandria (born between 80 and 75 B.C.), who himself drew, for his account of Alexander, mainly upon Clitarchus.]
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Polyaenus, a Macedonian, wrote his Strategemata (in Greek) c. 162 A.D. [Book iv, chap. 3, deals with Alexander; ed. J. Melber. Leipzig, 1887.]
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Two slighter works relating to the campaigns of Alexander seem occasionally to give details derived from the contemporary accounts but dropped in our more important extant sources:
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(a) Alexandri Magni Macedonis Epitomae Rerum Gestarum, an abridgement made in the 4th or 5th century A.D. of a lost Latin work of uncertain date, combining history with elements taken from the Romance of Alexander; ed. Wagner in Fleckeisen’s Jahrbücher für klassische Philologie, Supplementband xxvi (1901), pp. 105 ff.
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(b) Itinerarium Alexandri, written c. 360 A.D.; printed at the end of the Didot Arrian; trans. M‘Crindle in Ancient India as described in Classical Literature.
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Strabo, of Amasia in Asia Minor; c. 64 B.C.–19 A.D.; his great geographical work (Greek) contains incidental notices of India and Alexander’s campaigns. [Book xv, chap. 1, is devoted to India, its geography, manners, and customs, its material being drawn from the companions of Alexander and from Megasthenes; ed. A. Meineke (Leipzig, 1852–3); trans. M‘Crindle in Ancient India as described in Classical Literature.]
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Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus); 23–79 A.D.; his encyclopaedic work in Latin, the Naturalis Historia, contains notices of India drawn from the Greek books or from more recent reports of merchants; ed. D. Detlefsen (Berlin, 1866–73); a translation of the passages relating to India is given in M‘Crindle’s Ancient ındia as described in Classical Literature.
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A collection of the Fragments of Ctesias by Karl Müller is appended to the Didot edn. of Herodotus; trans. M‘Crindle, in Ancient India as described by Ktesias (London, 1882).
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A collection of the Fragments of the contemporary accounts of Alexander (Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Clitarchus, etc.) by Karl Müller is bound up in the Didot edn. of Arrian (Paris, 1846).
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A collection of the Fragments of Megasthenes, Daïmachus, and Patrocles is contained in K. Müller’s Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. ii, pp. 397–439. [The references to Megasthenes, Nearchus, and Onesicritus in these chapters of The Cambridge History of India follow Müller’s numeration. An earlier collection of the Fragments of Megasthenes, with notes by E. A. Schwanbeck (Bonn, 1846), now out of print, is still useful. This is the collection on which M‘Crindle’s translation (*v. sup.*) is based.]
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2. MODERN WORKS.
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An account of Alexander’s campaigns is contained in the histories of Grote, Droysen (best read in the French trans. by A. Bouché-Leclercq, entitled Histoire de l’Hellénisme, vol. I, Paris, 1883), Holm (Eng. trans. London, 1894–8), Niese (Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten, vol. I, Gotha, 1893), Kaerst (Geschichte des hellenistischen Zeitalters, Leipzig, 1901), Beloch (Griechische Geschichte, vol. III, Strassburg, 1904).
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For monographs and articles see the Notes appended to M‘Crindle’s translations (*v. sup.*).
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Smith, V. A. The Early History of India. 3rd edn. Oxford, 1914. [In his account of Alexander’s campaigns Dr Vincent Smith makes use of more recent topographical researches than seem to be known to the German scholars, for whom Cunningham is still generally the last authority.]
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Anspach, A. E. De Alexandri Magni Expeditione Indica. London, 1903. [The most full and thorough arrangement of the literary material.]
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Cunningham, A. The Ancient Geography of India. Vol. I. London, 1871. [A work still of fundamental value, though necessarily to some extent corrected by subsequent research.] Raverty, H. G. Notes on Afghanistan and part of Baluchistan. London, 1880, 1881, 1883. —— The Mihrān of Sind and its Tributaries. J.A.S.B., 1892. Tomaschek, W. Topographische Erläuterung der Küstenfahrt Nearchs vom Indus bis zum Euphrat. Sitz. Wien. vol. CXXI. 1890. Haig, M. R. The Indus Delta Country. London, 1894. von Wartenburg, Yorck. Kurze Uebersicht der Feldzüge Alexanders des Grossen. Berlin, 1897. [An examination of Alexander's campaigns by a modern German military specialist.] Foucher, A. Sur la frontière Indo-Afghan. Paris, 1901. —— La Géographie ancienne du Gandhara. Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême Orient. Hanoi, 1901. Holdich, T. H. The Greek Retreat from India. Jour. of the Royal Soc. of Arts, vol. XLIX (1901), pp. 417 ff. —— The Gates of India. London, 1910. [Based on exceptional local knowledge and written with great descriptive power; but suffers from an imperfect understanding of the classical texts.] Pearson, C. Alexander, Porus, and the Panjab. Ind. Ant. vol. XXXIV (1905), pp. 253 ff. Stein, M. A. Report of Arch. Sur. Work in the N.W. Frontier Province for 1904-5. [This report 'shattered the plausible identification (of Aornus) with Mahāban'; see V. A. Smith, Early Hist. of Ind. p. 57 n.]
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For the battle on the Hydaspes see reff. in note 1 on p. 367 (*supra*).
Note to Chapter XV. Athenian and Macedonian Coins in India
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For the most comprehensive discussion of the whole subject see B. V. Head, Num. Chron., 1906, pp. 1 ff., and Historia Numorum, 2nd edn., pp. 832 ff. For Sophytes see A. Cunningham, J.A.S.B., 1865, pp. 46 f., and Num. Chron., 1866, pp. 220 ff., as well as other references given by Rapson (Indian Coins, p. 4), to which add Num. Chron., 1904, pp. 323 ff. and Z.f.N. XXIV, pp. 89 f. The 'square' bronze coin of Alexander (p. 388) was first published by A. von Sallet, Z.f.N. VI, p. 285, the attribution to Bactria having been proposed by Dannenberg. On the decadrachm (p. 389; Pl. I, 16) see P. Gardner, Num. Chron., 1887, pp. 177 ff., and on the double darics (p. 390; Pl. I, 6) see E. Babelon, *Les Perses Achéménides*, p. xx; Head, Hist. Num. pp. 828 ff.; and F. Imhoof-Blumer, Num. Zeit., 1895, pp. 1 ff. On the Oxus find see Cunningham, J.A.S.B., 1881, pp. 151 ff., and 1883, p. 258; cf. also O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus (1905), Introduction.
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1. ANCIENT AUTHORS.
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Appian. L. Mendelssohn. Leipzig, 1879–81. Arrian, Τὰ μετὰ Ἀλέξανδρον. Ed. C. Müller. Paris, 1846. Athenaeus. Ed. G. Kaibel. Leipzig, 1887–90. Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum. Ed. C. Müller. Paris, 1878–85. Josephus. Ed. S. A. Naber. Leipzig, 1888. Pausanias. Ed. L. Dindorf. Paris, 1845. Polybius. Paris, 1839. Ptolemy, Bk. VII. Ed. C. F. A. Nobbe. Leipzig, 1843.
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For Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny the Elder, Justin and Pompeius Trogus, and Strabo see Bibl. to Chapters XV and XVI, 1.
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The chief ancient authorities are cited in the text. See, moreover, for the partitions of Babylon and Triparadisus: (*a*) Diodorus XVIII, 3; Arrian, Τὰ μετὰ Ἀλέξανδρον, 5 ff.; Dexippus in *F.H.G.* III, 667 f.; Curtius X, 10; Justin XIII, 4; and (*b*) Diodorus XVIII, 39; Arrian, Τὰ μετὰ Ἀλέξανδρον, 35 ff.
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2. MODERN WORKS.
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H. G. Rawlinson's Bactria, The History of a forgotten Empire (1912), is a handy summary of the main facts and references.
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Among modern works of a more general character the following are important:
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Bevan, E. R. The House of Seleucus. London, 1902. Bouché-Leclercq, A. Histoire des Séleucides. Paris, 1913 etc. Droysen, J. G. Geschichte des Hellenismus. 2 Auf. Gotha, 1877 etc. von Gutschmid, A. Geschichte Irans, Tübingen, 1888. Niese, B. Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten. Gotha, 1893 etc. Rawlinson, G. The Sixth Oriental Monarchy. London, 1873.
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For Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, and Smith, Early History of India, see Bibl. to Ch. XIV, 2.
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Various special articles in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encycl. by Tomaschek, W. Otto, and others; also in Encycl. Brit. (11th edn.) by E. Meyer.
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W. W. Tarn's Notes on Hellenism in Bactria and India, J.H.S. XXII, pp. 268 ff., touching on some interesting historical points.
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3. NUMISMATICS.
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Rapson's Indian Coins, Grund. d. indo-ar. Phil., 1898, gives full references to the numismatic authorities. Here the following may be cited as the more important:
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Cunningham, A. The Coins of Alexander's Successors in the East. London, 1873 = Num. Chron., 1868–73.
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von Sallet, A. Nachfolger Alexanders des Grossen in Bactrien und Indien. Berlin, 1883 = Z.f.N., 1879–83. Gardner, P. Coins of the Greek and Scythic Kings of Bactria and India. B.M. Cat., 1886. Imhoof-Blumer, F. Zur Münzkunde der Seleukiden. Num. Zeit. XLVI (1914), pp. 171 ff. Smith, V. A. Catalogue of Coins in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. Vol. I. Oxford, 1906. Whitehead, R. B. Indo-Greek Coins. Lahore Mus. Cat. Vol. I. Oxford, 1914. Gardner, P. Seleucid Kings of Syria. B.M. Cat., 1878. Babelon, E. Les Rois de Syrie. Paris, 1890. Wroth, W. Coins of Parthia. B.M. Cat., 1903