Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c10.31.1

c10.31.1

Eudoxus was a native of Cyzicus. Having acquired a certain reputation as a geographer and ethnologist, he was sent by the authorities of his native city to undertake the exploration of the Nile. While in Egypt, however, his attention was diverted by a romantic incident. The coast-guards from the Red Sea brought to Alexandria an Indian whom they had found drifting in a boat, half dead with hunger and thirst. After he had learnt a little Greek, the Indian explained that he had set out from India with a ship’s company; they had lost their bearings and drifted for months, till his companions had perished, one by one, of hunger; and at last, at the point of death, he had been picked up off the entrance to the Red Sea. He offered, if the government would provide a ship to take him back, to shew them the way to India. The offer was gladly accepted by the monarch, Euergetes II¹, and Eudoxus accompanied the expedition. They took a supply of goods, reached India, and after exchanging their wares for Indian spices and gems, sailed home. Instead of rewarding them, Euergetes basely confiscated their cargo! He died, however, in 117 B.C. and the indomitable sailor obtained permission to try again, this time with a richer cargo. Again he reached the coast of India, but on his return voyage he was caught in a storm, and missing the entrance to the Red Sea, reached the African coast somewhere considerably south of Cape Gardafui.