Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s15.21.2

c12.s15.21.2

the world that he claims to have conquered by his policy of Dhammavijaya was preeminently this Hellenistic world; he arranged for the medical treatment of men and cattle, among others, in the dominions of Antiochus Theos and his neighbours; and it is not unlikely that his description of himself as devānampiya Pijadasi is an echo of the deification of kings current among Alexander’s successors in Hellenistic Orient. Both Megasthenes and Kauṭilya refer to a State department run and maintained specifically for the purpose of looking after foreigners² who evidently were quite numerous not only in the capital city of Pāṭaliputra but in other provincial capitals and trade centres. There can hardly be any doubt that these foreigners were mostly colonial Greeks and a very large majority of them were merchants and businessmen. Indeed in the third century B.C. a caravan highway ran from Taxila via Kandahar, Persepolis and Susa to Seleuceia on the Tigris, while another old main road ran via Kandahar, Herat, Hecatompylos, Ecbatana and Seleuceia and was joined by the Taxila-Kabul-Bactria route³. Taxila, it is well known, was the seat of an important Maurya province, and from here a great highway ran direct to connect Pāṭaliputra with the Hellenic east. Besides, there was also a coastal sea-borne trade route to Seleuceia along the Persian Gulf and up the Tigris, and to Egypt following the coastline.