Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s14.3

c9.s14.3

The antiquarian and geographer, Hecataeus of Miletus (B. C. 549-486)², might have used Scylax; he opens one of his works, Inquiries, with the admirable statement: ‘What I write here is what I consider true; for the tales of the Greeks appear to me to be many and ridiculous.’ From his other work, the Geography, some Indian names have survived: they are those of the river Indus; of two cities, Kaspapyros, a city of Gāndhāra, Multan according to another view, probably the same as Herodotus’ Kaspatyrus, and Argante, a city in the valley of the Indus; and of some peoples, viz., the Opiai, the Kalatiai, the Sciapodes (the shadow-footed people of Scylax) and perhaps also the Pygmies. Beyond the Indus was a sandy waste, a statement in which Hecataeus is followed by Herodotus, their knowledge of India being mostly limited to the Persian part of it.