Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s24.16

c9.s24.16

Megasthenes noted that some animals known only in a tame state in Greece were found also in the wild state in India, such as sheep, dogs, goats and oxen. The one-horned horse or *kartazon* of which a somewhat minute account is preserved by Aelian is generally taken to be the rhinoceros². Nearchus came across whales of enormous size in his voyage before he entered the Persian Gulf, and Aelian probably follows Megasthenes in his interesting description of these monsters ‘five times larger than the largest elephant’. The rib of a whale was as much as twenty cubits and its lip fifteen cubits³.