The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.61

c10.61

¹ Voyage of Skylax (*Herod.* iv, 44). The *Periplus*, attributed to Skylax though really written between 338 and 335 B. C., does not treat of India (Müller, *Geogr. Graeci Minores*, vol. i, pp. xliv, 156–9). The city of Kaspatyros in the Paktyan land (Πακτυϊκὴ γῆ), from which Skylax began his voyage, is called Kaspapyros, a city of the Gandhariars, by Hekataios. The site cannot be identified, and it is impossible to say which form of the name is correct. Gandhāra was the modern Peshāwar District and some adjacent territory. Kaspatyros, or Kaspapyros, has nothing to do with Kashmīr, as many writers have supposed (Stein, *Rājataraṅgiṇī*, trans. ii. 353). For satrapies see *Herod.* iii, 88–106, especially 94. The Euboic talent weighed 57·6 lb. avoirdupois; 360 talents = 20,736 lb., which, assuming silver to be worth five shillings (quarter of a sovereign) an ounce, or £4 per lb., and the ratio of silver to gold to be as 13 to 1, would be worth £1,078,272. If the Euboic talent be taken as equivalent to 78, not 70, *minae*, the figures given by Herodotus will tally. 360 gold talents = 4,680 talents of silver; the total bullion revenue for the Asiatic provinces (including a small part of Libya in Africa) was 14,560 silver talents (Cunningham, *Coins of Ancient India*, pp. 12, 14, 26, 30). India is not included in the list of provinces in the Behistun inscription of 516 B. C., but is included in the lists in the Persepolis and Naksh-i-Rustam inscriptions. The last-named record, inscribed on the sepulchre of Darius, is the fullest (Rawlinson, *Herodotus*, vol. ii, p. 403, note; iv, 177, 207). For the Indian contingent in Xerxes’ army, clad in cotton garments, and armed with cane bows and iron-tipped cane arrows, see Herod. vii. 65. The fact that the Indian troops used iron in 480 B. C. is worth noting. *See* Prof. P. Neogi, *Iron in Ancient India*, Calcutta, 1914.