The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c13.29

c13.29

¹ 'Αλέξανδρος μὲν οὖν Ἡρακλέα τιμῶν καὶ πάλιν Ἀλέξανδρον Ἀνδρόκοττος, ἑαυτοὺς εἰς τὸ τιμᾶσθαι προῆγον ἀπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων. 'Thus Alexander, honouring Hercules, and Androkottos [*scil.* Chandragupta] again honouring Alexander, got themselves honoured on the same ground' (Plutarch, *cir.* 90 A. D., 'How One can Praise oneself without exciting Envy', § 10, in *Morals*, ed. Teubner, and Shilleto's trans.). The same author, in his *Life of Alexander*, ch. lxii, states that 'he also erected altars for the gods which the kings of the Praisiai [*scil.* Magadha] even to the present day hold in veneration, crossing the river (i. e. from south to north) to offer sacrifices upon them in the Hellenic fashion'. Arrian, Curtius, and Diodorus agree that there were twelve altars. Curtius deposes to the 'squared stone', and Diodorus to the height of 50 cubits. Philostratus gives a different account, as follows:— 'And having crossed the Hydraōtes and passed by several tribes (ἔθνη), they approached the Hyphasis; and 30 stades away from this river they came on altars bearing this inscription: "To Father Ammon and Heracles his brother, and to Athena Providence and to Zeus of Olympus and the Cabeiri of Samothrace and to the Indian Sun and to the Delphian Apollo". 'And they say there was also a brass column (στήλην) dedicated, and inscribed as follows: "Here Alexander stopped". 'The altars we may attribute to Alexander, who so honoured the boundaries of his empire; but I suppose the tablet was put up by the Indians dwelling on the other side of the Hyphasis, to their own glory for having stayed Alexander from any further advance' (*Apollonius of Tyana*, Bk. II, 43). Prof. Phillimore erroneously translates the plurals βωμοῖς and βωμούς as 'an altar', and renders στήλην as 'memorial tablet'.