The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.203

c10.s2.203

There is a story which may bear on the elephant of Taxila. It is now known that Philostratus, when he wrote the Life of Apollonius, had before him a pretty accurate description of Parthian Taxila by some one who had visited it (p. 360); and he says that at Taxila there was a very old elephant, once belonging to Porus, whom Alexander had dedicated in the temple of the Sun and had named Aias, and whom the people used to anoint with myrrh and adorn with fillets.² Philostratus attributes many things to Alexander and Porus, but the story might really be evidence for the existence at Taxila of a sacred elephant, the elephant of the coins; the bell round the elephant’s neck on the elephant-head coin-types of Demetrius,³ Menander,⁴ and Maues⁵ would support this. More than a suggestion it cannot of course be.