The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.130

c12.130

There can be little doubt that when the author of the Questions of Ptolemy II made that king ask only ten questions a night he was following the tradition of the Alexander-questions. There is the further resemblance that while Alexander questions quite fictitious Indians, invented to be questioned—this appears from the location of the questioning in several different places and at different times²—the author of the Questions of Ptolemy II invented a body of quite fictitious Jewish Elders to make the responses to that monarch. What the relation may be between the questions about kingship put by Ptolemy II and those which found their way into the Alexander-questions I do not know, for it cannot be guessed at what time such questions first entered the Alexander-list; there may well be no relation at all, seeing what a much-discussed question kingship was in the third century, and indeed Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages (p. 436) shows how easily a discussion of *aporiai* would slide into talk about kingship.