5th c. BCE
trans. J. W. McCrindle
1881
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NOTE |
Ctesias (also transliterated Ktesias) was a Greek physician and historian who traveled to Persia in the fifth century BCE and wrote a well-received account of the country. In Persia, he learned secondhand of the wonders of India, and he produced the first Greek account of that land to survive. Although his Indica does not survive, excerpts and summaries do. The book was highly influential, in large measure due to the fantastical and bizarre details Ctesias recorded, some of which are highly distorted accounts of real-life people, places, and animals. These distorted versions entered European lore and could be found in travelers' accounts down to the Renaissance. For example, Christopher Columbus, thinking himself in India, imagined that he was on the trail of Ctesias' dog-headed men in the Caribbean. The texts below were translated by J. W. McCrindle (1825-1913) in the Indian Antiquary in 1881. His translations were collected in book form the next year with additional supplementary material.
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ANCIENT INDIA,
AS DESCRIBED BY KTÊSIAS,
INTRODUCTION;
The Life and Writings of Ktêsias.
The Life and Writings of Ktêsias.
To Ktêsias belongs the distinction of having been the first writer who gave to the Greeks a special treatise on India—a region concerning which they had, before his time, no further knowledge than what was supplied by the few and meagre notices of it which had appeared in the Geography of Hêkataios of Milêtos and in the History of Herodotos. This Ktêsias was a native of Knidos, an important Lakedemonian colony situate on the sea coast of Karia, and was the son of Ktêsiokhos (or Ktêsiarkhos).[1] His family, as we learn from Galen,[2] was a branch of the Asklêpiadai, a caste of priests settled principally in Kês and Knidos, with whom medicine was an hereditary profession. He was contemporary with Hippokratês, who like himself was an Asklêpiad; but he was very much younger than his illustrious kinsman, though by how many years we know not, as the date of his birth cannot be ascertained. We may conclude, however, that he must have risen to eminence by the practice of his art before the year 416 B.C., for about that time he repaired to Persia, probably on the invitation of the king who appointed him physician to the royal court. Here he remained for 17 years, of which the first eleven were spent under Darius II, and the remaining six under his successor Artaxerxês Mnêmôn.[3] He accompanied the latter when he took the field against Cyrus, and, as we learn from Xenophon, cured the wound which his royal master received in the battle of Kunaxa.[4] Soon after this he appears to have left Persia and returned to his own country. This was in the year 398, after which we know nothing of his career.
Ktêsias diversified his professional with literary pursuits and was the author of several works, of which the most important was his history of Persia. This was written in 23 books, of which the first six contained the history of the Assyrian monarchy down to the foundation of the kingdom of Persia. The next seven contained the history of Persia down to the end of the reign of Xerxes, and the remaining ten carried the history down to the time when the author left the Persian Court. This great work, whatever may have been its other merits, possessed this especial value, that the facts which it recorded were derived principally from the Persian state-records which Ktesias was permitted by the king to consult. His statements, as might be expected, are frequently at variance with those of Herodotos whose sources of information were different. He is also in a few instances at variance with his contemporary Xenophon. The work unfortunately no longer exists, but we possess a brief abstract of its consents made by Phôtios, and some fragments which have been preserved by Diodôros and other writers.
Besides the History and the Treatise on India, Ktêsias appears to have composed several minor works. These consisted, so far as is known, of treatise on the Revenues of the Persian Empire, two treatises of a geographical nature—one being on Mountains, and the other on Rivers, and some books of voyages entitled Periploi.
The Indika of Ktêsias, like his other works, has been lost, but, like his great work on the History of Persia, it has been abridged by Phôtios, while several fragments of it have been preserved in the pages of other writers, as for instance Ælian. It was comprised in a single book, and embodied the information which Ktêsias had gathered about India, partly from the reports of Persian officials who had visited that country on the king’s service, and partly also perhaps from the reports of Indians themselves, who in those days were occasionally to be seen at the Persian Court, whither they resorted, either as merchants, or as envoys bringing presents and tribute from the princes of Northern India, which was then subject to Persian rule. Ktêsias unfortunately was not only a great lover of the marvellous, but also singularly deficient, for one of his profession, in critical acumen. He took, therefore, no pains to sift the accounts which were communicated to him, and the book which he gave to the world, instead of being, what a careful enquirer with his advantages might have made it—a valuable repertory of facts concerning India and its people, seemed to be little else than a tissue of fables and of absurd perversions or exaggerations of the truth, and was condemned as such, not only by the consentient voice of antiquity, but also by the generality of the learned in modern times. The work was nevertheless popular, and in spite of its infirm credit, was frequently cited by subsequent writers. Its ‘tales of wonder’ fascinated the credulous, while its style, which was remarkable alike for its ease, sweetness, and perspicuity, recommended it to readers of every stamp.[5] It was the only systematic account of India the Greeks possessed till the time of the Makedonian invasion.
We must notice in conclusion the fact, that, as the knowledge of India, and especially of Indian antiquity, has increased, scholars have been led to question the justice of the traditional verdict which condemns Ktêsias as a writer of unscrupulous mendacity. They do not indeed wholly exculpate him, but they have shown that many of his statements, which were once taken to be pure falsehoods, have either certain elements of truth underlying them, or that they originated in misconceptions which were perhaps less wilful than unavoidable. The fabulous races for instance which he has described are found, so far from being fictions of his own invention, to have their exact analogues in monstrous races which are mentioned in the two great national epics and other Brahmanical writings, and which, though therein depicted with every attribute of deformity, were nevertheless, not purely fictitious, but misrepresentations of such aboriginal tribes as offered a stout resistance to their Aryan invaders while still engaged in the task of conquering India.
These moderate views, which have been advocated by such authorities as Heeren, Bähr, C. Müller, Lassen, and others, will no doubt come eventually to be very generally accepted.
Ktêsias diversified his professional with literary pursuits and was the author of several works, of which the most important was his history of Persia. This was written in 23 books, of which the first six contained the history of the Assyrian monarchy down to the foundation of the kingdom of Persia. The next seven contained the history of Persia down to the end of the reign of Xerxes, and the remaining ten carried the history down to the time when the author left the Persian Court. This great work, whatever may have been its other merits, possessed this especial value, that the facts which it recorded were derived principally from the Persian state-records which Ktesias was permitted by the king to consult. His statements, as might be expected, are frequently at variance with those of Herodotos whose sources of information were different. He is also in a few instances at variance with his contemporary Xenophon. The work unfortunately no longer exists, but we possess a brief abstract of its consents made by Phôtios, and some fragments which have been preserved by Diodôros and other writers.
Besides the History and the Treatise on India, Ktêsias appears to have composed several minor works. These consisted, so far as is known, of treatise on the Revenues of the Persian Empire, two treatises of a geographical nature—one being on Mountains, and the other on Rivers, and some books of voyages entitled Periploi.
The Indika of Ktêsias, like his other works, has been lost, but, like his great work on the History of Persia, it has been abridged by Phôtios, while several fragments of it have been preserved in the pages of other writers, as for instance Ælian. It was comprised in a single book, and embodied the information which Ktêsias had gathered about India, partly from the reports of Persian officials who had visited that country on the king’s service, and partly also perhaps from the reports of Indians themselves, who in those days were occasionally to be seen at the Persian Court, whither they resorted, either as merchants, or as envoys bringing presents and tribute from the princes of Northern India, which was then subject to Persian rule. Ktêsias unfortunately was not only a great lover of the marvellous, but also singularly deficient, for one of his profession, in critical acumen. He took, therefore, no pains to sift the accounts which were communicated to him, and the book which he gave to the world, instead of being, what a careful enquirer with his advantages might have made it—a valuable repertory of facts concerning India and its people, seemed to be little else than a tissue of fables and of absurd perversions or exaggerations of the truth, and was condemned as such, not only by the consentient voice of antiquity, but also by the generality of the learned in modern times. The work was nevertheless popular, and in spite of its infirm credit, was frequently cited by subsequent writers. Its ‘tales of wonder’ fascinated the credulous, while its style, which was remarkable alike for its ease, sweetness, and perspicuity, recommended it to readers of every stamp.[5] It was the only systematic account of India the Greeks possessed till the time of the Makedonian invasion.
We must notice in conclusion the fact, that, as the knowledge of India, and especially of Indian antiquity, has increased, scholars have been led to question the justice of the traditional verdict which condemns Ktêsias as a writer of unscrupulous mendacity. They do not indeed wholly exculpate him, but they have shown that many of his statements, which were once taken to be pure falsehoods, have either certain elements of truth underlying them, or that they originated in misconceptions which were perhaps less wilful than unavoidable. The fabulous races for instance which he has described are found, so far from being fictions of his own invention, to have their exact analogues in monstrous races which are mentioned in the two great national epics and other Brahmanical writings, and which, though therein depicted with every attribute of deformity, were nevertheless, not purely fictitious, but misrepresentations of such aboriginal tribes as offered a stout resistance to their Aryan invaders while still engaged in the task of conquering India.
These moderate views, which have been advocated by such authorities as Heeren, Bähr, C. Müller, Lassen, and others, will no doubt come eventually to be very generally accepted.
Notice of Phôtios.
Phôtios, to whom we are indebted for the abridgments of Ktêsias, was the Patriarch of Constantinople, an office to which he was elected, though previously a layman, in the year A. D. 858. Soon after the accession of Leo VI. as emperor (886) he was accused of having conspired against his life, and was in consequence banished to a monastery in Armenia, where he ended his days. He was not only a scholar of wonderful erudition and sound judgment, but was the author of many works, the most important of which was that, entitled Myriobiblion or Bibliothêkê—which was a review on an extensive scale of ancient Greek literature. It contained abstracts of the contents of 280 volumes, many of which are now known only from the account which he has given of them. His abridgment of the Persian history of our author is much more concise than that of his Indika. The latter is however a careless and unsatisfactory performance, for the passages summarized are chiefly those for which Ktêsias was stigmatized as a fabulist and a liar.
NOTES.
[1] V. Tzetz. Chil. I.1; Suidas, Eudoc. p. 268; Plutarch. Artaxerxes; Lucian. Ver. Hist. I. 3.
[2] Tom. V. p. 652,1. 51 ed. Basil.
[3] Diodôros (I., 1) followed by Tzetzes (Chil. I. i, 82), writes that Ktêsias fighting with his countrymen on behalf of Cyrus was taken prisoner at the battle of Kunaxa, and was thereafter on account of his skill in medicine taken into the king’s service, in which he remained for 17 years. A comparison however of well ascertained facts discredits this statement.
[4] V. Anab. I. viii, 27.
[5] Ktêsias, though a Dorian, used many Ionie forms and modes of expression, and these more in the Indika than in the Persika. His style is praised for the qualities mentioned in the text by Phôtios, Dion. Halicarn, and Demet. Phaler, who does not hesitate to speak of him as a poet, the very demiurge of perspicuity.
[2] Tom. V. p. 652,1. 51 ed. Basil.
[3] Diodôros (I., 1) followed by Tzetzes (Chil. I. i, 82), writes that Ktêsias fighting with his countrymen on behalf of Cyrus was taken prisoner at the battle of Kunaxa, and was thereafter on account of his skill in medicine taken into the king’s service, in which he remained for 17 years. A comparison however of well ascertained facts discredits this statement.
[4] V. Anab. I. viii, 27.
[5] Ktêsias, though a Dorian, used many Ionie forms and modes of expression, and these more in the Indika than in the Persika. His style is praised for the qualities mentioned in the text by Phôtios, Dion. Halicarn, and Demet. Phaler, who does not hesitate to speak of him as a poet, the very demiurge of perspicuity.
THE INDIKA OF KTÊSIAS.
FRAGMENT I.
Eologa in Photii, Bibl. LXXII, p. 144 seqq.
Eologa in Photii, Bibl. LXXII, p. 144 seqq.
1. Another work was read—the Indika of Ktêsias, contained in a single book wherein the author has made more frequent use of Ionic forms. He reports of the river Indus that, where narrowest, it has a breadth of forty stadia, and where widest of two hundred; and of the Indians themselves that they almost outnumber all other men taken together. He mentions the skôlex, a kind of worm bred in the river, this being indeed the only living creature which is found in it. He states that there are no men who live beyond the Indians, and that no rain falls in India but that the country is watered by its river.
2. He notices the pantarba, a kind of scalstone, and relates that when sealstones and other costly gems to the number of 477 which belonged to the Baktrian merchant, had been flung into the river, this pantarba drew them up to itself, all adhering together.
3. He notices also the elephants” that demolish walls; the kind of small apes that have tails four cubits long; the cocks that are of extraordinary size; the kind of bird called the parrot and which he thus describes: it has a tongue and voice like the human, is of the size of a hawk, has a red bill, is adorned with a board of a black colour, while the neck is red like cinnabar, it talks like a man in Indian, but if taught Greek can talk in Greek also.
4. He notices the fountain which is filled every year with liquid gold, out of which are annually drawn a hundred earthen pitchers filled with the metal. The pitchers must be earthen since the gold when drawn becomes solid, and to get it out the containing vessel must needs be broken in pieces. The fountain is of a square shape, eleven cubits in circumference, and a fathom in depth. Each pitcherful of gold weighs a talent. He notices also the iron found at the bottom of this fountain, adding that he had in his own possession two swords made from this iron, one given to him by the king of Persia, and the other by Parysatis, the mother of that same king. This iron, he says, if fixed in the earth, averts clouds and hail and thunderstorms, and he avers that he had himself twice seen the iron do this, the king on both occasions performing the experiment.
5. We learn further that the dogs of India are of very great size, so that they fight even with the lion; that there are certain high mountains having mines which yield the sardine-stone, and onyxes, and other seal stones that the heat is excessive, and that the sun appears in India to be ten times larger than in other countries; and that many of the inhabitants are suffocated to death by the heat. Of the sea in India, he says, that it is not less than the sea in Hellas; its surface however for four finger-breadths downward is hot, so that fish cannot live that go near the heated surface, but must confine themselves always to the depths below.
6. He states that the river Indus flows through the level country, and through between the mountains, and that what is called the Indian reed grows along its course, this being so thick that two men could scarcely encompass its stem with their arms, and of a height to equal the mast of a merchant ship of the heaviest burden. Some are of a greater size even than this, though some are of less, as might be expected when the mountain it grows on is of vast range. The reeds are distinguished by sex, some being male, others female. The male reed has no pith, and is exceedingly strong, but the female has a pith.
7. He describes an animal called the martikhora found in India. Its face is like a man’s—it is about as big as a lion, and in colour red like cinnabar. It has three rows of teeth—ears like the human—eyes of a pale-blue like the human and a tail like that of the land scorpion, armed with a sting and more than a cubit long. It has besides stings on each side of its tail, and, like the scorpion, is armed with an additional sting on the crown of its head, wherewith it stings any one who goes near it, the wound in all cases proving mortal. If attacked from a distance it defends itself both in front and in rear—in front with its tail, by up-lifting it and darting out the stings, like shafts shot from a bow, and in rear by straightening it out. It can strike to the distance of a hundred feet, and no creature can survive the wound it inflicts save only the elephant. The stings are about a foot in length, and not thicker than the finest thread. The name martikhora means in Greek ἀνθρωποφάγος (i.e. man-eater), and it is so called because it carries off men and devours them, though it no doubt preys upon other animals as well. In fighting it uses not only its stings but also its claws. Fresh stings grow up to replace those shot away in fighting. These animals are numerous in India, and are killed by the natives who hunt them with elephants, from the backs of which they attack them with darts.
8. He describes the Indians as extremely just, and gives an account of their manners and customs. He mentions the sacred spot in the midst of an uninhabited region which they venerate in the name of the Sun and the Moon. It takes one a fifteen days’ journey to reach this place from Mount Sardous. Here for the space of five and thirty days the Sun every year cools down to allow his worshippers to celebrate his rites, and return home unscorched by his burning rays. He observes that in India there is neither thunder nor lightning nor rain, but that storms of -wind and violent hurricanes which sweep everything before them, are of frequent occurrence. The morning sun produces coolness for one half of the day, but an excessive heat during the other half, and this holds good for most parts of India.
9. It is not, however, by exposure to the sun that the people are swarthy, but by nature, for among the Indians there are both men and women who are as fair as any in the world, though such are no doubt in a minority. He adds that he had himself seen two Indian women and five men of such a fair complexion.
10. Wishing to assure us of the truth of his statement that the sun makes the temperature cool for five and thirty days, he mentions several facts that are equally strange—that the streams of fire which issue from Ætna leave unscathed amidst the surrounding havoc those lands which belong to just men—that in Zakynthos there are fountains with fish whence pitch is taken out—that in Naxos is a fountain which at times discharges a wine of great sweetness, and that the water of the river Phasis likewise, if kept in a vessel for a night and a day, changes into a wine which is also of great sweetness—that near Phaselis in Lykia there is a perpetual volcano, always flaming on the summit of the rock both by night and by day, and this is not quenched by water, which rather augments the blaze, but by casting rubbish into it—and in like manner, the volcanoes of Ætna and of Prusa keep always burning.
11. He writes that in the middle of India are found the swarthy men called Pygmies, who speak the same language as the other Indians. They are very diminutive, the tallest of them being but two cubits in height, while the majority are only one and a half. They let their hair grow very long—down to their knees, and even lower. They have the largest beards anywhere to be seen, and when these have grown sufficiently long and copious, they no longer wear clothing, but, instead, let the hair of the head fall down their backs far below the knee, while in front are their beards trailing down to their very feet. When their hair has thus thickly enveloped their whole body, they bind it round them with a zone, and so make it serve for a garment. Their privates are thick, and so large that they depend even to their ancles. They are moreover snubnosed, and otherwise ill-favoured. Their sheep are of the size of our lambs, and their oxen and asses rather smaller than our rams, which again are as big as their horses and mules and other cattle. Of the Pygmies three thousand men attend the king of the Indians, on account of their great skill in archery. They are eminently just, and have the same laws as the Indians. They hunt hares and foxes not with dogs but with ravens and kites and crows and vultures. In their country is a lake eight hundred stadia in circumference, which produces an oil like our own. If the wind be not blowing, this oil floats upon the surface, and the Pygmies going upon the lake in little boats collect it from amidst the waters in small tubs for household use. They use also oil of sêsamum and nut oil, but the lake-oil is the best. The lake has also fish.
12. There is much silver in their part of the country, and the silver-mines though not deep are deeper than those in Baktria. Gold also is a product of India. It is not found in rivers and washed from the sands the like gold of the river Paktôlos, but is found on those many high-towering mountains which are inhabited by the Griffins, a race of four-footed birds, about as large as wolves, having legs and claws like those of the lion, and covered all over the body with black feathers except only on the breast where they are red. On account of those birds the gold with which the mountains abound is difficult to be got.
13. The sheep and the goats of the Indians are bigger than asses, and generally produce young by four and by six at a time. The tails grow to such a size that those of the dams must be cut off before the rams can get at them. India does not however produce the pig, either the tame sort or the wild. Palm-trees and their dates are in India thrice the size of those in Babylon, and we learn that there is a certain river flowing with honey out of a rock, like the one we have in our own country.
14. The justice of the Indians, their devotion to their king and their contempt of death are themes on which he loves to expatiate. He notices a fountain having this peculiarity, that when any one draws water from it, the water coagulates like cheese, and should you then detach from the solid lump a piece weighing about three obols, and having triturated this, put the powder into common water, he to whom you give this potion blabs out whatever he has done, for he becomes delirious, and raves like a madman all that day. The king avails himself of this property when he wishes to discover the guilt or innocence of accused persons. Whoever incriminates himself when undergoing the ordeal is sentenced to starve himself to death, while he who does not confess to any crime is acquitted.
15. The Indians are not afflicted with headache, or toothache, or ophthalmia, nor have they mouthsores or ulcers in any part of their body. The age to which they live is 120, 130, and 150 years, though the very old live to 200.
16. In their country is a serpent a span long, in appearance like the most beautiful purple with a head perfectly white but without any teeth. The creature is caught on those very hot mountains whose mines yield the sardine-stone. It does not sting, but on whatever part of the body it casts its vomit, that place invariably putrifies. If suspended by the tail, it emits two kinds of poison, one like amber which, oozes from it while living, and the other black, which oozes from its carcase. Should about a sesame-seed’s bulk of the former be administered to any one, he dies the instant he swallows it, for his brain runs out through his nostrils. If the black sort be given it induces consumption, but operates so slowly that death scarcely ensues in less than a year’s time.
17. He mentions an Indian bird called the Dikairon, a name equivalent in Greek to δίκαιον (i.e. just). It is about the size of a partridge’s egg. It buries its dung under the earth to prevent its being found. Should it be found notwithstanding, and should a person at morning tide swallow so muoh of it as would about equal a grain of sêsamum, he falls into a deep unconscious sleep from which he never awakes, but dies at the going down of the sun.
18. In the same country grows what is called the Parêbon, a plant about the size of the olive, found only in the royal gardens, producing neither flower nor fruit, but having merely fifteen roots, which grow down into the earth, and are of considerable thickness, the very slenderest being about as thick as one’s arm. If a span’s length of this root be taken, it attracts to itself all objects brought near it—gold, silver, copper, stones and all things else except amber. If however a cubit’s length of it be taken, it attracts lambs and birds, and it is in fact with this root that most kinds of birds are caught. Should you wish to turn water solid, even a whole gallon of it, you have but to throw into the water not more than an obol’s weight of this root, and the thing is done. Its effect is the same upon wine which, when condensed by it, can be held in your hand like a piece of wax, though it melts the next day. It is found beneficial in the cure of bowel disorders.
19. Through India there flows a certain river, not of any great size, but only about two stadia in breadth, called in the Indian tongue Hyparkhos, which means in Greek φέρων πάντα τα ἁγαθἁ (i.e. the bearer of all things good). This river for thirty days in every year floats down amber, for in the upper part of its course where it flows among the mountains there are said to be trees overhanging its current which for thirty days at a particular season in every year continue dropping tears like the almond-tree and the pine-tree and other trees. These tears on dropping into the water harden into gum. The Indian name for the tree is siptakhora, which means when rendered into Greek γλυκύ, ήδύ (i.e. sweet). These trees then supply the Indians with their amber. And not only so but they are said to yield also berries, which grow in clusters like the grapes of the vine, and have stones as large as the filbert-nuts of Pontos.
20. He writes that on the mountains just spoken of there live men having heads like those of dogs, who wear the skins of wild beasts, and do not use articulate speech, but bark like dogs, and thus converse so as to be understood by each other.63 They have larger teeth than dogs, and claws like those of dogs, only larger and more rounded. They inhabit the mountains, and extend as far as the river Indus. They are swarthy, and like all the other Indians extremely just men. With the Indians they can hold intercourse, for they understand what they say, though they cannot, it is true, reply to them in words, still by barking and by making signs with their hands and their fingers like the deaf and the dumb, they can make themselves understood. They are called by the Indians Kalystrioi, which means in Greek Κυνοκέφαλοι (i. e., dog-headed). Their food is raw flesh. The whole tribe numbers not less than 120,000 men.
21. Near the sources of this river there grows a certain purple flower, which is used for dying purple, and is not inferior to the Greek sort, but even imparts a far more florid hue. In the same parts there is a wild insect about the size of a beetle, red like cinnabar, with legs excessively long. It is as soft as the worm called skôlex and is found on the trees which produce amber, eating the fruits of those trees and destroying them, as in Greece the wood-louse ravages the vine-trees. The Indians grind these insects to a powder and therewith dye such robes, tunics, and other vestments as they want to be of a purple hue. Their dye-stuffs are superior to those used by the Persians.
22. The Kynokephaloi living on the mountains do not practise any of the arts but subsist by the produce of the chase. They slaughter the prey, and roast the flesh in the sun. They rear however great numbers of sheep and goats and asses. They drink the milk of the sheep and the whey which is made therefrom. They eat moreover the fruit of the Siptakhora—the tree which produces amber, for it is sweet. They also dry this fruit, and pack it in hampers as the Greeks do raisins. The same people construct rafts, and freight them with the hampers as well as with the flowers of the purple plant, after cleansing it, and with 260 talents weight of amber, and a like weight of the pigment which dyes purple, and 1000 talents more of amber. All this cargo, which is the season’s produce, they convey annually as tribute to the King of the Indians. They take also additional quantities of the same commodities for sale to the Indians, from whom they receive in exchange loaves of bread and flour and cloth which is made from a tree-grown stuff (cotton). They sell also swords such as they use in hunting wild beasts, and bows and javelins, for they are fell marksmen both in shooting with the bow and in hurling the javelin. As they inhabit steep and pathless mountains they cannot possibly be conquered in war, and the king moreover once every five years sends them as presents 300,000 arrows and as many javelins, 120,000 shields and 50,000 swords.
23. These Kynokephaloi have no houses but live in caves. They hunt wild beasts with the bow and the spear, and run so fast that they can overtake them in the chase. Their women bathe once a month at the time of menstruation, and then only. The men do not bathe at all, but merely wash their hands. Thrice a month, however, they anoint themselves with an oil made from milk, and wipe themselves with skins. Skins denuded of the hair, and made thin and soft, constitute the dress both of the men and their wives. Their richest men however use cotton raiment, but the number of Buch men is small. They have no bed but sleep on a litter of straw or leaves. That man is considered the richest who possesses most sheep, and in property of this sort consists all their wealth. Both men and women have, like dogs, tails above their buttocks but larger and more hairy. They copulate like quadrupeds in dog-fashion, and to copulate otherwise is thought shameful. They are just, and of all men are the longest-lived, attaining the age of 170, and some even of 200 years.
24. Beyond these again are other men who inhabit the country above the sources of the river, who are swarthy like the other Indians, do no work, and neither eat grain nor drink water, but rear a good many cows and goats and sheep, and drink their milk as their sole sustenance. Children are born among them with the anus closed up, and the contents of the bowels are therefore voided, it is said, as urine, this being something like curds, though not at all thick but feculent. When they drink milk in the morning and take another draught at noon, and then immediately after eat a certain sweet-tasted root of indigenous growth which is said to prevent milk from coagulating in the stomach, this root towards evening acts as an emetic, and they vomit up everything quite readily.
25. Among the Indians, he proceeds, there are wild asses as large as horses, some being even larger. Their head is of a dark red colour, their eyes blue, and the rest of their body white. They have a horn on their forehead, a cubit in length [the filings of this horn, if given in a potion, are an antidote to poisonous drugs]. This horn for about two palm-breadths upwards from the base is of the purest white, where it tapers to a sharp point of a flaming crimson, and, in the middle, is black. These horns are made into drinking cups, and such as drink from them are attacked neither by convulsions nor by the sacred disease (epilepsy). Nay, they are not even affected by poisons, if either before or after swallowing them they drink from these cups wine, water, or anything else. While other asses moreover, whether wild or tame, and indeed all other solid-hoofed animals have neither huckle-bones, nor gall in the liver, these one-horned asses have both. Their huckle-bone is the most beautiful of all I have ever seen, and is, in appearance and size, like that of the ox. It is as heavy as lead, and of the colour of cinnabar both on the surface, and all throughout. It is exceedingly fleet and strong, and no creature that pursues it, not even the horse, can overtake it.
26. On first starting it scampers off somewhat leisurely, but the longer it runs, it gallops faster and faster till the pace becomes most furious. These animals therefore can only be caught at one particular time—that is when they lead out their little foals to the pastures in which they roam. They are then hemmed in on all sides by a vast number of hunters mounted on horseback, and being unwilling to escape while leaving their young to perish, stand their ground and fight, and by butting with their horns and kicking and biting kill many horses and men. But they are in the end taken, pierced to death with arrows and spears, for to take them alive is in no way possible. Their flesh being bitter” is unfit for food, and they are hunted merely for the sake of their horns and their huckle-bones.
27. He states that there is bred in the Indian river a worm like in appearance to that which is found in the fig, but seven cubits more or less in length, while its thickness is such that a boy ten years old could hardly clasp it within the circuit of his arms. These worms have two teeth—an upper and a lower, with which they seize and devour their prey. In the daytime they remain in the mud at the bottom of the river, but at night they come ashore, and should they fall in with any prey as a cow or a camel, they seize it with their teeth, and having dragged it to the river, there devour it. For catching this worm a large hook is employed, to which a kid or a lamb is fastened by chains of iron. The worm being landed, the captors hang up its carcase, and placing vessels underneath it leave it thus for thirty days. All this time oil drops from it, as much being got as would fill ten Attic kotylai. At the end of the thirty days they throw away the worm, and preserving the oil they take it to the king of the Indians, and to him alone, for no subject is allowed to get a drop of it. This oil [like fire] sets everything ablaze over which it is poured and it consumes not alone wood but even animals. The flames can be quenched only by throwing over them a great quantity of clay, and that of a thick consistency.
28. But again there are certain trees in India as tall as the cedar or the cypress, having leaves like those of the date palm, only somewhat broader, but having no shoots sprouting from the stems. They produce a flower like the male laurel, but no fruit. In the Indian language they are called karpion, but in Greek μυρορόδα (unguent-roses). These trees are scarce. There oozes from them an oil in drops, which are wiped off from the stem with wool, from which they are afterwards wrung out and received into alabaster boxes of stone. The oil is in colour of a faint red, and of a somewhat thick consistency. Its smell is the sweetest in all the world, and is said to diffuse itself to a distance of five stadia around. The privilege of possessing this perfume belongs only to the king and the members of the royal family. A present of it was sent by the king of the Indians to the king of the Persians, and Ktêsias alleges that he saw it himself, and that it was of such an exquisite fragrance as he could not describe, and he knew nothing whereunto he could liken it.
29. He states that the cheese and the wines of the Indians are the sweetest in the world, adding that he knew this from his own experience, since he had tasted both.
30. There is a fountain among the Indians of a square shape and of about five ells in circumference. The water lodges in a rock. The depth downward till you reach the water is three cubits and the depth of the water itself three orguiai. Herein the Indians of highest distinction bathe [both for purification and the averting of diseases] along with their wives and children; they throw themselves into the well foot foremost, and when they leap in the water casts them up again, and not only does it throw up human beings to the surface, but it casts out upon dry land any kind of animal, whether living or dead, and in fact anything else that is cast into it except iron and silver and gold and copper, which all sink to the bottom. The water is intensely cold and sweet to drink. It makes a loud bubbling noise like water boiling in a caldron. Its waters are a cure for leprosy, and scab. In the Indian tongue it is called Balladé and in Greek ὠφελίμη (i. e. useful).
31. On those Indian mountains where the Indian reed grows, there is a race of men whose number is not less than 30,000, and whose wives bear offspring only once in their whole lifetime. Their children have teeth of perfect whiteness, both the upper set and the under, and the hair both of their head and of their eyebrows is from their very infancy quite hoary, and this whether they be boys or girls. Indeed every man among them till he reaches his thirtieth year has all the hair on his body white, but from that time forward it begins to turn black, and by the time they are sixty, there is not a hair to be seen upon them but what is black. These people, both men and women alike, have eight fingers on each hand, and eight toes on each foot. They are a very warlike people, and five thousand of them armed with bows and spears follow the banners of the King of the Indians. Their ears, he says, are so large that they cover their arms as far as the elbows while at the same time they cover all the back and the one ear touches the other.
32. There is in Ethiopia an animal called properly the Krokottas, but vulgarly the Kynolykos. It is of prodigious strength, and is said to imitate the human voice, and by night to call out men by their names, and when they come forth at their call, to fall upon them and devour them. This animal has the courage of the lion, the speed of the horse, and the strength of the bull, and cannot be encountered success fully with weapons of steel. In Eubœa about Khalkis the sheep have no gall, and their flesh is so extremely bitter that dogs even will not eat it. They say also that in the parts beyond the Maurusian Straits rain falls in the summer-time, while the same regions are in wintertime scorched with heat. In the country of the Kyônians there is, according to his account, a certain fountain, which instead of water has springs of oil—this oil being used by the people in the neighbourhood for all kinds of food. In the region also called Metadrida there is another fountain, this being at no great distance from the sea. At midnight it swells with the utmost violence, and in receding casts forth fish upon dry land in such quantities that the people of the place cannot gather them, and are obliged to leave them lying rotting on the ground.
33. Ktêsias thus writing and romancing professes that his narrative is all perfect truth, and, to assure us of this, asseverates that he has recorded nothing but what he either saw with his own eyes, or learned from the testimony of credible eye-witnesses. He adds moreover that he has left unnoticed many things far more marvellous than any he has related, lest any one who had not a previous knowledge of the facts might look upon him as an arrant story-teller.
The Sêres and the natives of Upper India are said to be men of huge stature, so that among them are found some who are 13 cubits in height and who also live till they are above 200 years old. There are besides somewhere in the river called the Gaïtês men of a brute-like appearance who have a hide like that of a rhinoceros being quite impervious to darts, while in India itself in the central parts of an island of the ocean the inhabitants are said to have tails of extraordinary length such as satyrs are represented with in pictures.
2. He notices the pantarba, a kind of scalstone, and relates that when sealstones and other costly gems to the number of 477 which belonged to the Baktrian merchant, had been flung into the river, this pantarba drew them up to itself, all adhering together.
3. He notices also the elephants” that demolish walls; the kind of small apes that have tails four cubits long; the cocks that are of extraordinary size; the kind of bird called the parrot and which he thus describes: it has a tongue and voice like the human, is of the size of a hawk, has a red bill, is adorned with a board of a black colour, while the neck is red like cinnabar, it talks like a man in Indian, but if taught Greek can talk in Greek also.
4. He notices the fountain which is filled every year with liquid gold, out of which are annually drawn a hundred earthen pitchers filled with the metal. The pitchers must be earthen since the gold when drawn becomes solid, and to get it out the containing vessel must needs be broken in pieces. The fountain is of a square shape, eleven cubits in circumference, and a fathom in depth. Each pitcherful of gold weighs a talent. He notices also the iron found at the bottom of this fountain, adding that he had in his own possession two swords made from this iron, one given to him by the king of Persia, and the other by Parysatis, the mother of that same king. This iron, he says, if fixed in the earth, averts clouds and hail and thunderstorms, and he avers that he had himself twice seen the iron do this, the king on both occasions performing the experiment.
5. We learn further that the dogs of India are of very great size, so that they fight even with the lion; that there are certain high mountains having mines which yield the sardine-stone, and onyxes, and other seal stones that the heat is excessive, and that the sun appears in India to be ten times larger than in other countries; and that many of the inhabitants are suffocated to death by the heat. Of the sea in India, he says, that it is not less than the sea in Hellas; its surface however for four finger-breadths downward is hot, so that fish cannot live that go near the heated surface, but must confine themselves always to the depths below.
6. He states that the river Indus flows through the level country, and through between the mountains, and that what is called the Indian reed grows along its course, this being so thick that two men could scarcely encompass its stem with their arms, and of a height to equal the mast of a merchant ship of the heaviest burden. Some are of a greater size even than this, though some are of less, as might be expected when the mountain it grows on is of vast range. The reeds are distinguished by sex, some being male, others female. The male reed has no pith, and is exceedingly strong, but the female has a pith.
7. He describes an animal called the martikhora found in India. Its face is like a man’s—it is about as big as a lion, and in colour red like cinnabar. It has three rows of teeth—ears like the human—eyes of a pale-blue like the human and a tail like that of the land scorpion, armed with a sting and more than a cubit long. It has besides stings on each side of its tail, and, like the scorpion, is armed with an additional sting on the crown of its head, wherewith it stings any one who goes near it, the wound in all cases proving mortal. If attacked from a distance it defends itself both in front and in rear—in front with its tail, by up-lifting it and darting out the stings, like shafts shot from a bow, and in rear by straightening it out. It can strike to the distance of a hundred feet, and no creature can survive the wound it inflicts save only the elephant. The stings are about a foot in length, and not thicker than the finest thread. The name martikhora means in Greek ἀνθρωποφάγος (i.e. man-eater), and it is so called because it carries off men and devours them, though it no doubt preys upon other animals as well. In fighting it uses not only its stings but also its claws. Fresh stings grow up to replace those shot away in fighting. These animals are numerous in India, and are killed by the natives who hunt them with elephants, from the backs of which they attack them with darts.
8. He describes the Indians as extremely just, and gives an account of their manners and customs. He mentions the sacred spot in the midst of an uninhabited region which they venerate in the name of the Sun and the Moon. It takes one a fifteen days’ journey to reach this place from Mount Sardous. Here for the space of five and thirty days the Sun every year cools down to allow his worshippers to celebrate his rites, and return home unscorched by his burning rays. He observes that in India there is neither thunder nor lightning nor rain, but that storms of -wind and violent hurricanes which sweep everything before them, are of frequent occurrence. The morning sun produces coolness for one half of the day, but an excessive heat during the other half, and this holds good for most parts of India.
9. It is not, however, by exposure to the sun that the people are swarthy, but by nature, for among the Indians there are both men and women who are as fair as any in the world, though such are no doubt in a minority. He adds that he had himself seen two Indian women and five men of such a fair complexion.
10. Wishing to assure us of the truth of his statement that the sun makes the temperature cool for five and thirty days, he mentions several facts that are equally strange—that the streams of fire which issue from Ætna leave unscathed amidst the surrounding havoc those lands which belong to just men—that in Zakynthos there are fountains with fish whence pitch is taken out—that in Naxos is a fountain which at times discharges a wine of great sweetness, and that the water of the river Phasis likewise, if kept in a vessel for a night and a day, changes into a wine which is also of great sweetness—that near Phaselis in Lykia there is a perpetual volcano, always flaming on the summit of the rock both by night and by day, and this is not quenched by water, which rather augments the blaze, but by casting rubbish into it—and in like manner, the volcanoes of Ætna and of Prusa keep always burning.
11. He writes that in the middle of India are found the swarthy men called Pygmies, who speak the same language as the other Indians. They are very diminutive, the tallest of them being but two cubits in height, while the majority are only one and a half. They let their hair grow very long—down to their knees, and even lower. They have the largest beards anywhere to be seen, and when these have grown sufficiently long and copious, they no longer wear clothing, but, instead, let the hair of the head fall down their backs far below the knee, while in front are their beards trailing down to their very feet. When their hair has thus thickly enveloped their whole body, they bind it round them with a zone, and so make it serve for a garment. Their privates are thick, and so large that they depend even to their ancles. They are moreover snubnosed, and otherwise ill-favoured. Their sheep are of the size of our lambs, and their oxen and asses rather smaller than our rams, which again are as big as their horses and mules and other cattle. Of the Pygmies three thousand men attend the king of the Indians, on account of their great skill in archery. They are eminently just, and have the same laws as the Indians. They hunt hares and foxes not with dogs but with ravens and kites and crows and vultures. In their country is a lake eight hundred stadia in circumference, which produces an oil like our own. If the wind be not blowing, this oil floats upon the surface, and the Pygmies going upon the lake in little boats collect it from amidst the waters in small tubs for household use. They use also oil of sêsamum and nut oil, but the lake-oil is the best. The lake has also fish.
12. There is much silver in their part of the country, and the silver-mines though not deep are deeper than those in Baktria. Gold also is a product of India. It is not found in rivers and washed from the sands the like gold of the river Paktôlos, but is found on those many high-towering mountains which are inhabited by the Griffins, a race of four-footed birds, about as large as wolves, having legs and claws like those of the lion, and covered all over the body with black feathers except only on the breast where they are red. On account of those birds the gold with which the mountains abound is difficult to be got.
13. The sheep and the goats of the Indians are bigger than asses, and generally produce young by four and by six at a time. The tails grow to such a size that those of the dams must be cut off before the rams can get at them. India does not however produce the pig, either the tame sort or the wild. Palm-trees and their dates are in India thrice the size of those in Babylon, and we learn that there is a certain river flowing with honey out of a rock, like the one we have in our own country.
14. The justice of the Indians, their devotion to their king and their contempt of death are themes on which he loves to expatiate. He notices a fountain having this peculiarity, that when any one draws water from it, the water coagulates like cheese, and should you then detach from the solid lump a piece weighing about three obols, and having triturated this, put the powder into common water, he to whom you give this potion blabs out whatever he has done, for he becomes delirious, and raves like a madman all that day. The king avails himself of this property when he wishes to discover the guilt or innocence of accused persons. Whoever incriminates himself when undergoing the ordeal is sentenced to starve himself to death, while he who does not confess to any crime is acquitted.
15. The Indians are not afflicted with headache, or toothache, or ophthalmia, nor have they mouthsores or ulcers in any part of their body. The age to which they live is 120, 130, and 150 years, though the very old live to 200.
16. In their country is a serpent a span long, in appearance like the most beautiful purple with a head perfectly white but without any teeth. The creature is caught on those very hot mountains whose mines yield the sardine-stone. It does not sting, but on whatever part of the body it casts its vomit, that place invariably putrifies. If suspended by the tail, it emits two kinds of poison, one like amber which, oozes from it while living, and the other black, which oozes from its carcase. Should about a sesame-seed’s bulk of the former be administered to any one, he dies the instant he swallows it, for his brain runs out through his nostrils. If the black sort be given it induces consumption, but operates so slowly that death scarcely ensues in less than a year’s time.
17. He mentions an Indian bird called the Dikairon, a name equivalent in Greek to δίκαιον (i.e. just). It is about the size of a partridge’s egg. It buries its dung under the earth to prevent its being found. Should it be found notwithstanding, and should a person at morning tide swallow so muoh of it as would about equal a grain of sêsamum, he falls into a deep unconscious sleep from which he never awakes, but dies at the going down of the sun.
18. In the same country grows what is called the Parêbon, a plant about the size of the olive, found only in the royal gardens, producing neither flower nor fruit, but having merely fifteen roots, which grow down into the earth, and are of considerable thickness, the very slenderest being about as thick as one’s arm. If a span’s length of this root be taken, it attracts to itself all objects brought near it—gold, silver, copper, stones and all things else except amber. If however a cubit’s length of it be taken, it attracts lambs and birds, and it is in fact with this root that most kinds of birds are caught. Should you wish to turn water solid, even a whole gallon of it, you have but to throw into the water not more than an obol’s weight of this root, and the thing is done. Its effect is the same upon wine which, when condensed by it, can be held in your hand like a piece of wax, though it melts the next day. It is found beneficial in the cure of bowel disorders.
19. Through India there flows a certain river, not of any great size, but only about two stadia in breadth, called in the Indian tongue Hyparkhos, which means in Greek φέρων πάντα τα ἁγαθἁ (i.e. the bearer of all things good). This river for thirty days in every year floats down amber, for in the upper part of its course where it flows among the mountains there are said to be trees overhanging its current which for thirty days at a particular season in every year continue dropping tears like the almond-tree and the pine-tree and other trees. These tears on dropping into the water harden into gum. The Indian name for the tree is siptakhora, which means when rendered into Greek γλυκύ, ήδύ (i.e. sweet). These trees then supply the Indians with their amber. And not only so but they are said to yield also berries, which grow in clusters like the grapes of the vine, and have stones as large as the filbert-nuts of Pontos.
20. He writes that on the mountains just spoken of there live men having heads like those of dogs, who wear the skins of wild beasts, and do not use articulate speech, but bark like dogs, and thus converse so as to be understood by each other.63 They have larger teeth than dogs, and claws like those of dogs, only larger and more rounded. They inhabit the mountains, and extend as far as the river Indus. They are swarthy, and like all the other Indians extremely just men. With the Indians they can hold intercourse, for they understand what they say, though they cannot, it is true, reply to them in words, still by barking and by making signs with their hands and their fingers like the deaf and the dumb, they can make themselves understood. They are called by the Indians Kalystrioi, which means in Greek Κυνοκέφαλοι (i. e., dog-headed). Their food is raw flesh. The whole tribe numbers not less than 120,000 men.
21. Near the sources of this river there grows a certain purple flower, which is used for dying purple, and is not inferior to the Greek sort, but even imparts a far more florid hue. In the same parts there is a wild insect about the size of a beetle, red like cinnabar, with legs excessively long. It is as soft as the worm called skôlex and is found on the trees which produce amber, eating the fruits of those trees and destroying them, as in Greece the wood-louse ravages the vine-trees. The Indians grind these insects to a powder and therewith dye such robes, tunics, and other vestments as they want to be of a purple hue. Their dye-stuffs are superior to those used by the Persians.
22. The Kynokephaloi living on the mountains do not practise any of the arts but subsist by the produce of the chase. They slaughter the prey, and roast the flesh in the sun. They rear however great numbers of sheep and goats and asses. They drink the milk of the sheep and the whey which is made therefrom. They eat moreover the fruit of the Siptakhora—the tree which produces amber, for it is sweet. They also dry this fruit, and pack it in hampers as the Greeks do raisins. The same people construct rafts, and freight them with the hampers as well as with the flowers of the purple plant, after cleansing it, and with 260 talents weight of amber, and a like weight of the pigment which dyes purple, and 1000 talents more of amber. All this cargo, which is the season’s produce, they convey annually as tribute to the King of the Indians. They take also additional quantities of the same commodities for sale to the Indians, from whom they receive in exchange loaves of bread and flour and cloth which is made from a tree-grown stuff (cotton). They sell also swords such as they use in hunting wild beasts, and bows and javelins, for they are fell marksmen both in shooting with the bow and in hurling the javelin. As they inhabit steep and pathless mountains they cannot possibly be conquered in war, and the king moreover once every five years sends them as presents 300,000 arrows and as many javelins, 120,000 shields and 50,000 swords.
23. These Kynokephaloi have no houses but live in caves. They hunt wild beasts with the bow and the spear, and run so fast that they can overtake them in the chase. Their women bathe once a month at the time of menstruation, and then only. The men do not bathe at all, but merely wash their hands. Thrice a month, however, they anoint themselves with an oil made from milk, and wipe themselves with skins. Skins denuded of the hair, and made thin and soft, constitute the dress both of the men and their wives. Their richest men however use cotton raiment, but the number of Buch men is small. They have no bed but sleep on a litter of straw or leaves. That man is considered the richest who possesses most sheep, and in property of this sort consists all their wealth. Both men and women have, like dogs, tails above their buttocks but larger and more hairy. They copulate like quadrupeds in dog-fashion, and to copulate otherwise is thought shameful. They are just, and of all men are the longest-lived, attaining the age of 170, and some even of 200 years.
24. Beyond these again are other men who inhabit the country above the sources of the river, who are swarthy like the other Indians, do no work, and neither eat grain nor drink water, but rear a good many cows and goats and sheep, and drink their milk as their sole sustenance. Children are born among them with the anus closed up, and the contents of the bowels are therefore voided, it is said, as urine, this being something like curds, though not at all thick but feculent. When they drink milk in the morning and take another draught at noon, and then immediately after eat a certain sweet-tasted root of indigenous growth which is said to prevent milk from coagulating in the stomach, this root towards evening acts as an emetic, and they vomit up everything quite readily.
25. Among the Indians, he proceeds, there are wild asses as large as horses, some being even larger. Their head is of a dark red colour, their eyes blue, and the rest of their body white. They have a horn on their forehead, a cubit in length [the filings of this horn, if given in a potion, are an antidote to poisonous drugs]. This horn for about two palm-breadths upwards from the base is of the purest white, where it tapers to a sharp point of a flaming crimson, and, in the middle, is black. These horns are made into drinking cups, and such as drink from them are attacked neither by convulsions nor by the sacred disease (epilepsy). Nay, they are not even affected by poisons, if either before or after swallowing them they drink from these cups wine, water, or anything else. While other asses moreover, whether wild or tame, and indeed all other solid-hoofed animals have neither huckle-bones, nor gall in the liver, these one-horned asses have both. Their huckle-bone is the most beautiful of all I have ever seen, and is, in appearance and size, like that of the ox. It is as heavy as lead, and of the colour of cinnabar both on the surface, and all throughout. It is exceedingly fleet and strong, and no creature that pursues it, not even the horse, can overtake it.
26. On first starting it scampers off somewhat leisurely, but the longer it runs, it gallops faster and faster till the pace becomes most furious. These animals therefore can only be caught at one particular time—that is when they lead out their little foals to the pastures in which they roam. They are then hemmed in on all sides by a vast number of hunters mounted on horseback, and being unwilling to escape while leaving their young to perish, stand their ground and fight, and by butting with their horns and kicking and biting kill many horses and men. But they are in the end taken, pierced to death with arrows and spears, for to take them alive is in no way possible. Their flesh being bitter” is unfit for food, and they are hunted merely for the sake of their horns and their huckle-bones.
27. He states that there is bred in the Indian river a worm like in appearance to that which is found in the fig, but seven cubits more or less in length, while its thickness is such that a boy ten years old could hardly clasp it within the circuit of his arms. These worms have two teeth—an upper and a lower, with which they seize and devour their prey. In the daytime they remain in the mud at the bottom of the river, but at night they come ashore, and should they fall in with any prey as a cow or a camel, they seize it with their teeth, and having dragged it to the river, there devour it. For catching this worm a large hook is employed, to which a kid or a lamb is fastened by chains of iron. The worm being landed, the captors hang up its carcase, and placing vessels underneath it leave it thus for thirty days. All this time oil drops from it, as much being got as would fill ten Attic kotylai. At the end of the thirty days they throw away the worm, and preserving the oil they take it to the king of the Indians, and to him alone, for no subject is allowed to get a drop of it. This oil [like fire] sets everything ablaze over which it is poured and it consumes not alone wood but even animals. The flames can be quenched only by throwing over them a great quantity of clay, and that of a thick consistency.
28. But again there are certain trees in India as tall as the cedar or the cypress, having leaves like those of the date palm, only somewhat broader, but having no shoots sprouting from the stems. They produce a flower like the male laurel, but no fruit. In the Indian language they are called karpion, but in Greek μυρορόδα (unguent-roses). These trees are scarce. There oozes from them an oil in drops, which are wiped off from the stem with wool, from which they are afterwards wrung out and received into alabaster boxes of stone. The oil is in colour of a faint red, and of a somewhat thick consistency. Its smell is the sweetest in all the world, and is said to diffuse itself to a distance of five stadia around. The privilege of possessing this perfume belongs only to the king and the members of the royal family. A present of it was sent by the king of the Indians to the king of the Persians, and Ktêsias alleges that he saw it himself, and that it was of such an exquisite fragrance as he could not describe, and he knew nothing whereunto he could liken it.
29. He states that the cheese and the wines of the Indians are the sweetest in the world, adding that he knew this from his own experience, since he had tasted both.
30. There is a fountain among the Indians of a square shape and of about five ells in circumference. The water lodges in a rock. The depth downward till you reach the water is three cubits and the depth of the water itself three orguiai. Herein the Indians of highest distinction bathe [both for purification and the averting of diseases] along with their wives and children; they throw themselves into the well foot foremost, and when they leap in the water casts them up again, and not only does it throw up human beings to the surface, but it casts out upon dry land any kind of animal, whether living or dead, and in fact anything else that is cast into it except iron and silver and gold and copper, which all sink to the bottom. The water is intensely cold and sweet to drink. It makes a loud bubbling noise like water boiling in a caldron. Its waters are a cure for leprosy, and scab. In the Indian tongue it is called Balladé and in Greek ὠφελίμη (i. e. useful).
31. On those Indian mountains where the Indian reed grows, there is a race of men whose number is not less than 30,000, and whose wives bear offspring only once in their whole lifetime. Their children have teeth of perfect whiteness, both the upper set and the under, and the hair both of their head and of their eyebrows is from their very infancy quite hoary, and this whether they be boys or girls. Indeed every man among them till he reaches his thirtieth year has all the hair on his body white, but from that time forward it begins to turn black, and by the time they are sixty, there is not a hair to be seen upon them but what is black. These people, both men and women alike, have eight fingers on each hand, and eight toes on each foot. They are a very warlike people, and five thousand of them armed with bows and spears follow the banners of the King of the Indians. Their ears, he says, are so large that they cover their arms as far as the elbows while at the same time they cover all the back and the one ear touches the other.
32. There is in Ethiopia an animal called properly the Krokottas, but vulgarly the Kynolykos. It is of prodigious strength, and is said to imitate the human voice, and by night to call out men by their names, and when they come forth at their call, to fall upon them and devour them. This animal has the courage of the lion, the speed of the horse, and the strength of the bull, and cannot be encountered success fully with weapons of steel. In Eubœa about Khalkis the sheep have no gall, and their flesh is so extremely bitter that dogs even will not eat it. They say also that in the parts beyond the Maurusian Straits rain falls in the summer-time, while the same regions are in wintertime scorched with heat. In the country of the Kyônians there is, according to his account, a certain fountain, which instead of water has springs of oil—this oil being used by the people in the neighbourhood for all kinds of food. In the region also called Metadrida there is another fountain, this being at no great distance from the sea. At midnight it swells with the utmost violence, and in receding casts forth fish upon dry land in such quantities that the people of the place cannot gather them, and are obliged to leave them lying rotting on the ground.
33. Ktêsias thus writing and romancing professes that his narrative is all perfect truth, and, to assure us of this, asseverates that he has recorded nothing but what he either saw with his own eyes, or learned from the testimony of credible eye-witnesses. He adds moreover that he has left unnoticed many things far more marvellous than any he has related, lest any one who had not a previous knowledge of the facts might look upon him as an arrant story-teller.
The Sêres and the natives of Upper India are said to be men of huge stature, so that among them are found some who are 13 cubits in height and who also live till they are above 200 years old. There are besides somewhere in the river called the Gaïtês men of a brute-like appearance who have a hide like that of a rhinoceros being quite impervious to darts, while in India itself in the central parts of an island of the ocean the inhabitants are said to have tails of extraordinary length such as satyrs are represented with in pictures.
FRAG. II.
From Arrian, Anab. Book V. 4, 2.
From Arrian, Anab. Book V. 4, 2.
And Ktêsias (if any one considers him a competent authority) asserts that the distance from the one bank of the Indus to the other where the stream is narrowest is 40 stadia, and where it is widest, so much even as 100 stadia, though its breadth in general is the mean between these two extremes.
FRAG. III.
Strabo, Geog. Book XV.
Strabo, Geog. Book XV.
From this we can see how greatly the opinions of the others differ, Ktêsias asserting that India is not less than all the rest of Asia, and Onesikritos that, &c.
From the Indika of Arrian, 30.
Ktêsias the Knidian states that India is equal to the rest of Asia, but he is wrong.
FRAG. IV.
Ælian, De Nat. Anim. Book XVII, 29.
Ælian, De Nat. Anim. Book XVII, 29.
When the King of the Indians goes on a campaign, one hundred thousand war-elephants go on before him, while three thousand more, that are of superior size and strength, march, I am told, behind him, these being trained to demolish the walls of the enemy. This they effect by rushing against them at the King’s signal, and throwing them down by the overwhelming force with which they press their breasts against them. Ktêsias reports this from hearsay, but adds that with his own eyes he had seen elephants tear up palm trees, roots and all, with like furious violence; and this they do whenever they are instigated to the act by their drivers.
FRAG. V.
(A) Aristotle, De Gener. Anim. II, 2.
(A) Aristotle, De Gener. Anim. II, 2.
What Ktêsias has said regarding the seed of the elephant is plainly false, for he asserts that when dry it turns hard so as to become like amber; and this it does not.
(B) From the same, towards the end of the 3rd Book of his History of Animals.
What Ktêsias has written regarding the seed of the elephant is false.
(C) Ælian, De Animal. XVI, 2.
Cocks [in India] are of immense size, and their crests are not red like the crests of our own cocks, but many-hued, like a floral garland; their rump feathers are neither curved nor wreathed, but broad, and these they trail after them in the way the peacock drags his tail when he does not make it stand erect. The feathers of the Indian cocks are partly golden, and partly of a gleaming azure like the smaragdus stone.
FRAG. VI.
(A) Ælian, De Animal. Nat. XVI, 31.
(A) Ælian, De Animal. Nat. XVI, 31.
Ktêsias in his account of India says that the people called the Kynamolgoi rear many dogs as big as the Hyrkanian breed, and this Knidian writer tells us also why they keep so many dogs, and this is the reason: From the time of the summer solstice on to mid-winter they are incessantly attacked by herds of wild oxen, coming like a swarm of bees or a flight of angry wasps, only that the oxen are more numerous by far. They are ferocious withal and proudly defiant, and butt most viciously with their horns. The Kynamolgoi, unable to withstand them otherwise, let loose their dogs upon them, which are bred for this express purpose, and these dogs easily overpower the oxen and worry them to death. Then come the masters, and appropriate to their own use such parts of the carcases as they deem fit for food, but they set apart for their dogs all the rest, and gratitude prompts them to give this share cheerfully. During the season when they are left unmolested by the oxen, they employ their dogs in hunting other animals. They milk the bitches, and this is why they are called Kynamolgoi (dog-milkers). They drink this milk just as we drink that of the sheep or the goat.
(B) Polydeukês (Pollux), Onomastic. V, 5, 41, p. 497.
The Kynamolgoi are dogs living about the lakes in the south of India and subsisting’ upon cows’ milk. They are attacked in the hot season by the oxen of India, but they fight these assailants and overcome them, as Ktêsias relates.
(C) Ælian, De Animal. Nat. IV, 32.
It is worth while learning what like are the cattle of the Indians. Their goats and their sheep are, from what I hear, bigger than the biggest asses, and they produce four young ones at a time, and never fewer than three. The tails of the sheep reach down to their feet, and the tails of the goats are so long that they almost touch the ground. The shepherds cut off the tails of those ewes that are good for breeding to let them be mounted by the rams, and these tails yield an oil which is squeezed out from their fat. They cut also the tails of the rams, and having extracted the fat, sew them up again so carefully that no trace of the incision is afterwards seen.
FRAG. VII.
Tzetzês, Chil. VII, v. 739, from the Third Book of the Ἀραβικιον of Uranius.
Tzetzês, Chil. VII, v. 739, from the Third Book of the Ἀραβικιον of Uranius.
If any one thinks that the size of the Arabian reeds has been exaggerated, who, asks Tzetzês, would believe what Ktêsias says of the Indian reeds—that they are two orguiai in breadth, and that a couple of cargo-boats could be made from a single joint of one of these reeds.
FRAG. VIII.
Aristotle, De Hist. Anim. II, 1.
Aristotle, De Hist. Anim. II, 1.
No animals of these species have a double row of teeth, though, if we are to believe Ktêsias, there is one exception to the rule, for he asserts that the Indian beast called the Martikhora has a triple row of teeth in each of its jaws. He describes the animal as being equal in size to the lion, which it also resembles in its claws and in having shaggy hair, though its face and its ears are like those of a human being. Its eyes are blue and its hair is of the colour of cinnabar. Its tail, which resembles that of the land scorpion, contains the sting, and is furnished with a growth of prickles which it has the power of discharging like shafts shot from a bow. Its voice is like the sound of the pipe and the trumpet blended together. It runs fast, being as nimble as a deer. It is very ferocious and has a great avidity for human flesh.
FRAG. IX.
Pausanias (Boiôt. IX. xxi. 4) quoting Ktêsias, thus describes the same animal.
Pausanias (Boiôt. IX. xxi. 4) quoting Ktêsias, thus describes the same animal.
The animal mentioned by Ktêsias in his Indika, called by the Indians the Martikhora, but by the Greeks, it is said, ἀνδρωποφάγον (man-eater) is, I am convinced, the tiger. It is described as having three rows of teeth in each of its jaws and as having stings at the end of its tail, wherewith it defends itself against its assailants whether fighting at close quarters or at a distance. In the latter case it shoots its stings clean away from its tail like shafts shot from a bow-string.
[The Indians appear to me to have accepted this account, which is not true, through their excessive dread of this creature.]
[The Indians appear to me to have accepted this account, which is not true, through their excessive dread of this creature.]
FRAG. X.
Pliny, H. N. VIII, 21 (al. 30.)
Pliny, H. N. VIII, 21 (al. 30.)
Ktêsias states that the animal which he calls the Martikhora is found among these people [the Indians or rather the Aethiopians]. According to his description, it has a triple row of teeth, ranged together like the teeth of a comb; its face and its ears are like those of a human being, while its eyes are blue and its hair of a blood-red colour. It has the body of a lion and its tail is armed with stings, with which it smites like the scorpion. Its voice is like the commingled sound of the pipe and the trumpet. It runs very fast, and is very fond of human flesh.
FRAG. XI.
From Ælian, De Animal. IV. 21; respecting the Indian Martikhora.
From Ælian, De Animal. IV. 21; respecting the Indian Martikhora.
In India is found a wild animal called in the native tongue the Martikhora. It is of great strength and ferocity, being about as big as a lion, of a red colour like cinnabar, and covered with shaggy hair like a dog. Its face, however, is not bestial, but resembles that of a human being. It has both in the upper and the lower jaw a double row of teeth which are extremely sharp at the points and larger than the canine. Its ears in their conformation are like the human, but they are larger and covered with shaggy hair. Its eyes also are like the human, and of a blue colour. It has the feet and the claws of a lion, but its tail, which may be more than a cubit long, is not only furnished at the tip with a scorpion’s sting but is armed on both sides with a row of stings. With the sting at the tip it smites any one who comes near it, and kills him therewith instantaneously, but if it is pursued it uses the side stings, discharging them like arrows against the pursuer, whom it can hit even though he be at a good distance off. When it fights, having the enemy in front, it bends the tail upward, but when, like the Sakians, it fights while retreating, it straightens it out to the fullest length. The stings, which are a foot long and as slender as a rush (or a fine thread), kill every animal they hit, with the exception of the elephant only. Ktêsias says that he had been assured by the Indians that those stings that are expended in fighting are replaced by a growth of new ones as if to perpetuate this accursed plague. Its favourite food, according to the same author, is human flesh, and to satisfy this lust, it kills a great many men, caring not to spring from its ambush upon a solitary traveller, but rather upon a band of two or three for which it is singly more than a match. All the beasts of the forest yield to its prowess, save only the lion, which it is impotent to subdue. That it loves above all things to gorge itself with human flesh, is clearly shown by its name—for the Indian word Martikhora means man-eater—and it has its name from this particular habit. It runs with all the nimbleness of a deer. The Indians hunt the young ones before the stings appear on their tails, and break the tails themselves in pieces on the rocks to prevent stings growing upon them. Its voice has a most striking resemblance to the sound of a trumpet. Ktêsias says that he had seen in Persia one of these animals, which had been sent from India as a gift to the Persian king. Such are the peculiarities of the Martikhora as described by Ktêsias, and if any one thinks this Knidian writer a competent authority on such subjects, he must be content with the account which he has given.
FRAG. XII.
(A) Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. c. 182.
(A) Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. c. 182.
He says that Ktêsias gives an account of an undying fire burning on Mount Chimaera in the country of the Phasêlitai. Should the flame be cast into water, this but sets it into a greater blaze, and so if you wish to put it out you must cast some solid substance into it.
(B) Pliny, Hist. Nat. II, 106.
Mount Chimaera in Phasêlisis volcanic, and burns night and day with a perpetual flame. According to Ktêsias the Knidian, the fire is augmented by water, but extinguished by earth or hay.
(C) Ælian, De Anim. XVI. 37.
Among the Indian Psylloi (who are so called to distinguish them from the Libyan Psylloi) the horses are no bigger than rams, while the sheep look as small as lambs. The asses are Likewise correspondingly small and so are the mules and the oxen, and in short all cattle of whatever kind.
FRAG. XIII.
Ælian, Nat. An. IV, 26.
Ælian, Nat. An. IV, 26.
Hares and foxes are hunted by the Indians in the manner following. They do not require dogs for the purpose, but taking the young of eagles, of ravens and of kites, they rear and train them to pursue these animals by subjecting them to this course of instruction. Taking a pet hare and a tame fox, they fasten on to each a gobbet of flesh, and then making them run away, at the same time dismiss the birds to give them instant chase, and catch the alluring bait. The birds eagerly pursue, and catching up either the hare or the fox, pounce upon the flesh, with which they are allowed to glut their maw in recompense for their activity in having captured it. When they have thus become adepts in hunting, they are taken out to pursue mountain hares and wild foxes, when, on sighting the quarry, they at once give it chase in hope of earning the customary dainty, and having quickly caught it bring it to their masters, as Ktêsias acquaints us. From the same source we further learn that the entrails of the quarry are given them instead of the gobbets of flesh to which they had been formerly treated.
FRAG. XIV.
Ælian Nat. Anim. IV, 27.
Ælian Nat. Anim. IV, 27.
The gryphon, an Indian animal, is, so far as I can learn, four-footed like the lion and has claws of enormous strength closely resembling his. It is described as having feathers on its back, and these black, while the breast feathers are red and those of the wing white. According to Ktêsias its neck is variegated with feathers of a bright blue; its beak is like an eagle’s; and its head like the representations which artists give of it in paintings and sculptures. Its eyes are said to be fiery red, and it builds its nest upon the mountains, and, as it is impossible to catch these birds when full grown, they are caught when quite young. The Baktrians who are next neighbours to the Indians give out that these birds guard the gold found in the regions which they haunt, and’ that they dig it out of the ground and build their nests with it, and that the Indians carry off as much of it as falls to the ground. The Indians however deny that the gryphons guard the gold, alleging, what I think is highly probable, that gold is a thing gryphons have no use for; but they admit that when these birds see them coming to gather the gold, they become alarmed for their young and attack the intruders. Nor do they resist man only, but beasts of whatever kind, gaining an easy victory over all except only the elephant and the lion, for which they are no match. The gryphons, then, being so formidable, the natives of these countries go not to gather gold in the day time, but set out under cover of night when they are least likely to be detected. Now the auriferous region which the gryphons inhabit is a frightful desert, and those who make a raid upon the gold, select a moonless night, and set out armed, the expedition being a thousand or even two thousand strong. They take with them mattocks for digging the gold and sacks in which to carry it away. If they are unobserved by the gryphons they have a double share of good luck, for they not only escape with their lives but bear a freight of gold in triumph home, where, the metal having been purified by those who are skilful in smelting ores, they are recompensed with overflowing wealth for all the hazards of the enterprise. Should they on the other hand be detected in the act of theft, certain death would be their fate. I have learned by enquiry that they do not return home till after an absence of three or four years.
FRAG. XV.
(A) Ælian, Nat. An. XVI, 37.
(A) Ælian, Nat. An. XVI, 37.
It is said that neither the wild nor the tame swine is found in India, and that the Indians so much abhor the flesh of this animal that they would as soon taste human flesh as taste pork.
(B) Ælian, De Nat. Anim. III, 4.
The following also are peculiarities in the nature of animals. The swine, according to Ktêsias, whether wild or tame, is not found in India, and he somewhere states that Indian sheep have tails a cubit in breadth.
(C) Ariat., De Hist. Anim. VIII, 28.
In India, as Ktêsias, a writer not to be depended on, tells us, the swine is not found either wild or tame.
[The animals of that country however which are bloodless and those that lie in holes are all large.]
[The animals of that country however which are bloodless and those that lie in holes are all large.]
(D) . Palladius, De Brachman, p. 5.
For the swine of the Thebaid, on account of the excessive heat, is no longer found either in the parts of India or of Æthiopia.
(E) Pallad., De Brach., p. 4.
It (India) has also palms and the largest of nuts, the Indian as well as the small nut which is aromatic.
(F) Antig. Mirab. Nar. 160.
Ktêsias, he says, informs us that in Ethiopia there is a fountain whose waters are red like cinnabar, and make those who drink them mad.
(G) From the work of Sôtiôn.
Ktêsias relates that in Ethiopia there is a fountain of water resembling cinnabar in colour which deprives those who drink it of their reason, so that they confess all the misdeeds which they have secretly committed.
(H) Pliny, XXXI, 2.
In drinking this water due moderation must be observed lest it make you mad like those persons who drink of that red fountain in Æthiopia whereof Ktêsias writes.
(I) Michael. Apostol. Proverb., XX, 6.10
A swine among the roses, a proverb applied by Kratês to the intractable and uneducated. Ktêsias asserts that the swine is not bred in India, either the wild or the tame kind, and he somewhere mentions that the sheep have tails a cubit in breadth.
FRAG. XVI.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVII, 2.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVII, 2.
Onesikritus says that in those parts of India where no shadows are cast there are men who are 5 cubits and 2 palms in stature and who live 130 years without becoming old, for if they die then they are cut off as it were in mid-life. Krates of Pergamus calls the Indians who live over a hundred years Gymnetae, but many writers call them Makrobii. Ktêsias asserts that a tribe of them called Pandarae inhabiting the valleys live for 200 years, and have in their youth white hair, which turns black when they grow old.
FRAG. XVII.
Ælian, Nat. An. IV, 36.
Ælian, Nat. An. IV, 36.
Writers on India inform us that that country produces many drugs, and is astonishingly prolific of those plants that yield them. Many of these drugs are medicinal and cure snake-bites, which are so dangerous to life, but others are deleterious and quickly destroy life. Among these may be reckoned the poison of a particular kind of serpent, one which to appearance is about a span long. Its colour is purple of the deepest dye, but not on the head, which so far from being purple, is extraordinarily white, whiter even than snow or than milk. It is found in those parts of India which are most scorched by the sun. It has no teeth, and does not at all incline to bite, and hence one would think it to be of a tame and gentle nature, but nevertheless, wherever it casts its vomit, be it upon the limb of a man or of a beast, nothing can prevent the whole of that limb from mortifying. It is sought after for the sake of this poison, and is, when caught, suspended from a tree by the tail, so that the head may look downward to the ground. Below its mouth they place a casket made of brass, to receive the drops of poison as they fall. The matter thus discharged condenses and becomes a solid mass which might be mistaken for the gum which oozes from the almond-tree. When the snake is dead the vessel is replaced by another, which is also of brass, for the carcase then discharges a serous humour like water, which, after being allowed to stand for three days, takes also a solid form. The two masses differ from each other in colour, the one being jet-black and the other the colour of amber. If you take of the latter no more than what would equal the bulk of a sesame seed, and administer this to one either in his food or his drink, he is first of all seized with violent spasms, and his eyes in the next place become distorted, and his brain, forcing its way through his nostrils, runs out, when death ensues after a short but sharp agony. If a smaller dose is taken, death does not immediately ensue, but does so eventually. The black poison, again, which has oozed from the snake when dead, operates but slowly, for if one swallows the same bulk of it as of the other, it corrupts his blood and he falls into a consumption, of which he dies in a year’s time. Many, however, survive for two years, dying inch by inch.
FRAG. XVIII.
Ælian, De Nat. An. IV, 41.
Ælian, De Nat. An. IV, 41.
There is a species of Indian bird of very diminutive size which may be thus described. It builds its nests on high and precipitous mountains, and is about as big as a partridge egg, and of a bright red colour like realgar. The Indians call it in their tongue dikairon, and the Greeks in theirs, as I am informed, dikaion (i. e. just). Its dung has a peculiar property, for if a quantity of it no bigger than a grain of millet be dissolved into a potion, it would be enough to kill a man by the fall of evening. But the death that comes thereby resembles a sleep, and is most pleasant withal and pangless, being like that death which the poets are wont to call lusimelês (limb-relaxing) and ablêkhros (easy), for such a death is painless, and is therefore to those who wish to be rid of life, the sweetest of all deaths. The Indians accordingly spare no pains to procure this substance, which they regard as a genuine anodyne for all human ills. Hence it is included among the costly presents sent by the king of the Indians to the Persian king, by whom it is prized more than aught else, and who treasures it up as a sure defence in case of necessity against ills that are past all other remedy. No one in all Persia possesses it save only the king himself and the king’s mother. Let us here then compare this Indian drug with the Egyptian so as to determine which is superior. The Egyptian we saw, had the effect throughout the day it was taken of restraining and checking tears, whereas the Indian induced an unending oblivion of all ills. The former was the gift of a woman, and the latter the gift of a bird, or rather of Nature, which, through the agency of this bird, unfetters man from the sternest bondage. And the Indians, they say, are happy in the possession of this, since they can by its means whenever they please, escape from their prison-house here below.
FRAG. XIX.
Apollonios (Dyskolos), Hist. Mirab. XVII.
Apollonios (Dyskolos), Hist. Mirab. XVII.
Ktêsias says that in India is found a tree called the parybon. This draws to itself everything that comes near, as gold, silver, tin, copper and all other metals. Nay, it even attracts sparrows when they alight in its neighbourhood. Should it be of large size, it would attract even goats and sheep and similar animals.
FRAG. XX.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXVII, 2.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXVII, 2.
Ktêsias says that in India is a river, the Hypobarus, and that the meaning of its name is the bearer of all good things. It flows from the north into the Eastern Ocean near a mountain well-wooded with trees that produce amber. These trees are called aphytacorae, a name which means luscious sweetness.
FRAG. XXI.
Tzetzês, Chi. VII, v, 714.
Tzetzês, Chi. VII, v, 714.
Ktêsias says that in India are the trees that produce amber, and the men called the Kynokephaloi, who, according to his account, are very just men living by produce of the chase.
FRAG. XXII.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII, 2.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII, 2.
On many mountains (of India) is found a race of men with heads like those of dogs, who are dressed with the skins of wild beasts, who bark instead of speaking, and who, being armed with claws, live by hunting and fowling. Ktêsias says that in his time the number of these men was 120,000.
FRAG. XXIII.
Ælian, IV, 46.
Ælian, IV, 46.
Among the Indians are found certain insects about the size of beetles and of a colour so red that at first sight one might mistake them for cinnabar. Their legs are of extraordinary length and soft to the touch. They grow upon the trees which produce amber, and subsist upon their fruit. The Indians collect them for the sake of the purple dye, which they yield when crushed. This dye is used for tinting with purple not only their outer and their under-garments, but also any other substance where a purple hue is required. Robes tinted with this purple are sent to the Persian king, for the Indian purple is thought by the Persians to be marvellously beautiful and far superior to their own. This we learn from Ktêsias, who says well, for this dye is in fact deeper and more brilliant than the renowned Lydian purple.
In that part of India where the beetles (κανθάροι) are met with, live the Kynokephaloi, who are so called from their being like dogs in the shape of their head and in their general appearance. In other respects, however, they resemble mankind, and go about clad in the skins of wild beasts. They are moreover very just, and do no sort of injury to any man. They cannot speak, but utter a kind of howl. Notwithstanding this they comprehend the language of the Indians. They subsist upon wild animals, which their great fleetness of foot enables them to capture with the utmost ease. Having killed the prey they cut it into pieces, and roast it by the heat of the sun and not by fire. They keep goats however and sheep, whose milk supplies them with drink, as the chase with food. I have mentioned them among the brutes, and with good reason, for they do not possess articulate and intelligible speech like mankind.
In that part of India where the beetles (κανθάροι) are met with, live the Kynokephaloi, who are so called from their being like dogs in the shape of their head and in their general appearance. In other respects, however, they resemble mankind, and go about clad in the skins of wild beasts. They are moreover very just, and do no sort of injury to any man. They cannot speak, but utter a kind of howl. Notwithstanding this they comprehend the language of the Indians. They subsist upon wild animals, which their great fleetness of foot enables them to capture with the utmost ease. Having killed the prey they cut it into pieces, and roast it by the heat of the sun and not by fire. They keep goats however and sheep, whose milk supplies them with drink, as the chase with food. I have mentioned them among the brutes, and with good reason, for they do not possess articulate and intelligible speech like mankind.
FRAG. XXIV.
Servius the Commentator on Virgil; Æneid, I, v. 653.
Servius the Commentator on Virgil; Æneid, I, v. 653.
Acantho—i. e. with a flexible twig in imitation of which a robe is artificially adorned and wrought. Varius makes this statement. Ktêsias says that there are trees in India which grow wool.
FRAG. XXV.
(A) Ælian, Hist. An. IV, 52.
(A) Ælian, Hist. An. IV, 52.
I have ascertained by enquiry that wild asses are found in India as big as horses. The animal is entirely white, except about the head, which is of a reddish colour, while the eye gleams with azure. It has a horn upon its forehead about a cubit and a half long. This horn is white at the base, crimson at the tip, and jet black in the middle. These particoloured horns are used, I understand, as drinking cups by the Indians, not indeed by people of all ranks, but only by the magnates, who rim them at intervals with circlets of gold just as they would adorn with bracelets the arm of some beautiful statue. They say that whoever drinks out of this horn is protected against all incurable diseases, for he can neither be seized by convulsions nor by what is called the sacred disease (epilepsy), and neither can he be cut off by poison; nay if before drinking from it he should have swallowed anything deleterious, he vomits this, and escapes scatheless from all ill effects, and while, as has been believed, all other asses, wherever found, and whether wild or tame, and even all solid-hoofed animals, have neither a huckle-bone (ἀστραγαλος) nor a gall in the liver, the Indian horned asses have according to Ktêsias both a huckle-bone and a gall in the liver. The huckle-bones are said to be black, not only on the surface but all throughout as may be proved by breaking one to pieces. They are fleeter not only than other asses but even than horses and deer. On first starting they run leisurely, but they gradually strengthen their pace, and then to overtake them, is, to use a poetic expression, the unattainable (τα ἀκίχητα). When the dams have brought forth and begin to lead out their young ones to the pastures, the males are in close attendance, and guard their offspring with devoted care. They roam about in the most desolate tracts of the Indian plain, and when the hunters come to attack them, they relegate their foals, being as yet but young and tender, to graze in the rear, while in front they fight to defend them. Their mode of attack is to charge the horsemen, using the horn as the weapon of assault, and this is so powerful, that nothing can withstand the blow it gives, but yields and snaps in two, or is perhaps shivered to pieces and spoiled for further use. They sometimes even fall upon the horses, and so cruelly rip up their sides with the horn that their very entrails gush out. The riders, it may well be imagined, dread to encounter them at close quarters, since the penalty of approaching them is a miserable death both to man and horse. And not only do they butt, but they also kick most viciously and bite; and their bite is much to be dreaded, for they tear away all the flesh they grasp with their teeth. It is accordingly impossible to take them alive if they be full-grown; and hence they must be despatched with such missiles as the spear or the arrow. This done, the Indians despoil them of their horns, which they ornament in the manner already described. The flesh is so very bitter that the Indians cannot use it for food.
(B) Ælian, III, 41.
India, he says, produces unicorn horses and breeds likewise unicorn asses. Drinking cups are made from these horns. Should one who plots against another’s life put a deadly poison into these cups no harm is done to the man who drinks therefrom. The horn of the horse and the ass, it would appear, is an antidote against evil.
FRAG. XXVI.
Ælian, Nat. An. V, 3.
Ælian, Nat. An. V, 3.
The river Indus has no living creature in it except, they say, the Skôlêx, a kind of worm which to appearance is very like the worms that are generated and nurtured in trees. It differs however in size, being in general seven cubits in length and of such a thickness that a child of ten could scarcely clasp it round in his arms. It has a single tooth in each of its jaws, quadrangular in shape and above four feet long. These teeth are so strong that they tear in pieces with ease whatever they clutch, be it a stone or be it a beast, whether wild or tame. In the daytime these worms remain hidden at the bottom of the river, wallowing with delight in its mud and sediment, but by night they come ashore in search of prey, and whatever animal they pounce upon—horse, cow, or ass, they drag down to the bottom of the river, where they devour it limb by limb, all except the entrails. Should they be pressed by hunger they come ashore even in the daytime, and should a camel then or a cow come to the brink of the river to quench its thirst, they creep stealthily up to it, and having with a violent spring secured their victim by fastening their fangs in its upper lip, they drag it by sheer force into the water, where they make a sumptuous repast of it. The hide of the skôlêx is two finger-breadths thick. The natives have devised the following method for catching it. To a hook of great strength and thickness they attach an iron chain, which they bind with a rope made of a broad piece of white cotton. Then they wrap wool round the hook and the rope, to prevent them being gnawed through by the worm, and having baited the hook with a kid, the line is thereupon lowered into the stream. As many as thirty men, each of whom is equipped with a sword and a spear fitted with a thong, hold on to the rope, having also stout cudgels of cornel lying ready to hand, in case it should be necessary to fell the monster with blows. As soon as it is hooked and swallows the bait, it is hauled ashore and despatched by the fishermen, who suspend its carcase till it has been exposed for 30 days to the heat of the sun. An oil all this time oozes out from it, and falls by drops into earthen vessels. A single worm yields ten kotulai (about five pints). The vessels having been sealed up, the oil is despatched to the king of the Indians, for no one else is allowed to have so much as one drop of it. The rest of the carcase is useless. Now this oil possesses this singular virtue, that if you wish to burn to ashes a pile of any kind of wood, you have only to pour upon it half a pint of the oil, and it ignites without your applying a spark of fire to kindle it, while if it is a man or a beast you want to burn, you pour out the oil, and in an instant the victim is consumed. By means of this oil also the king of the Indians, it is said, captures hostile cities without the help of rams or testudos or other siege apparatus, for he has merely to set them on fire with the oil, and they fall into his hands. How he proceeds is this. Having filled with the oil a certain number of earthen vessels which hold each about half a pint, he closes up their mouths, and aims them at the uppermost parts of the gates; and if they strike there and break, the oil runs down the woodwork, wrapping it in flames which cannot be put out, but with insatiable fury burn the enemy, arms and all. The only way to smother and extinguish this fire is to cast rubbish into it. This account is given by Ktêsias the Knidian.
FRAG. XXVII.
(A) From Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. 165.
(A) From Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. 165.
It is said that Ktêsias mentions certain lakes in India, one of which, like the lakes in Sicily and Media made everything that was cast into it sink down [float] except gold, copper, and iron. Moreover, should anything fall into it aslant, it is thrown up standing erect. It is said to cure the disease called the white leprosy. Another lake at certain seasons yields an oil which is found floating on the surface.
(B) From Sôtiôn in scattered passages where he relates marvels about rivers, fountains and lakes.
There is a fountain in India which throws out upon its banks as if shot from an engine those who dive into its waters, as Ktêsias relates.
(C) Strabo, Geog. XVI, 4.
Ktêsias the Knidian mentions a fountain which discharges into the sea water of a red colour and full of minium (red-lead).
FRAG. XXVIII.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXI, 2.
Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXI, 2.
Ktêsias records that in India is a pool of water called Side in which nothing will float, but everything sinks to the bottom.
FRAG. XXIX.
(A) Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. c. 182.
(A) Antigonos, Mirab. Nar. Cong. Hist. c. 182.
Ktêsias mentions the water which falls from a rock in Armenia, and which casts out black fish which cause the death of the eater.
(B) Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXI, 2.
Ktêsias writes that in Armenia there is a fountain with black fish which, if taken as food, produce instantaneous death, and I heard the same said of the Danube, that where it rises, the same kind of black fish is found in it till you come to a fountain adjoining its channel, and that this fountain is therefore commonly believed to be the head of the river. They tell the same thing of the Nymph’s pool in Lydia.
FRAG. XXX.
(A) Tzetzês, Chil. VII, v. 638.
(A) Tzetzês, Chil. VII, v. 638.
This Skylax (of Karyanda) writes other such stories by the myriads, stories of one-eyed men, and of men that sleep in their ears, and thousands of other wonderful creatures, all which he speaks of as really existing, and not fictitious; but for my part, as I have never met with any of them, I do not believe in them, although there are multitudes, such as Ktêsias, Iamboulos, Hesigonos, Rheginos, who not only believe that these, but that still greater monstrosities, are to be found in the world.
(B) Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII, 2.
And he affirms that there is a tribe of Indians whose women bear offspring once only in their lifetime, and whose hair turns white in the very childhood. He mentions also a race of men called Monosceli (one-legged), who, though they had but a single leg, could hop upon it with wonderful agility, and that they were also called Sciopodae, because that when they lay on their back in very hot weather, they shaded themselves from the sun with their feet. They lived not very far from the Troglodytes (cave-dwellers). To the west of these, he adds, lived men without a neck, and who had their eyes placed in their shoulders.
(C) From the same.
According to Ktêsias the Indian people which is called Pandore and occupies the valleys, live for 200 years, and have in early youth hoary hair which turns black as they become old. There is a people on the other hand whose life-time does not exceed forty years. They are next neighbours to the Makrobii, and their women produce offspring once only. Agatharchides asserts the same, and adds that they live upon locusts and are fleet of foot. [To these Klitarchus gave the name of Mandi, and Megasthenes reckons the number of their villages at 300. Their women bear children when they are seven years old, and they are in their old age at forty.]
FRAG. XXXI.
Gellius, Noct. Attic. IX. c. 4.
Gellius, Noct. Attic. IX. c. 4.
When we were returning from Greece into Italy, and had made our way to Brundusium, and having disembarked, were walking about in that famous seaport which Ennius, using a somewhat far-fetched but sufficiently well-known word, called the. fortunate (praepes), we saw a number of bundles of books lying exposed for sale. I lost not a moment, but pounced with the utmost avidity upon these books. Now, they were all in Greek and full of wonders and fables—containing relations of things unheard of and incredible, but written by authors of no small authority—Aristeas of Proconnêsos and Isigonos of Nicaea, and Ktêsias, and Onêsikritos and Polystephanos and Hegesias. The volumes themselves however were musty with accumulated mould, and their whole condition and appearance showed that they were going fast to decay. I went up to the stall however, and enquired the prices, and being induced by the wonderful and unexpected cheapness, I bought a great lot of the books for a few coppers; and occupied myself for the next two days in glancing over the contents. As I read I made some extracts, noting the wonderful stories which none of our writers have as yet aimed at composing, and interspersing them with these comments of my own, so that whoever reads these books may not be found quite a novice in stories of the sort like one who has never even heard of them before. [Gellius now goes on to record many particulars regarding the Skythians, Arimaspians, Sauromatae and others of whom Pliny has written at length in his Natural History. These particulars have been evidently extracted from the Indika of Ktêsias and are here subjoined]:—“On the mountains of India are men who have the heads of dogs, and bark, and who live by hunting and fowling. There are besides in the remotest regions of the East other strange creatures—men who are called Monocoli (one-legged), who run hopping upon their one leg with wonderful agility; others who have no necks but have eyes in their shoulders.” All unbounded however is his astonishment on his learning from these writers about a race of men in the uttermost parts of India having shaggy bodies and plumage like that of birds, who live not upon food, but on the perfume of flowers inhaled through the nostrils. Not far from these live the Pygmies, the tallest of whom do not exceed 2¼ feet. The books contained these and many similar absurd stories, and as we perused them we felt how wearisome a task it is to read worthless books which conduce neither to adorn nor to improve life.
FRAG. XXXII.
Frag. IV. From Athenaios, lib. X. [c. 9.]
Frag. IV. From Athenaios, lib. X. [c. 9.]
Ktêsias says that in India the king is not allowed to make himself drunk, but that the Persian king is allowed to do so on one particular day—that on which sacrifice is offered to Mithras.
FRAG. XXXIII.
Tzetzes, Chil. VIII, v. 987.
Tzetzes, Chil. VIII, v. 987.
Herodotus, Diodôros, Ktêsias and all others agree that the Happy Arabia, like the Indian land, is most odoriferous, exhales a spicy fragrance, so that the very soil of the former, and the stones of the latter, if cut, emit a delicious perfume, while the people there, when made languid and faint by the rich odours, recover from the stupor by inhaling the smoke of certain bones and horns and strong-smelling substances.
FRAG. XXXV.
Lucian, Ver. Hist. I, 3.
Lucian, Ver. Hist. I, 3.
Ktêsias the son of Ktêsiokhos, the Knidian, wrote about India and its inhabitants what he neither himself saw nor heard from the report of others.
FRAG. XXXVI.
Strabo, Geog. I. 2.
Strabo, Geog. I. 2.
Theopompos professes in express terms that in his history he will tell fables better than such as have been related by Herodotus, and Ktêsias and Hellanikos and those who wrote about India.
Source: J. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Ktesias the Knidian (Calcutta: Thackers, Spink & Co., 1882), 1-64.
