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OCTOBER, 1881.]
THE INDIKA OF KTESIAS.
297
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 Kt ésias 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 mis- representations 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, 0. Müller, Lassen, and others, will no doubt come eventually to be very generally accepted.
As Lassen has devoted one of the leading sections of his great work on Indian Antiquity to an examination of the reports which are yet extant of Ktesias upon India, and as his review is all but exhaustive, and reflects nearly all the light that learned research has yet been able to throw upon the subject, I have for this reason, as well as with a view to obviate the need which would otherwise occur, of having constant recourse to long foot-notes, thought it advisable to append to the translation of the Greek text a translation of this review. I have appended also a translation of some passages from Indikopleustes, which will serve to illustrate the descriptions given by Ktêsias of certain Indian animals and plants.
THE INDIKA OF KTESIAS. FRAG. I.
2. He notices the pantarba, a kind of Eologn in Photi, Bibl. LXXII, p. 144 seqq. sealstone, and relates that when sealstones and 1. Another work was read—the Indika of other costly gems to the number of 477' which Ktosias, contained in a single book wherein the belonged to the Baktrian merchant, had been author has made more frequent use of Ionic flung into the river, this pantarba drew them forms. He reports of the river Indus that, up to itself, all adhering together. where narrowest, it has a breadth of forty stadia, 3. He notices also the elephants that deand where widest of two hundred ;' and of the molish walls; the kind of small apes' that have Indians themselves that they almost ontnumber tails four cubits long; the cocks that are of all other men taken together.' He mentions extraordinary size ;o the kind of bird called the the skôlex,' a kind of worm bred in the river, parrot" and which he thus describes : it has a this being indeed the only living creature which tongue and voice like the human, is of the size is found in it. He states that there are no men of a hawk, has a red bill, is adorned with a who live beyond the Indians, and that no rain beard of a black colour, while the neck is red falls in India but that the country is watered like cinnabar, it talks like a man in Indian, but by its river.
if taught Greek can talk in Greek also. In vol. II, pp. 641 ff. 2nd ed. 1874.
. With this compare Frag. iv. below. This differs from what Arrian states on the authority • This is reconcilable with the accounts of others if for of Ktdeias, (see Frag. i.) Probably Arrian has quoted μικρών πo τoud μακρών. For Megasthenes also speaks of the sentence more correctly than Photios. And 100 Indian apes not smaller than large dogs and which have stadis is far enough from the truth. With Ktësias Conf. tails of fiue cobita length which answer to the Mandi ape Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. II, 18 : Tów pèr ) 'Ivody &de or Simia Faunus, with the hair on the forehead projecting επεραιώθησαν, σταδίους μάλιστα τεσσαράκοντα το over the eyes, and the beard white, the body being dark. yàp ipov autoll TOCOÛTUV. See Mannert, Geogr. d.
Vid. Æliani, Nat. An. XVII, 89, conf. XVI, 10, and Strabo
XV, i, 87: The monkeys are larger than the largest dogs Gr. W. Rom. Bd. V, i, p. 74.
.. their tails are more than two cubits in length." • Conf. Herodot. III, 94; Strabo II, 7. 32. * Conf. 27, and Frag. Ixvi.
10 Conf. Frag. v.c. • Conf. Herodot. II, 98, 105; Strabo II, v, 1, 83.
11 BITTAKós: Reland De Ophir, p. 184, compares this . Bat conf. Strabo XV, 1, 1, 13, 17, 18; Arrian, Indika,
with the Persian tedek. In Arrian, Ind. XV, 8, VI, 4; Philost. Vit. Apoll. II, 19; Diodor. II, 36. Count Weltheim (Sammlung von Aufsätzen, &o. Bd.
and Ælinn, Nat. An. XVI, 9 and 15, the bird is called II, p. 168f8.) regards this as the Hydrophanes or the CUTTAKOS. Alinn however elsewhere calls it Virtakós changing stone, san agate, a kind of opal, remarkable for
and so aloo Diodoros and Pawanias. A feminino form the variety of colours it displays when thrown into water. VITTAKÝ Occurs in Arist. H. An. VIII, 12. The form in So Múller's text, the common reading is 77.
1 Pliny is Psittacus.
