Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/126

 107 he wanted none of the gifts of a man whose desires nothing conld satiate; and as for his threats he feared them not : for if he lived, India wonld supply him with food enough, and if he died, he would be delivered from the body of flesh now afiiicted with age, and would ba trans- lated to a better and a purer life. Alexander ex- pressed admiration of the man, and let him have his own way, Fbagm. XLV. Arr. VII. ii. 3-9. (See the translation of Arrian's Indika.) BOOK IV. Fragm. XLVI. Strab. XV. I. 6-8,— pp. 686-688. That the Indians had never been attacked hy others, nor had tJiemselves attacked others. (Cf. Epit. 23.) 6. But what just reliance can we place on the accounts of Indiafrom such expeditions as those of Kyros and Semiramis ?% Megasthen^s concurs in this view, and recommends his readers to put no % " The expedition of Semiramis as described by Dio- dorufl Siculos (II. 16-19), who followed the Assyriaka of EtesiaS; has almost the character of a legend abounding with puerilities, and is entirely destitute of those geogra- phical details which stamp events with reality. If this expedition is real, as on other grounds we may believe it to be, some traces will assuredly be found of it in the cunei- form inscriptions of Nineveh, which are destined to throw so much unexpected light on the ancient histonr of Asia. It has already been believed possible to draw from these inscriptions the foundations of a positive chronology which will fully confirm the indications given by Heroootos aa Digitized by Google