Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/27

Rh to have been entitled to, no longer exists, but it has been so often abridged and quoted by the ancient writers that we have a fair knowledge of its contents and their order of arrangement. Dr. Schwanbeck, with great industry and learning, has collected all the fragments that have been anywhere preserved, and has prefixed to the collection a Latin Introduction, wherein, after showing what knowledge the Greeks had acquired of India before Megasthenês, he enters into an examination of those passages in ancient works from which we derive all the little we know of Megasthenês and his Indian mission. He then reviews his work on India, giving a summary of its contents, and, having estimated its value and authority, concludes with a notice of those authors who wrote on India after his time.‡ I have translated in the latter part of the sequel a few instructive passages from this Introduction, one particularly which successfully vindicates Megasthenês from the charge of mendacity so frequently preferred against him. Meanwhile the following extracts, translated from C. Müller's Preface to his edition of the Indika, will place before the reader all the information that can be gleaned regarding Megasthenes and his embassy from a careful scrutiny and comparison of all the ancient texts which relate thereto.

Justinus (XV. 4) says of Seleukos Nikator,