Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/67

 INDIA. t, c), who looked after affairs in the towns, &c., and reported secretly to the king. 7. The Royal Coun- sellors, who presided over the administration of jus- tice (.Strab. /. c), and kept the arcliives of the realm. It was not permitted for intermarriages to take place between any of these classes, nor for any one to perfDrm the office allotted to .inother, except in the case of the fir:st caste (called also that of q (piXoao^oV), to which class a man might be raised from any of the other clai>ses. (Strab. ^.c; Arrian, /nrf. c. 12 ; Diod. ii. 41 ; Plin. vi. 19. s. 22.) We may remark that the modern writers on India recognise only four castes, called re>pectively Brahmans, Kshatryas, Vaisyas, and Sudrns, - a division which Heeren has suggested (we think without sufficient evidence) to indicate the remains of distinct races. {Asiat. Nat. vol. ii. p. 220.) The lowest of the people (now called Pariahs), as belonging to none of the above castes, are nowhere distinctly mentioned by ancient writers (but cf. Strab. XV. p. 709; Diod. ii. 29; Arrian, Ind. c. 10). The general description of the Indians, drawn from Jlegastlienes and others who had lived with them, is very pleasing. Tiieft is said to have been unknown, so that houses could be left unfastened. (Strab. xv. p. 709.) No Indian was known to sjwak falsehood. (Strab. I. c. ; Arrian, Ind. c. 12.) They were ex- tremely temperate, abstaining wholly from wine (Strab. I. c), — their hatred of drunkenness being so great that any girl of the harem, who should see the king drunk, was at liberty to kill him. (Strab. XV. p. 710.) No class eat meat (llerod. iii. 100), their chief sustenance being rice, which afforded them also a strong drink, i. e. a7-rak. (Strab. xv. p. 094.) Hence an especial freedom from diseases, and long lives; though maturity was early developed, especially in the female sex, girls of seven years old being deemed marriageable. (Strab. xv. pp. 701 — 706; Arrian, Ind. 9.) The women are said to have been remarkable for their chastity, it being impos- sible to tempt them with any smaller gifts than that of an elephant (Arrian, Ind. c. 17), which was not considered discreditable by their countiymen ; and the usual custom of marriage was for the father to take his daughters and to give them in marriage to the youths who had distinguished themselves most in gymnastic exercises. (Arrian, /. c. ; Strab. xv. p. 717.) To strangers they ever showed the utmost hospitality. (Diod. ii. 42.) As warriors they were notorious (Arrian, Ind. c. 9; Exped. Alex. v. 4; Pint. Alex. c. 59, 63): the weapons of the foot- soldiers being bows and arrows, and a great two- handed sword ; and of the cavalry, a javelin and a round shield (Arrian, Ind. c. 16; Strab. xv. p. 717; Curt. viii. 9.) In the Punjab, it is said that the Macedonians encountered poisoned arrows. (Diod. xvii. 10.3.) Manly exercises of all kinds were in vogue among them. The chase was the peculiar privilege of royalty (Strab. xv. pp. 709 — 712 ; Ctes. /««?. 14; Curt. viii. 9, seq.); gymnastics, music, and dancing, of the rest of the people (Strab. xv. p. 709; Arrian, Exp. Alex. vi. 3); and juggling and slight of hand were then, as now, among their chief amuse- ments. (Aelian, viii. 7; Juven. vi. 582.) Their usual dress befitted their hot climate, and was of white linen (Philost. Vit. Apoll. ii. 9) or of cotton- stuff (Strab. XV. p. 719; Arrian, Ind. c. 16); their heads and shoulders partially covered (Arrian, I. c. ; Curt. viii. 9, 15) or shaded from the sun by um- brellas (Arrian, I. c.) ; with shoes of white leather, with very thick and many-coloured soles. (Arrian, i c.) Gold and ivory rings and ear-rings were in INDICUS OCEANUS. 51 common use ; and they were wont to dye their beards not only black and white, but also red and green. (Arrian, I. c.) In general form of body, they were thin and elegantly made, with great litheness (Ar- rian, Ind. c. 17; Strab. ii. p. 103, xv. p. 695), but were larger than other Asiatics. (Arrian, Exped. Alex. v. 4; Phn. vii. 2.) Some peculiar customs they had, which have lasted to thepresent day, such as self-immolation by water or fire, and throwing themselves from precipices (Strab. XV. pp. 7 1 6, 7 1 8 ; Curt. viii. 9 ; Arrian, Exped. A lex. vii.5;Lucan. iii. 42; Plin.vi. 19. s. 20), and the burn- ing of the widow (^suttee); not, indeed, agreeably to any fixed law, but rather according to custom. (Strab. XV. pp. 699—714: Diod. xvii. 91, xix. 33; Cic. Tusc. Lisp. V. 27.) For writing materials they used the bark of trees (Strab. xv. p. 717; Curt. is. 15), probably much as the modern Cinghalese use the leaf of the palm. Their houses were generally built of wood or of the bamboo-cane; but in the cold mountain districts, of clay. (Arrian, Ind. c. 10.) It is a remarkable proof of the extent to which civilisation had been carried in ancient India, that there were, throughout great part of the country, high roads, with stones set up (answering to our milestones), on which were inscribed the nanie of the place and the distance to the next station. (Strab. XV. pp. 689—708 ; Arrian, Ind. c. 3.) [V.] IN'DICUS OCEANUS (6 'IvhiKhs ci/cfai/df, Agath. ii. 14; rh 'IvZik'ov iriXayos, Ptol. vii. 1. § 5). The Indian Ocean of the ancients may be considered generally as that great sea which washed the whole of the southern portion of India, extending from the parallel of longitude of the mouths of the Indus to the shores of the Chersonesus Aurea. It seems, in- deed, to have been held by them as part, however, of a yet greater extent of water, the limits of which were undefined, at least to the southwards, and to which they gave the generic name of the Southern Sea. Thus Herodotus speaks of rj vorit] ^dAaaaa in this sense(iv. 37), asdoes also Strabo (ii. p. 121); Diodorus calls it ri Kara jxiOfqixSpiav aiK€av6s (iii 38), while the Erythraean sea, taken in its most extended ifieaning, doubtless conveyed the same sense. (Herod, ii. 102, iv. 37; compared with Strab. i. p. 33.) Ptolemy gives the distances across this sea as stated by seafaring men ; at the same time he guards against their over-statements, by recording his opinion in favour of no more than one-third of their measurements: this space he calls 8670 stadia (i. 13. § 7). The distance along its shores, follow- ing the indentations of the coast-line, he estimates, on the same authority, at 19,000 stadia. It is evident, however, that Ptolemy himself had no clear idea of the real form of the Indian Ocean, and that he inclined to the opinion of Hipparchus, Polybius, and Marinus of Tyre, that it was a vast inland sea the southern portion of it being bounded by the shores of an unknown land which he supposed to connect Cat- tigara in the Chersonesus Aurea with the promontory of Prasum (now Cape Delgado) in Afiica (comp. iv. 9. §§ 1, 3, vii. 3. §§ 1, 3, 6). The origin of this error it is not easy now to ascertain, but it seems to have been connected with one which is found in the his- torians of Alexander's expedition, according to which there was a connection between the Indus and the Nile, so that the sources of the Acesines {Chendb) were confounded with those of the Nile. (Arnan, vi. 1.) Strabo, indeed, appears to have had some leaning to a similar view, in that he connected the Erythraean with the Atlantic sea (ii. p. 130); which was also £ 2