and fuller accounts are preserved in Herodotos[1] and in the remains of Ktêsias, who, having lived for some years in Persia as private physician to king Artaxerxes Mnêmôn, collected materials during his stay for a treatise on India, the first work on the subject written in the Greek language.[2] His descriptions were, unfortunately, vitiated by a large intermixture of fable, and it was left to the followers of Alexander to give to the Western world for the first time fairly accurate accounts of the country and its inhabitants. The great conqueror, it is well known, carried scientific men with him to chronicle his achievements, and describe the countries to which he might carry his arms, and some of his officers were also men of literary culture, who could wield the pen as well as
- ↑ Herodotos mentions the river (Indus), the Paktyikan district, the Gandarioi, the Kalantiai or Kalatiai, and the Padaioi. Both Hekataios and Herodotos agree in stating that there were sandy deserts in India.
- ↑ "The few particulars appropriate to India, and consistent with truth, obtained by Ctêsias, are almost confined to something resembling a description of the cochineal plant, the fly, and the beautiful tint obtained from it, with a genuine picture of the monkey and the parrot; the two animals he had doubtless seen in Persia, and flowered cottons emblazoned with the glowing colours of the modern chintz were probably as much coveted by the fair Persians in the harams of Susa and Ecbatana as they still are by the ladies of our own country; .... but we are not bound to admit his fable of the Martichors, his pygmies, his men with the heads of dogs, and feet reversed, his griffins, and his four-footed birds as big as wolves.” - Vincent.
