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'He carried on many wars in the East after the division of the Makedonian kingdom between himself and the other successors of Alexander, first seizing Babylonia, and then reducing Baktrianê, his power being increased by the first success. Thereafter he passed into India, which had, since Alexander's death, killed its governors, thinking thereby to shake off from its neck the yoke of slavery. Sandrokottos had made it free: but when victory was gained he changed the name of freedom to that of bondage, for he himself oppressed with servitude the very people which he had rescued from foreign dominion. . . Sandrokottos, having thus gained the crown, held India at the time when Seleukos was laying the foundations of his future greatness. Seleukos came to an agreement with him, and, after settling affairs in the Bast, engaged in the war against Antigonos (302 B.C.).'
"Besides Justinus, Appianus (Syr. c. 55) makes mention of the war which Seleukos had with Sandrokottos or Ohandragupta king of the Prasii, or, as they are called in the Indian language, Prâchyas[1]:—'He (Seleu-
- ↑ The adjective πραξιακός in Ælianus On the Nature of Animals, xvii. 39 (Megasthen. Fragm. 13. init.) bears a very close resemblance to the Indian word Prâchyas (that is 'dwellers in the East'). The substantive would be Πράξιοι, and Schwanbeck (Megasthenis Indica, p. 82) thinks that this reading should probably be restored in Stephanus of Byzantium, where the MSS. exhibit Πράσιοι, a form intermediate between Πράξιλος and Πρᾶς. But they are called Πράσιοι by Strabo, Arrianus, and Plinius; Πραίσιοι in Plutarch (Alex. chap. 62), and frequently in Ælianus; Πραΰσιοι by Nicolaüs of Damascus, and in the Florilegium of Stobæus, 37, 38; Βρείσιοι and Βραίσιοι are the
