79
the case in Iberia J — that the rivers carry down gold dust, and that a part of this is paid by way of tribute to the king.
Fragm. XXX.
Plin. Hist. Nat. VII. ii. 14-22.
Of fabulous races.
According to Megasthenês, on a mountain called Nulo § there live men whose feet are turned
the sun sheltered them from the blasts of noxious winds, and
that they eigoyed, like the Hyperboreans, an eternal spring.'
'Gens homiuum Attacorum, apricis ab omni noxio afflatu
seclusa collibus, eadem, qua Hyperborei degunt, tem-
perie.' (Plin. loc. cit. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6, 64.)
Wagner transfers this description to the Sêres in general,
(of whom the Attacoræ of Pliny form part), and some
modern critics (Mannert, vol. IV. p. 250, 1875; Forbiger
Handh. der alten Geogr. vol. II. p. 472, 1844) have be-
lieved they could see in it a reference to the great wall
of China.) We see from a host of examples besides this, that
the poetic fables and popular legends of India had taken,
in passing into the Greek narratives, an appearance of
reality, and a sort of historical consistency." (Étude sur
la Géographie Grecque et Latine de l'Inde, pp. 413-414.)
The same author (p. 412) says, "Among the peoples of
Sêrica, Ptolemy reckons the Ottorocorrhæ, a name which
in Pliny is written Attacoræ, and which Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, who copies Ptolemy, distorts into Opurocarra.
There is no difficulty in recognizing under this name the
Uttarakuru of Sanskṛit books."
Schwanbeck (p. 70) quotes Lassen, who writes somewhat to the same effect: — "Uttarakuru is a part of Sêrica, and as the first accounts of India came to the West from the Sêres, perhaps a part of the description of the peaceful happy life of the Sêres is to be explained from the Indian stories of the Uttarakuru. The story of the long life of the Sêres may be similarly explained, especially when Megas- thenês reckons the life attained by the Hyperboreans at 1000 years. The Mahâbhârata (VI. 264) says that the Uttarakurus live 1000 or 10,000 years. We conclude from this that Megasthenês also wrote of the Uttarakurus, and that he not improperly rendered their name by that of the Hyperboreans." — Zeitschr. II. 67.
X Not Spain, but the country between the Black Sea and the Caspian, now called Georgia.
§ V. L. Nullo.
