[623] The Indians worship a god Homa, the personification of the intoxicating soma juice. This deity corresponds to the Greek Dionysus or Bacchus.
[624] The slopes of this mountain were covered with vines. See Ovid (Fasti, ii. 313; Metamorphoses, xi. 86); Vergil (Georgics, ii. 98); Pliny, xiv. 9.
[625] φανείη. Arrian does not comply with the Attic rule, that the subjunctive should follow the principal tenses in the leading sentence. Cf. v. 6, 6; 7, 5; vii. 7, 5; 15, 2.
[626] Cf. Pliny (Nat. Hist., vi. 23; viii. 60; xvi. 62). The ordinary reading is ἄλση παντοῖα· καὶ δεῖν σύσκιον. For this Krüger has proposed ἄλση παντοίᾳ ὕλῃ σύσκια.
[627] The other names of Dionysus were: Bacchus, Bromius, Evius, Iacchus, Lenaeus, Lyaens. The Romans called him Liber.
[628] Curtius (viii. 36) says that the Macedonians celebrated Bacchanalia for the space of ten days on this mountain.
[629] The 1st aor. pass. ἐσχέθην is found only in Arrian and Plutarch. Cf. vii. 22, 2 infra.
[630] The celebrated Geographer and Mathematician, who was born B.C. 276 and died about B.C. 196. His principal work was one on geography, which was of great use to Strabo. None of his works are extant. He was made president of the Alexandrian library, B.C. 236.
[631] Cf. Arrian (Indica, v. 11).
[632] The earliest mention of India which has descended to our times is in Aeschўlus (Supplices, 284).