A century after Scylax, Herodotus showed considerable knowledge of India, speaking of its cotton and its gold,[[296]] telling how Sesostris[[297]] fitted out ships to sail to that country, and mentioning the routes to the east. These routes were generally by the Red Sea, and had been followed by the Phœnicians and the Sabæans, and later were taken by the Greeks and Romans.[[298]]
In the fourth century B.C. the West and East came into very close relations. As early as 330, Pytheas of Massilia (Marseilles) had explored as far north as the northern end of the British Isles and the coasts of the German Sea, while Macedon, in close touch with southern France, was also sending her armies under Alexander[[299]] through Afghanistan as far east as the Punjab.[[300]] Pliny tells us that Alexander the Great employed surveyors to measure
the roads of India; and one of the great highways is described by Megasthenes, who in 295 B.C., as the ambassador of Seleucus, resided at Pātalīpuṭra, the present Patna.[[301]]
The Hindus also learned the art of coining from the Greeks, or possibly from the Chinese, and the stores of Greco-Hindu coins still found in northern India are a constant source of historical information.[[302]] The Rāmāyana speaks of merchants traveling in great caravans and embarking by sea for foreign lands.[[303]] Ceylon traded with Malacca and Siam, and Java was colonized by Hindu traders, so that mercantile knowledge was being spread about the Indies during all the formative period of the numerals.
Moreover the results of the early Greek invasion were embodied by Dicæarchus of Messana (about 320 B.C.) in a map that long remained a standard. Furthermore, Alexander did not allow his influence on the East to cease. He divided India into three satrapies,[[304]] placing Greek governors over two of them and leaving a Hindu ruler in charge of the third, and in Bactriana, a part of Ariana or ancient Persia, he left governors; and in these the western civilization was long in evidence. Some of the Greek and Roman metrical and astronomical terms
found their way, doubtless at this time, into the Sanskrit language.[[305]] Even as late as from the second to the fifth centuries A.D., Indian coins showed the Hellenic influence. The Hindu astronomical terminology reveals the same relationship to western thought, for Varāha-Mihira (6th century A.D.), a contemporary of Āryabhaṭa, entitled a work of his the Bṛhat-Saṃhitā, a literal translation of μεγάλη σύνταξις of Ptolemy;[[306]] and in various ways is this interchange of ideas apparent.[[307]] It could not have been at all unusual for the ancient Greeks to go to India, for Strabo lays down the route, saying that all who make the journey start from Ephesus and traverse Phrygia and Cappadocia before taking the direct road.[[308]] The products of the East were always finding their way to the West, the Greeks getting their ginger[[309]] from Malabar, as the Phœnicians had long before brought gold from Malacca.
Greece must also have had early relations with China, for there is a notable similarity between the Greek and Chinese life, as is shown in their houses, their domestic customs, their marriage ceremonies, the public story-tellers, the puppet shows which Herodotus says were introduced from Egypt, the street jugglers, the games of dice,[[310]] the game of finger-guessing,[[311]] the water clock, the
music system, the use of the myriad,[[312]] the calendars, and in many other ways.[[313]] In passing through the suburbs of Peking to-day, on the way to the Great Bell temple, one is constantly reminded of the semi-Greek architecture of Pompeii, so closely does modern China touch the old classical civilization of the Mediterranean. The Chinese historians tell us that about 200 B.C. their arms were successful in the far west, and that in 180 B.C. an ambassador went to Bactria, then a Greek city, and reported that Chinese products were on sale in the markets there.[[314]] There is also a noteworthy resemblance between certain Greek and Chinese words,[[315]] showing that in remote times there must have been more or less interchange of thought.
The Romans also exchanged products with the East. Horace says, "A busy trader, you hasten to the farthest Indies, flying from poverty over sea, over crags, over fires."[[316]] The products of the Orient, spices and jewels from India, frankincense from Persia, and silks from China, being more in demand than the exports from the Mediterranean lands, the balance of trade was against the West, and thus Roman coin found its way eastward. In 1898, for example, a number of Roman coins dating from 114 B.C. to Hadrian's time were found at Paklī, a part of the Hazāra district, sixteen miles north of Abbottābād,[[317]] and numerous similar discoveries have been made from time to time.