Eratosthenês.The Geographers down to Ptolemy drew their knowledge of India almost entirely from the works of Megasthenês and of the companions of Alexander. Among them Eratosthenês (c. 275–194 b.c.), the founder of scientific geography, deserves mention as having first given wide currency to the notion that the width of India from west to east was greater than its length from north to south, an error which lies at the root of Ptolemy’s distortion of the map. Eratosthenês’ critic Hipparkhos (c. 130 b.c.) on this point followed the more correct account of Megasthenês, and is otherwise notable as the first to make use of astronomy for the determination of the geographical position of places.

Strabo.Strabo (c. 63 b.c.–23 a.d.) drew his knowledge of India, like his predecessors, chiefly from Megasthenês and from Alexander’s followers, but adds (XV. i. 72) on the authority of Nikolaos of Damascus (tutor to the children of Antony and Cleopatra, and envoy of Herod) (an account of three Indian envoys from a certain king Pôros to Augustus (ob. a.d. 14),
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Strabo. who brought presents consisting of an armless man, snakes, a huge turtle and a large partridge, with a letter in Greek written on parchment offering free passage and traffic through his dominions to the emperor’s subjects. With these envoys came a certain Zarmanokhêgas (Śramaṇâcârya, Lassen) from Bargosê (Broach, the earliest mention of the name) who afterwards burnt himself at Athens, “according to the ancestral custom of the Indians.” The fact that the embassy came from Broach and passed through Antioch shows that they took the route by the Persian Gulf, which long remained one of the chief lines of trade (Per. chap. 36). If the embassy was not a purely commercial speculation on the part of merchants of Broach, it is hard to see how king Pôros, who had 600 under-kings, can be other than the Indo-Skythian Kozolakadaphes, who held Pôros’ old kingdom as well as much other territory in North-West India. This if correct would show that as early as the beginning of our era the Indo-Skythian power reached as far south as Broach. The fact that the embassy took the Persian Gulf route and that their object was to open commercial relations with the Roman empire seems to show that at this period there was no direct trade between Broach and the Egyptian ports of the Red Sea. Strabo however mentions that in his time Arabian and Indian wares were carried on camels from Myos Hormos (near Râs Abu Somer) on the Red Sea to Koptos on the Nile (XVII. i. 45 and XVI. iv. 24) and dilates upon the increase of the Indian trade since the days of the Ptolemies when not so many as twenty ships dared pass through the Red Sea “to peer out of the Straits,” whereas in his time whole fleets of as many as 120 vessels voyaged to India and the headlands of Ethiopia from Myos Hormos (II. v. 12 and XV. i. 13). It would seem that we have here to do with Pliny’s second period of Indian trade, when Sigerus (probably Janjira) was the goal of the Egyptian shipmasters (see below). Strabo learnt these particulars during his stay in Egypt with Aelius Gallus, but they were unknown to his contemporary Diodôros who drew his account of India entirely from Megasthenês (Diod. II. 31–42) and had no knowledge of the East beyond the stories told by Jamboulos a person of uncertain date of an island in the Indian Archipelago (Bali, according to Lassen) (Diod. II. 57–60). Pomponius Mela (a.d. 43) also had no recent information as regards India.

Pliny.Pliny (a.d. 23–79) who published his Natural History in a.d. 77 gives a fairly full account of India, chiefly drawn from Megasthenês (see above). He also gives two valuable pieces of contemporary information:

(i) An account of Ceylon (Taprobanê) to which a freedman of Annius Plocamus, farmer of the Red Sea tribute, was carried by stress of weather in the reign of Claudius (a.d. 41–54). On his return the king sent to the emperor four envoys, headed by one Rachias (VI. 22).

(ii) An account of the voyage from Alexandria to India by a course which had only lately been made known (VI. 23). Pliny divides the history of navigation from the time of Nearchus to his own age into three periods:

It is clear that the modern improvement in navigation on which Pliny lays so much stress consisted, not in making use of the monsoon wind, but in striking straight across the Indian ocean to the Malabar coast. The fact that the ships which took this course carried a guard of archers in Pliny’s time, but not in that of the Periplus, is another indication that the direct route to Malabar was new and unfamiliar in the first century a.d. The name Hippalus given to the monsoon wind will be discussed below in dealing with the Periplus.

Dionysios Periégétés.Dionysios Periégétés who has lately been proved to have written under Hadrian (a.d. 117–138) (Christ’s Griech. Litteratur Gesch., page 507) gives a very superficial description of India but has a valuable notice of the Southern Skythians who live along the river Indus to the east of the Gedrôsoi (I. 1087–88).

Klaudios Ptolemaios.Klaudios Ptolemaios of Alexandria lived according to Suidas under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (a.d. 161–180). He compiled his account of India as part of a geographical description of the then known world, and drew much of his materials from Marinos of Tyre, whose work is lost, but who must have written about a.d. 130. Ptolemy (or Marinos before him) had a very wide knowledge of India, drawn partly from the relations of shipmasters and traders and partly from Indian lists similar to those of the Purâṇas but drawn up in Prâkṛit. He seems to have made little if any use of Megasthenês and the companions of Alexander. But his map of India is distorted by the erroneous idea, which he took from Eratosthenês, that the width of India from west to east greatly exceeded its length from north to south. Ptolemy begins his description of India with the first chapter of his seventh book, which deals with India within the Ganges. He gives first the names of rivers, countries, towns, and capes along the whole coast of India from the westernmost mouth of the Indus to the easternmost mouth of the Ganges. He next mentions in detail the mountains and the rivers with their tributaries, and then proceeds to enumerate the various nations of India and the cities belonging to each, beginning with the north-west and working southwards: and he finally gives a list of the islands lying off the coast. In dealing with his account of western India it will be convenient to notice together the cities of each nation which he mentions separately under the heads of coast and inland towns.

He gives the name of Indo-Skythia to the whole country on both sides of the lower course of the Indus from its junction with the Koa (Kábul river), and gives its three divisions as Patalênê (lower Sindh) Abiria (read Sabiria, that is Sauvîra or upper Sindh and Multân) and Surastrênê (Surâshṭra or Kâthiâvâḍa). We have seen that Dionysios knew the southern Skythians of the Indus, and we shall meet with them again in the Periplus (chapter 38ff).