This work is the fifth of a series which may be entitled Ancient India as described by the Classical Writers, since it was projected to supply annotated translations of all the accounts of India which have descended to us from classical antiquity. The volumes which have already appeared contain the fragments of the Indika of Ktêsias the Knidian, and of the Indika of Megasthenês, the Indika of Arrian, the Periplous of the Erythraian Sea by an unknown author, and Ptolemy’s Geography of India and the other Countries of Eastern Asia. A sixth work, containing translations of the chapters in Strabo’s Geography which describe India and Ariana, is in preparation, and will complete the series. I cannot at present say whether this work will appear as a separate publication, or will be included in a volume containing new and revised editions of the three Indikas mentioned above, which are now nearly out of print, as are also the other two works of the series.
In the present work I have translated and annotated all the earliest and most authentic records which have been preserved of the Macedonian invasion of India under Alexander the Great. The notes do not touch on points either of grammar or of textual criticism, but are mainly designed to illustrate the statements advanced in the narratives. When short, they accompany the text as footnotes, and when of such a length as would too much encumber the pages, they have been placed together in an appendix by themselves. Such notes again as refer to persons have been placed, whether short or long, in a second appendix, which I have designated a Biographical Appendix.
In preparing the translations and notes I have consulted a great many works, of which the following may be specified as those which I found most useful:—
Droysen’s Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen.
Williams’s Life of Alexander.
Sainte-Croix’s Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens d’Alexandre le Grand.
C. Müller’s collection of the remaining fragments of the Historians of Alexander the Great.
Thirlwall’s History of Greece, vols. vi. and vii.
Grote’s History of Greece, vol. xii.