Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter June 5, 2020

From Geography to Paradoxography: the use, transmission and survival of Megasthenes’ Indica

  • Sushma Jansari EMAIL logo

Abstract

Megasthenes was the first Greek ambassador known to have been sent to the court of a Mauryan ruler. He wrote an Indica based on his travels and experiences in India, which survives in fragmentary form in the work of later authors. This was the first work to provide a Greek audience with first-hand knowledge of the Indian interior and Mauryan court. Traditionally, Megasthenes’ Indica has been excavated for information to reconstruct knowledge of Mauryan India, Seleucid-Mauryan relations or other aspects of this period and the personalities involved, either by focusing on individual fragments or collating fragments thematically. In contrast, instead of treating Megasthenes’ work as a mine for information, I evaluate the remaining fragments chronologically, and according to the type and range of information derived from Megasthenes. The aim is to better understand the thematic differences and chronological changes in the way later authors consulted and used the Indica, and therefore, why certain parts of the Indica, and information about Megasthenes himself, have survived.

Bibliography

Acosta-Hughes, B. and S. A. Stephens. Callimachus in Context: from Plato to the Augustan Poets. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2012.10.1017/CBO9780511919992Search in Google Scholar

Bagnall, R. “Alexandria: library of dreams.” PAPhS 146 (2002): 348–362.Search in Google Scholar

Bar-Kochva, B. The Seleucid Army. Organization and tactics in the great campaigns. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1976.10.1017/CBO9780511665721Search in Google Scholar

Barclay, J. M. G. Against Apion, translation and commentary, Flavius Josephus Vol. 10. Leiden: Brill, 2007.Search in Google Scholar

Beagon, M. “Review of S. Carey 2003.” JRS 95 (2005): 293–294.10.1017/S0075435800002975Search in Google Scholar

Begg, C. T. and P. Spilsbury. Judaean Antiquities Books 8–10, translation and commentary, Flavius Josephus Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill, 2005.Search in Google Scholar

Bianchetti, S. “The invention of geography: Eratosthenes of Cyrene.” In Bianchetti, Cataudella and Gehrke (2015), 132–149.10.1163/9789004284715_009Search in Google Scholar

Bianchetti, S., M. R. Cataudella and H. J. Gehrke, editors. Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography. Leiden: Brill, 2015.10.1163/9789004284715Search in Google Scholar

Bosworth, A. B. A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, Commentary on Books I-III, Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.Search in Google Scholar

Bosworth, A. B. From Arrian to Alexander: studies in historical interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.Search in Google Scholar

Bosworth, A. B. Alexander and the East: the tragedy of triumph. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.Search in Google Scholar

Brunt, P. “On historical fragments and epitomes.” CQ 30 (1980): 477–494.10.1017/S0009838800042403Search in Google Scholar

Brunt, P., translator. Arrian. Volume 2. Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 1983.Search in Google Scholar

Carey, S. Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture, Art and Empire in the Natural History. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2003.Search in Google Scholar

Carriker, A. J. The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea. Leiden: Brill, 2003.10.1163/9789047402312Search in Google Scholar

Clarke, K. Making Time for the Past: local history and the polis. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2008.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291083.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Dihle, A. “The conception of India in Hellenistic and Roman literature.” PCPS 190 (1964): 15–23.10.1017/S0068673500003084Search in Google Scholar

Dorandi, T., editor. Antigone de Caryste. Fragments. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999.Search in Google Scholar

Dueck, D. Strabo of Amasia: a Greek man of letters in Augustan Rome. London: Routledge, 2000.Search in Google Scholar

Ferguson, J., translator. Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis: books one to three. Washington: Catholic University of America, 1991.Search in Google Scholar

Hansen, W. Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels. Exeter: Exeter U. P., 1996.Search in Google Scholar

Jansari, S. and R. Ricot. “Megasthenes and the Astomoi: a case study into ethnography and paradoxography.” In Wiesehöfer, Brinkhaus and Bichler (2016), 97–108.10.2307/j.ctvcwnxxw.8Search in Google Scholar

Karttunen, K. India in Early Greek Literature. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1989.Search in Google Scholar

Karttunen, K. India and the Hellenistic World. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1997.Search in Google Scholar

Kosmin, P. J. The Land of the Elephant Kings: space, territory, and ideology in the Seleucid Empire. Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 2014.10.4159/harvard.9780674416161Search in Google Scholar

König, J, K. Oikonomopoulou and G. Woolf, editors. Ancient Libraries. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2013.10.1017/CBO9780511998386Search in Google Scholar

MacLeod, R., editor. The Library of Alexandria. Centre of learning in the ancient world. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.Search in Google Scholar

Mehl, A. Seleukos und sein Reich. Studia Hellenistica 28. Louvain: Université catholique de Louvain, 1986.Search in Google Scholar

Muntz, C. E. “The sources of Diodorus Siculus, Book 1.” CQ 61 (2011): 574–594.10.1017/S0009838811000206Search in Google Scholar

Muntz, C. E. “Diodorus Siculus and Megasthenes: a reappraisal.” CPh 107 (2012): 21–37.10.1086/663215Search in Google Scholar

Muntz, C. E. Diodorus Siculus and the World of the Late Roman Republic. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2017.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190498726.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Musso, O. “Sulla strutter del Cod. Pal. Gr. 398c deduzioni storico-letterarie.” Prometheus 2 (1976): 1–10.Search in Google Scholar

Osborn, E. Clement of Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2008.Search in Google Scholar

Parker, G. The Making of Roman India. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2008.Search in Google Scholar

Parker, G. “Roman Megasthenes: towards a reception history.” In Wiesehöfer, Brinkhaus and Bichler (2016), 97–108.10.2307/j.ctvcwnxxw.9Search in Google Scholar

Roller, D. W. Eratosthenes’ Geography: fragments collection and translation, with commentary and additional material. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 2010.Search in Google Scholar

Roller, D.W. “Megasthenes (715)” in Brill’s New Jacoby, General Editor: Ian Worthington. First published online: 2016.Search in Google Scholar

Schneider, P. “The so-called confusion between India and Ethiopia: the eastern and southern edges of the inhabited world from the Greco-Roman perspective.” In Bianchetti, Cataudella and Gehrke (2015), 184–202.10.1163/9789004284715_012Search in Google Scholar

Schofield, A. F., translator. Aelian, Characteristics of Animals. Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 1958.Search in Google Scholar

Schwanbeck, E. A., editor. Megasthenis Indica, fragmenta collegit, commentationem et addidit. Bonn: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1996.Search in Google Scholar

Sharples, R. W. “Review of T. Dorandi 1999.” CR 50 (2000): 584–585.10.1017/S0009840X00400053Search in Google Scholar

Stoneman, R. The Greek Experience of India: from Alexander to the Indo-Greeks. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 2019.Search in Google Scholar

Sulimani, I. Diodorus’ Mythistory and the Pagan Mission. Historiography and Culture-heroes in the First Pentad of the Bibliotheke. Leiden: Brill, 2011.10.1163/ej.9789004194069.i-409Search in Google Scholar

Tarn, W. W. “Two notes on Seleucid history: I. Seleucus’ 500 elephants, 2. Tarmita.” JHS 60 (1940): 84–94.10.2307/626263Search in Google Scholar

Wiesehöfer, J., H. Brinkhaus and R. Bichler, editors. Megasthenes und seine Zeit. Wiesebaden: Harrassowitz, 2016.10.2307/j.ctvcwnxxwSearch in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2020-06-05
Published in Print: 2020-05-26

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 28.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jah-2019-0013/html
Scroll to top button