The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3)

a glorious achievement for him to lead a conquering army safe through the same nations and countries where Semiramis and Cyrus had suffered such disasters. Alexander, therefore, believed these stories.

6. But how can we place any just confidence in the accounts of India derived from such expeditions as those of Cyrus and Semiramis? Megasthenes concurs in this opinion; he advises persons not to credit the ancient histories of India, for, except the expeditions of Hercules, of Bacchus, and the later invasion of Alexander, no army was ever sent out of their country by the Indians, nor did any foreign enemy ever invade or conquer it. Sesostris the Egyptian (he says), and Tearco the Ethiopian, advanced as far as Europe; and Nabocodrosor, who was more celebrated among the Chaldæans than Hercules among the Greeks, penetrated even as far as the Pillars,[309] which Tearco also reached; Sesostris conducted an army from Iberia to Thrace and Pontus; Idanthyrsus the Scythian overran Asia as far as Egypt; but not one of these persons proceeded as far as India, and Semiramis died before her intended enterprise was undertaken. The Persians had sent for the Hydraces[310] from India, a body of mercenary troops; but they did not lead an army into that country, and only approached it when Cyrus was marching against the Massagetæ.

7. Megasthenes, and a few others, think the stories respecting Hercules and Bacchus to be credible, but the majority of writers, among whom is Eratosthenes, regard them as incredible and fabulous, like the Grecian stories. Dionysus, in the Bacchæ of Euripides, makes this boasting speech:

[CAS. 687] “But now from Lydia’s field, With gold abounding, from the Phrygian realm And that of Persia scorch’d by torrid suns, Pressing through Bactrian gates, the frozen land Of Media, and through Araby the Blest, With Asia’s wide extended continent——”[311]

In Sophocles, also, a person is introduced speaking the praises of Nysa,[312] as being a mountain sacred to Bacchus:

“whence I beheld the famed Nysa, the resort of the Bacchanalian bands, which the horned Iacchus makes his most pleasant and beloved retreat, where no bird’s clang is heard,”

and so on. [He is called also Merotraphes.][313]

Homer also mentions Lycurgus the Edonian in these words,

“who formerly pursued the nurses of the infuriate Bacchus along the sacred mountain Nysa.”[314]

So much respecting Bacchus. But with regard to Hercules, some persons say, that he penetrated to the opposite extremities on the west only, while others maintain that he also advanced to those of the east.

8. From such stories as those related above, they gave the name of Nysæans to some imaginary nation, and called their city Nysa, founded by Bacchus; a mountain above the city they called Meron, alleging as a reason for imposing these names that the ivy and vine grow there, although the latter does not perfect its fruit; for the bunches of grapes, in consequence of excessive rains, drop off before they arrive at maturity.

They say, also, that the Sydracæ (Oxydracæ) are descendants of Bacchus, because the vine grows in their country, and because their kings display great pomp in setting out on their warlike expeditions, after the Bacchic manner; whenever they appear in public, it is with beating of drums, and are dressed in flowered robes, which is the common custom among the other Indians.

When Alexander took, on the first assault, Aornos,[315] a fortress on a rock, the foot of which is washed by the Indus near its source, his flatterers exaggerated this act, and said that Hercules thrice assailed this rock and was thrice repulsed.