Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/128

109 vanced as far as Europe. And Nabukodrosor,f who is more renowned among the Chaldseans than even Herakles among the Greieks, carried his arms to the Pillars, J which Tearkon also reached, while Sesostris penetrated from Iberia even into Thrace and Pontes. Besides these there was Idanthyrsos the Skythian, who over- ran Asia as far as Egypt.§ Bat not one of these great conqaerors approached India, and Semiramis, who meditated its conquest, died before the necessary preparations were undertaken. The Persians indeed summoned the Hydrakaijl from India to serve as mer- cenaries, but they did not lead an army into the country, and only approached its borders when Kyros marched against the Massagetai. Of Dionysos and Herakles, 7. The accounts about Herakles and Menephthab the Pharaoh of the Sxodus. Lepsias, how- ever, from a study of the Tablet of Rameses II. found at Abydos in Egypt, and now in the British Museum, has been led to identify him with the Sesortasen or Osirtasen of the great 12th dynasty. — See Report of the Proceedings of the Second International Congress of OrientalistSf p. 4A. t V.l. 'SapoKoBpoa-opov, t Called by Ptolemy the " Pillars of Alexander," above Albania and Iberia at the commencement of the Asiatic Sarmatia. § Herodotus mentions an invasion of Skythians which was led by Madyas. As Idanthyrsos may have been a common appellative of the Skythian kings, Strabo may here be referring to that invasion. II The Hydrakai are called also Oxydrakai. The name, according to Lassen, represents the Sanskrit Kshvdraka. It is variously written Sydrakai, Syrakusai, Sabagrae, and Sygambri.