practical knowledge of such subjects, evidenced as it was by his thinking that India lay between the autumnal equinox and the winter tropic, and by his contradicting the assertion of Megasthenes that in the southern parts of India the constellation of the Bear disappeared from view, and shadows fell in opposite directions,[1] phenomena which he assures us are never seen in India, thereby exhibiting the sheerest ignorance. He does not agree in this opinion, but accuses Dêimachos of ignorance for asserting that the Bears do nowhere in India disappear from sight, nor shadows fall in opposite directions, as Megasthenês supposed.
Fragm. X
Pliny, Hist. Nat. VI. 22. 6.
Of the Setting of the Bear.
Next [to the Prasii] in the interior are the Monedes and the Suari, to whom belongs Mount Male us, on which shadows fall towards the north in winter, and in summer to the south, for six months alternately.[2] The Bears, Baeton
- ↑ Conf. Diod. II. 35, Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 22. 6. The writers of Alexander's time who affirmed similar things were Nearchos and Onesikritos, and Bacto who exceeded all bounds. Conf. Lassen, Instit. Ling. Prac. Append. p. 2. -Schwanb. p. 29.
- ↑ “The Mandali would seem to be the same people as the Monedes of Pliny, who with the Saari, occupied the inland country to the south of the Palibothri. As this is the exact position of the country of the Mundas and Suars, I think it quite certain that they must be the same race as the Monedes and Suari of Pliny. In another passage Pliny mentions the Mandei and Malli as occupying the country between the Calinge and the Ganges. Amongst the Malli there was a mountain named Mallus, which
