Page:The Ancient Geography of India.djvu/34

Amyntas, and which was confirmed by the testimony of Megasthenes, who had actually visited Palibotlira as the ambassador of Seleukus Nikator. On the authority of these documents, Eratosthenes and other writers have described India as a rhomboid, or unequal quadrilateral, in shape, with the Indus on the west, the mountains on the north, and the sea on the east and south.^[1] The shortest side was on the west, which Patrokles estimated at 12,000 stadia, and Eratosthenes at 13,000 stadia.^[2] I All the accounts agree that the course of the Indus from Alexander's Bridge to the sea was 10,000 stadia, or 1149 British miles; and they differ only as to the estimated distance of the snowy mountains of Caucasus or Paropamisus above the bridge. The length of the country was reckoned from west to east, of which the part extending from the Indus to Palibothra had been measured by schœni along the royal road, and was 10,000 stadia, or 1149 British miles in length. From Palibothra to the sea the distance was estimated at 6000 stadia, or 689 British miles; thus making the whole distance from the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges 16,000 stadia,^[3] or 1838 British miles. According to Pliny,^[4] the distance of Palibothra from the mouth of the Ganges was only 637.5 Roman miles; but his numbers are so corrupt that very little dependence can be placed upon them. I would, therefore, increase his distance to 737.5

1. Strabo, ii. 1, 31 and xv. 1, 11. See, also, Diodorus, Hist., ii. 3 and Dion Perieg. v. 1131. Compare fig. 1 in the accompanying plate of small maps
2. Strabo, xv. 2.8. Arrian, 'Indica,' iii
3. Artemidorus makes it 16,800 stadia, or 2100 Roman miles. See Pliny, vi. 22
4. Plin. Hist. Nat., vi.21.