Book 2

From there they set out about the time of summer, themselves riding, with their guide; and there was a keeper for the camels. The supplies, of all they needed, were abundant, since the king had given them; and the country through which they travelled fared well, and the villages received them with attentions; for the leading camel bore upon its forehead a golden frontlet, that those who met them might know the king was sending one of his friends.

As they approached the Caucasus, they say they perceived the earth to be more fragrant. Let us make this mountain the beginning of the Taurus, which goes through Armenia and Cilicia as far as the Pamphylians and Mycale; and Mycale, ending at the sea which the Carians inhabit, would be reckoned the limit of the Caucasus, but not, as some say, its beginning. For the height of Mycale is not yet great, while the summits of the Caucasus rise so high that the sun is cleft about them. With another arm of Taurus it embraces also all the Scythia bordering on India, along the Maeotis and the left side of the Pontus, a length of about twenty thousand stadia; so great a measure of the earth does the elbow of the Caucasus span. As for what is said of the Taurus in our own land, that it travels beyond Armenia—long disbelieved, it is now at last confirmed by the leopards, which I know are caught in the spice-bearing region of Pamphylia. For they delight in spices, and drawing the scents from afar, they come from Armenia through the mountains toward the gum of the storax, whenever the winds blow from it and the trees grow full of juice. And they say that a leopard was once caught in Pamphylia wearing a torque around its neck, of gold, on which was inscribed in Armenian letters: "KING ARSACES TO THE NYSIAN GOD." For the king of Armenia at that time was Arsaces, who, I suppose, when he saw the leopard, dedicated it to Dionysus for the size of the beast. For Dionysus is named Nysian, from Nysa in India, by the Indians and by all the peoples toward the sunrise. This leopard had been for some time subject to a man, and had endured a hand to stroke and caress it; but when spring drove it to frenzy—the season when even leopards are weak before the passions of love—it bounded off to the mountains in longing for the males, just as it was in its adornment, and was caught about the lower Taurus, drawn by the perfume. The Caucasus bounds India and Media, and reaches down to the Red Sea with another arm.

The barbarians tell tales about the mountain, which the Greeks too sing of regarding it: that Prometheus was bound there for his love of mankind, and that a second Heracles—for they do not mean the Theban; he would not have endured this—shot the bird which Prometheus fed with his entrails. Some say he was bound in a cave, which is in fact shown at the foot of the mountain, and Damis says that bonds are fastened to the rocks, the material of which it is not easy to make out; others say he was bound on the summit of the mountain. The summit is double-peaked, and they say that his hands were bound to these peaks, which are no less than a stadium apart, so great is the distance. The bird, the eagle, those who dwell about the Caucasus reckon their enemy, and the nests which the eagles build upon the crags they burn, hurling fire-bearing darts, and they set traps against them, saying that they take vengeance for Prometheus; so far are they mastered by the myth.

Having passed the Caucasus, they say they saw men four cubits tall, who were already turning black, and others five cubits tall when they had come beyond the river Indus. On the journey as far as this river they found the following things worth recounting. They were travelling in bright moonlight when an apparition of an empusa fell upon them, becoming now one thing, now another, and then nothing at all. But Apollonius understood what it was, and himself reviled the empusa, and ordered those about him to do the same, for this was the remedy against such an assault; and the apparition fled away shrieking, as ghosts do.

As they crossed a summit of the mountain and walked along it, since it was steep, Apollonius asked Damis thus: "Tell me," he said, "where were we yesterday?" "In the plain," he said. "And today, Damis, where are we?" "In the Caucasus," he said, "unless I have forgotten myself." "When, then, were you the more below?" he asked again. And he said: "This is not even worth asking; for yesterday we were travelling through the hollow of the earth, but today we are near to heaven." "Do you think, then, Damis," he said, "that yesterday's journey was below, and today's above?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said, "unless I am mad." "In what, then, do you suppose the roads differ from one another, or what more do you have today than yesterday?" "Because yesterday," he said, "I walked where many do, but today where few do." "Why, Damis," he said, "is it not possible, by turning aside from the highroads in a city, to walk among few men?" "I did not say that," he said, "but that yesterday we were carried through villages and men, while today we ascend some untrodden and divine region; for you hear from the guide that the barbarians make it the dwelling of the gods"; and at the same time he looked up to the summit of the mountain. But Apollonius, leading him back to what he had asked at first, said: "Can you say, then, Damis, what you have understood of the divine by walking near to heaven?" "Nothing," he said. "And yet you ought," he said, "standing upon so great and divine an engine, to bring forth now clearer opinions about heaven and about the sun and the moon, which perhaps you think you could touch with a rod, standing so close to this heaven." "What I knew yesterday about the divine," he said, "I know today also, and no other opinion about it has yet fallen upon me." "So then, Damis," he said, "you happen to be below still, and have gained nothing from the height, and you are as far from heaven as you were yesterday. And I had good reason to ask you what I did at the beginning; for you thought you were being asked ridiculous questions." "But indeed," he said, "I thought I would come down wiser, Apollonius, having heard that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae observed the things in heaven from Mimas in Ionia, and Thales of Miletus from the neighbouring Mycale; and some are said to have used Pangaeus as an observatory, and others Athos. But I, having gone up to a greater height than these, shall come down no wiser than myself." "Nor did they," he said; "for such lookout-points show heaven bluer and the stars larger and the sun rising out of night—things already plain even to shepherds and goatherds; but in what way the divine cares for the human race, and how it rejoices to be served by it, and what virtue is, and what justice and temperance, neither Athos will reveal to those who climb it, nor the Olympus admired by the poets, unless the soul beholds these things—the soul which, if it lay hold of them pure and undefiled, would, I should say, dart up far higher than this Caucasus."

Having crossed the mountain, they came upon men already riding on elephants. These are men midway between the Caucasus and the river Cophen, leading a savage life, and they are horsemen of this herd; and some were leading camels, which the Indians use for racing, and which travel a thousand stadia in a day without ever bending a knee. One of the Indians, then, riding up on such a camel, asked the guide where they were going; and when he heard the purpose of the journey, he reported it to the nomads, who shouted as though pleased, and bade them come near, and when they had come, offered them wine, which they contrive from the date-palms, and honey from the same plant, and slices of lions and leopards, whose skins too were freshly flayed. These the travellers received, all but the meat, and went on toward the dawn.

As they were taking their morning meal beside a spring of water, Damis, pouring out some of the wine from the Indians, said: "Here is to you, Apollonius, in the name of Zeus the Saviour, for you drink but seldom. For you will not, I suppose, refuse this too, as you do that from the vines"; and at the same time he poured a libation, since he had mentioned Zeus. Apollonius, laughing, said: "Do we not also abstain from money, Damis?" "By Zeus," he said, "as you have shown in many places." "Then," he said, "shall we abstain from a gold or silver drachma, and not be overcome by such coinage, although we see not private men only but kings gaping after it, yet if someone gives us bronze for silver, or gilt and debased metal, shall we take it, since it is not that for which the many long? And indeed there is also among the Indians coinage of orichalc and black bronze, with which, I suppose, all who come to the dwellings of the Indians must buy everything. What then? If the good nomads had offered us money, would you, Damis, seeing me refuse, have admonished me and taught me that money is that which the Romans stamp, or the king of the Medes, while this is some other stuff dressed up by the Indians? And if you had persuaded me of this, what would you have thought me? A counterfeit, surely, and one who had thrown away philosophy more shamefully than worthless soldiers throw away their shields. And yet, when a shield is thrown away, another could be got for the man who threw it, none worse than the first, as Archilochus thinks; but how is philosophy to be recovered by one who has dishonoured and cast it away? And now Dionysus would forgive a man overcome by no wine; but if I should choose the date-wine before the wine of the grape, he will be displeased, I know well, and will say his own gift has been outraged. We are not far from the god, for you hear from the guide that the mountain Nysa is near, on which Dionysus does many wonderful things, I suppose. And indeed drunkenness, Damis, comes upon men not from grapes alone, but the date-wine too maddens them in like manner; at any rate we have already met many of the Indians held by this wine, some of whom dance till they fall, others sing while they nod off, like our own people leaving a drinking-party by night and out of season. That you too think this drink a wine you show, by pouring a libation of it to Zeus and praying over it all that one prays over wine. And I have said these things to you, Damis, on my own behalf; for I would not lead you away from drinking, nor these attendants, and I would even allow you to eat meat; for to abstain from these things I see leads to nothing for you, but for me to what I have agreed upon for philosophy from my boyhood." Damis and his company accepted this argument and were glad to feast well, thinking they would travel the more easily if they lived more plentifully.

Having crossed the river Cophen—themselves on boats, but the camels through the water on foot, for the river was not yet large—they came into the country ruled by the king, in which the mountain Nysa is planted, rising to a sharp summit like Tmolus in Lydia, and one may climb it, for it has been made passable by cultivation. Having gone up, they say they came upon a temple of Dionysus, which Dionysus is said to have planted for himself with laurels set in a circle, enclosing just so much ground as suffices for a temple of moderate size; and he set ivy and vines about the laurels, and set up within an image of himself, knowing that in time the trees would grow together and provide a roof of themselves—which is now so joined that the temple is neither rained upon nor pierced by wind. Sickles and baskets and presses and the implements of presses are dedicated to Dionysus, of gold and silver, as to one who treads the grapes. The image is likened to an Indian youth, and is carved of white stone. When Dionysus celebrates his rites and shakes Nysa, the cities below the mountain hear him and are stirred up together with him.

Greeks dispute with Indians about this Dionysus, and Indians among themselves. For we say that the Theban marched against the Indians, both campaigning and reveling, using as evidence, among other things, the dedication at Pytho, which the treasuries there hold laid away. It is a disc of Indian silver, on which is inscribed: "DIONYSUS, SON OF SEMELE AND ZEUS, FROM THE INDIANS TO APOLLO OF DELPHI." But the Indians about the Caucasus and the river Cophen say that he came among them as an Assyrian stranger who knew the affairs of the Theban; while those who dwell in the land between the Indus and the Hydraotes, and the country beyond, which ends at the river Ganges, say that Dionysus was the son of the river Indus, and that the Theban, coming to him, took the thyrsus and gave him to the rites, and saying that he was the son of Zeus and had lived in his father's thigh until his birth, found from him a mountain Merus, on which Nysa borders, and planted Nysa for Dionysus, bringing from Thebes the slip of the vine—where Alexander too performed the rites. But the inhabitants of Nysa say that Alexander did not go up the mountain, but set out to, since he was ambitious and fond of antiquities; yet fearing that, if the Macedonians came among the vines, which they had not seen for a long time, they might be carried back into longing for home or take up some craving for wine, being now accustomed to water, he passed Nysa by, praying to Dionysus and sacrificing at the foot of the mountain. I know that in writing this I please some not at all, since those who served with Alexander did not record even these things truthfully; but I at least need the truth, which, had they too praised it, they would not have taken from Alexander this praise either. For greater, I think, than his going up the mountain and reveling, as they say, is this—that for the endurance of his army he did not even ascend.

The rock Aornus, not far distant from Nysa, Damis says he did not see, for it lay off the road and the guide feared to turn aside anywhere from the straight way; but he heard that it was taken by Alexander, and that it is called Aornus, not because it rises fifteen stadia—for the sacred birds fly even above this—but because they say there is on the summit of the rock a cleft which draws down the birds that fly over it, as may be seen at Athens in the vestibule of the Parthenon, and in many places in the land of the Phrygians and Lydians; on account of which the rock both is called and is Aornus.

As they rode toward the Indus, they came upon a boy of about thirteen years riding on an elephant and striking the beast. When they marveled, "What is the work, Damis," he said, "of a good horseman?" "What else," he said, "than, having seated himself upon the horse, to govern it and turn it with the bridle and chastise it when it grows disorderly, and to foresee that the horse does not fall into a pit or trench or chasm, when it goes through marsh or mud?" "And shall we require nothing else, Damis," he said, "of the good horseman?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said: "to give the horse rein when it leaps up an incline, but, when it goes down a slope, not to give way to it, but to pull it back; and to stroke its ears or mane; and not always to use the whip seems to me the mark of a wise horseman, and I would praise one who rides thus." "And what does the war-horse and battle-charger require?" "The same things, Apollonius," he said, "and besides these, the casting of weapons and the guarding against them, the charge and the retreat and the rallying of comrades against the enemy, and not letting the horse be terrified when a shield clangs or helmets flash or there is a shout of men singing the paean and raising the war-cry—all this, I think, belongs to the wisdom of horsemanship." "What then," he said, "will you say of this horseman upon the elephant?" "Far more marvelous, Apollonius," he said; "for that one so young should be set over so great a beast and steer it with the hooked staff which you see him drive into the elephant like an anchor, and should fear neither the look of the beast nor its height nor its great strength, seems to me a thing more than human; and I would not have believed it, by Athena, had I heard it from another." "What, then," he said, "if someone wished to sell us the boy, would you buy him, Damis?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said, "with all that I have. For to lord it, like one who has seized a citadel, over the greatest of beasts the earth feeds, seems to me the mark of a free and brilliant nature." "And what use will you make of the boy," he said, "if you do not also buy the elephant?" "I will set him over my house," he said, "and my servants, and he will rule them far better than I." "And are you not fit," he said, "to rule your own?" "In the same way as you, Apollonius," he said; "for I too have left my affairs and go about, like you, in love of learning and despising the things abroad." "But if you bought the boy, Damis, and you had two horses, one a racer, the other a war-horse, would you set him upon the horses?" "Upon the racer," he said, "perhaps I would, since I see others doing so; but the battle-horse and the horse in arms, how should this boy mount it? For he could not carry the shield horsemen need, nor breastplate nor helmet; and how should he wield a spear, who could not yet brandish the shaft of a dart or arrow, seeming still to lisp at warlike things?" "Then it is something else, Damis," he said, "that drives and directs this elephant, and not this driver, whom you all but worship in your amazement." And when he said, "What could this be, Apollonius? For I see nothing upon the beast except the boy," "This beast," he said, "is teachable beyond all others, and once it has been compelled to live under a man, it endures everything from the man and practices conformity with him, and rejoices to feed from his hand, like little dogs, and fawns on him with its trunk as he approaches, and lets him thrust his head into its throat and gapes as long as the man wishes, as we saw among the nomads. But by night it is said to lament its slavery—not, by Zeus, with the shriek it commonly utters, but with a piteous and pitiable wailing; and if a man come upon it while it bewails these things, the elephant checks its lament, as though ashamed. So it rules itself, Damis, and the persuasion of its nature leads it rather than the man set over it and directing it."

Coming to the Indus, they say they saw a herd of elephants crossing the river, and heard the following about the beast: that some of them are marsh-dwellers, others mountain-dwellers, and a third kind, the plain-dwellers, and they are caught for the use of war. For they fight equipped with towers such as receive ten or fifteen of the Indians together, from which the Indians shoot arrows and hurl javelins, as though casting from gates. And the beast itself counts its trunk a hand and uses it for hurling. As much as the Libyan elephant is larger than a Nisaean horse, by so much are the Indian larger than those of Libya. As to the age of the animal, and that they are very long-lived, others too have spoken; but these men say they came upon an elephant at Taxila, the greatest city in India, which the natives anoint with myrrh and bind with fillets. For it was one of those that had fought against Alexander on the side of Porus, and which, because it had fought eagerly, Alexander dedicated to the Sun. There were upon it spirals of gold about its tusks—or horns—and Greek letters upon them, saying: "ALEXANDER, SON OF ZEUS, TO THE SUN, AJAX." For he set this name on the elephant, deeming a great beast worthy of a great name. And the natives reckoned it three hundred and fifty years since the battle, not yet saying how old it was when it fought.

Juba, who once ruled the Libyan nation, says that Libyan horsemen on elephants once joined battle with one another—some having a tower carved on the tusks, others nothing—and that, night overtaking the battle, the marked ones were defeated and fled to Mount Atlas, and that he himself, four hundred years later, caught one of those that had escaped, and the mark was on it, hollow and not yet worn away by time. This Juba holds the tusks to be horns, because they grow from the same place as the temples, and are not whetted on anything else, and remain as they grew and do not, like teeth, fall out and grow again. But I do not accept the argument. For horns, if not all, at least those of stags, fall out and grow again; whereas of teeth those of men will all fall out and grow again, but in no other animal would a tusk or canine fall out of itself, nor grow again once fallen, since nature has set them in the jaws for the sake of a weapon. And besides, horns trace a circular line at the root each year, as goats and flocks and oxen show, but a tusk grows smooth, and unless something maims it, remains ever such, for it partakes of stony matter and substance. And again, the bearing of horns belongs only to cloven-hoofed animals, but this beast is five-toed and many-cleft at the base, which, because it is not bound up by hooves, stands as in something soft. To all horned creatures nature sets bones beneath, hollow and porous, and makes the horn grow about them from without, but the elephant's she shows solid and uniform; and when split open a thin pipe runs through the middle, as in teeth. The tusks of the marsh-elephants are livid and loose and awkward to work, for in many places caverns lurk in them, and in many places nodules stand up that do not yield to the craftsman's art; those of the mountain-elephants are smaller than these, but sufficiently white and with nothing hard to work in them; but the best are the tusks of the plain-elephants, for they are largest and whitest and pleasant to split open, and become whatever the hand wishes. And if one must record the dispositions of elephants too, the Indians hold those caught in the marshes to be witless and light, those from the mountains malicious and treacherous, and, unless they need something, not to be trusted by men; but the plain-elephants are said to be good-natured and docile and lovers of imitation; at any rate they draw, and dance, and sway to the flute, and leap from the ground.

When Apollonius saw the elephants crossing the Indus—there were, I think, thirty of them—and using as their guide the smallest among them, and the larger ones taking up their own young upon the projections of their tusks and binding them fast with their trunks, "These things, Damis," he said, "they do of themselves, with no one ordering them, through intelligence and wisdom; and you see how, like baggage-carriers, they have taken up their young and bound them and lead them?" "I see, Apollonius," he said, "how wisely and intelligently they do it." "What, then, is the meaning of that foolish speculation among those who quibble whether or not goodwill toward offspring is natural? For this even the elephants now proclaim, that it comes to them from nature; for they have surely not learned it from men, as they have other things, since they have not yet lived with men, but, possessing by nature the love of what they have begotten, they care for them and rear their young. And do not speak of the elephants, Damis; for this animal I rank second to man in intelligence and counsel. Rather I consider the bears—how, though they are the fiercest of beasts, they do everything for their cubs; and the wolves—how, ever bent upon plunder, the female guards what she has borne, while the male, for the safety of the whelps, brings her food; and the leopards likewise, which through their heat delight to become mothers, for then they wish to lord it over the males and rule the house, and the males endure everything from them, overcome by the young. There is a story too about lionesses, that they take leopards for lovers and receive them upon the lions' beds in the plains, but when the time of birth comes, they flee up to the mountains and the haunts of the leopards, for they bear spotted young, and so they hide them and suckle them in winding thickets, pretending to spend the day at hunting. For if the lions detect this, they tear the cubs to pieces and rend the litter as bastard. You have surely met one of the lions in Homer too, how he glares terribly for the sake of his cubs and braces himself to enter battle. And they say the tigress, fiercest of beasts in this country and about the Red Sea, rushes upon the ships to demand back her cubs, and if she recovers them goes off rejoicing, but if they sail away she howls beside the sea and sometimes dies. And who does not know about the birds? How eagles and storks would not build a nest before first fitting into it, the one the eagle-stone, the other the lychnis-stone, for the sake of egg-bearing and that snakes may not draw near them. And if we look at the creatures in the sea, we would not wonder that the dolphins, being good-natured, love their young; but the whales and seals and the viviparous tribes—how shall we not wonder, when a seal, which I saw at Aegae shut up for shows, so mourned its cub which died, that it had borne in its pen, that it would not take food for three days, though it is the greediest of beasts; and the whale takes up its young into the cavities of its throat, when something larger than itself pursues it? And a viper was once seen licking and tending the snakes she had borne, with her tongue thrust out. For let us not accept, Damis, the foolish story that vipers are born without a mother; for neither nature has allowed this, nor experience." Damis, taking up the word, said: "Do you allow me, then, to praise Euripides for that iambic line in which he has made Andromache say, 'For all men, then, their children are their soul'?" "I allow it," he said, "for it is wisely and divinely said; but it would have been far wiser and truer if it had been sung of all living things." "You seem, Apollonius," he said, "to be re-writing the line, that we may sing it thus: 'For all living things, then, their children are their soul.'" "And I follow you," he said, "for it is better."

"But tell me this: did we not say at the beginning of our discourse that there is wisdom about the elephants and intelligence in what they do?" "And with good reason, Damis," he said, "we said it; for if intelligence did not govern this beast, neither would it survive, nor the nations in which it lives." "Why then," he said, "do they make the crossing so foolishly and not to their own advantage? For the smallest leads, as you see, and one a little larger follows him, then another beyond this, and all the largest behind. They ought, surely, to travel the opposite way and make the largest a wall and a defence for themselves." "But, Damis," he said, "first, they seem to be fleeing a pursuit of men, whom indeed we shall meet following their track; and against pursuers one must rather have the rear fenced, as in wars; and reckon this most skilful in tactics of the beasts. Next, as to the crossing: if the largest of them crossed first, they would give no token whether all the rest would cross the water; for to the tallest the passage is easy and ready, but to the others hard and impassable if they do not rise above the stream; whereas, when the smallest has crossed, it now interprets to the rest that it is safe. And besides, the larger ones entering first would make the river deeper for the small, for the mud necessarily sinks into hollows through the weight of the beast and the thickness of its feet, while the smaller ones would do no harm to the passage of the larger, sinking less into the holes."

And I found in the writings of Juba that they help one another in the hunt and stand before the one that gives out, and if they rescue him, smear the gum of aloe upon his wounds, standing about him like physicians. Many such things were the subject of their philosophizing, taking as starting-points whatever was worth discourse.

The things said by Nearchus and Pythagoras about the river Acesines—that it flows into the Indus and breeds serpents seventy cubits long—they say are such as has been told; and let my account be reserved for the dragons, whose hunting Damis describes. Having come to the Indus and being at the crossing of the river, they asked the Babylonian whether he knew anything of the river, inquiring about the passage; but he said he had not yet sailed it, nor knew from where it was navigable. "Why then," they said, "did you not hire a guide?" "Because there is one who will guide us," he said, and at the same time showed a certain letter that would accomplish this—at which they say Vardanes was admired for his humanity and care. For he had sent this letter to the satrap over the Indus, though he was not subject to his rule, reminding him of a kindness, and saying that he would not demand any return for it—for it was not in his character to ask back a favour—but that for receiving Apollonius and sending him where he wished he would feel gratitude. He had also given gold to the guide, that, if he perceived Apollonius in need, he might give it and not look to another's hand. When the Indian received the letter, he said he was held worthy of great things and would show no less ambition about the man than if the king of the Indians had written on his behalf; and he gave him the satrapal ship to embark on, and other boats on which the camels were carried, and a guide for all the country which the Hydraotes bounds, and wrote to his own king not to fall short of Vardanes himself in regard to a man who was both Greek and divine.

Thus they crossed the Indus, about forty stadia, for so much of it is navigable; and about this river they write as follows. The Indus rises from the Caucasus, larger at its source than all the rivers of Asia, and as it advances it makes many of the navigable streams its own; and, doing the same as the Nile, it pours over the land of India and brings earth upon the earth and gives the Indians to sow after the Egyptian fashion. As for the snows of the Ethiopians and the mountains of the Cataracts, I do not think it right to contradict those who have spoken; yet I do not agree, reasoning about the Indus, that it does the same as the Nile, since the country above it is not snowed upon; and besides, I know that the god makes the Ethiopians and Indians the horns of the whole earth, blackening the one at the rising of the sun, the other at its setting—which could not happen to these men unless they were warmed even in winter. But a land which the sun heats the whole year through, how should one think it snowed upon? How could the snow become a supplier to the rivers there, enabling them to rise above their own measure? And if snow did come to such sun-scorched places, how could it be poured out into so vast a flood? How could it suffice for a river that floods—

—Egypt? As they were carried down the Indus, they say they met many river-horses and many crocodiles, as do those who sail the Nile; and they say there are flowers on the Indus such as grow up on the Nile, and that the seasons in India are warm in winter and stifling in summer, and that for this the divinity has best contrived, for their country is often rained upon. They say too that they heard from the Indians that the king came to this river when the seasons made it rise, and sacrificed to it bulls and black horses—for the Indians set white below black in honour, because, I suppose, of their own colour—and, having sacrificed, they say he cast into the river a golden measure, fashioned like the one with which grain is measured out; and on what account the king does this the Indians could not guess, but they themselves conjecture that this measure is sunk either for abundance of crops, which the farmers measure out, or for the moderation of the stream, that it may not flood the land by coming in great volume.

When they had crossed the river, the guide from the satrap led them straight to Taxila, where the Indian had his palace. They say the dress of those beyond the Indus is of native linen, and shoes of papyrus, and a cap when it rains; and the more distinguished among them are clothed in byssus, and the byssus, they say, grows from a tree like the white poplar at the base, with leaves resembling the willow. And Apollonius was pleased with the byssus, he says, since it resembles a grey philosopher's cloak. And from India byssus comes to Egypt for many of the temples. Taxila, they say, is in size like Nineveh, walled in moderate fashion like the Greek cities, and the palace of a man who then ruled the realm of Porus; and before the wall they say they saw a temple, not far short of a hundred feet, of shell-stone, and a shrine built within it, smaller than the temple, which was so large and pillared, yet worthy of wonder; for bronze tablets are fastened to each wall, painted with the deeds of Porus and Alexander. They are wrought in orichalc and silver and gold and black bronze—elephants, horses, soldiers, helmets, shields, but spears and arrows and swords all of iron; and as is the report of a celebrated painting—say, if it were a work of Zeuxis or Polygnotus or Euphranor, who loved shading and the breath of life and depth and relief—so, they say, it shines forth there too, and the metals are fused like colours. And the very spirit of the painting is pleasing; for Porus dedicated these after the death of the Macedonian, yet in them the Macedonian conquers and recovers Porus when wounded, and gives him back India, now become his own. And it is said too that Porus mourned Alexander when he died, and bewailed him as a noble and good king, and that, while Alexander lived, after his withdrawal from India, Porus neither said anything as a king, though he was permitted, nor gave commands to the Indians, but, like a satrap, was full of moderation and did everything to please him.

The story does not let me pass over what they record about this Porus. When the Macedonian was at the crossing, and some advised him to make allies of the peoples beyond the Hyphasis and the Ganges—for he would never be drawn up in battle against all India in agreement—"If my subjects are such," he said, "that they cannot be kept safe without allies, it is better for me not to rule." And when someone reported to him that Alexander had captured King Darius, he said, "A king, but not a man." When the keeper had adorned the elephant on which he was to fight, and said, "This, O king, will carry you," he said, "Rather I will carry it, if I prove a man like myself." And when they proposed that he sacrifice the elephant to the river, that it might not receive the Macedonians' rafts nor be of easy passage to Alexander, he said, "It is not for men who bear arms to call down curses." And after the battle, when even to Alexander he seemed divine and beyond human nature, and one of his kinsmen said, "If you had made obeisance to him when he crossed, Porus, you would neither have been beaten in battle, nor would so many of the Indians have perished, nor would you yourself have been wounded," he said: "Hearing that Alexander was most ambitious, I understood that if I made obeisance he would count me a slave, but if I fought him, a king, and I chose to be admired rather than pitied; and I was not deceived; for by showing myself such as Alexander saw, I both lost and gained everything in a single day." Such is the account they give of this Indian; and they say he was the handsomest of the Indians, and as tall as none of the men after the Trojan heroes, and quite young when he warred against Alexander.

During the time he stayed in the temple—and this became long, until it should be announced to the king that strangers had come—"Damis," said Apollonius, "is there such a thing as painting?" "If indeed," he said, "there is such a thing as truth." "And what does this art do?" "It mixes the colours," he said, "all that there are, the blue with the green and the white with the black and the red with the yellow." "And for what," he said, "does it mix these? For not for the sake of colour alone, like the encaustic painters." "For the sake of imitation," he said, "and of representing a dog and a horse and a man and a ship and all that the sun looks upon; and it represents even the sun himself, sometimes upon four horses, as he is said to appear here, sometimes again blazing across the heaven, when it sketches the ether and the house of the gods." "Then painting is imitation, Damis?" "What else?" he said; "for if it did not do this, it would seem ridiculous, making colours foolishly." "And the things seen in the heaven," he said, "when the clouds are torn apart from one another, the centaurs and stag-goats and, by Zeus, the wolves and the horses—what will you say? Are these not works of an imitative art?" "It seems so," he said. "Is god then a painter, Damis, and, leaving the winged chariot on which he travels ordering things divine and human, does he then sit down to play and to draw these things, like children in the sand?" Damis blushed, since the argument seemed to fall into such absurdity. But Apollonius, not despising him—for he was not harsh in his refutations—said: "But do you not wish to say this, Damis, that these things move through the heaven without meaning and at random, so far as god is concerned, but that we, having by nature the imitative faculty, give them form and shape?" "Let us rather think this, Apollonius," he said, "for it is more plausible and far better." "Then the imitative art is twofold, Damis, and let us hold one kind to be that which imitates with hand and mind, and this is painting, but the other kind to liken with the mind alone." "Not twofold," said Damis, "but we should hold the one more perfect, being painting, which can liken with both mind and hand, and the other a part of it, since it understands and imitates with the mind, even without being a painter, but could not use its hand to draw them." "Because, Damis," he said, "its hand is maimed by some blow or disease?" "No, by Zeus," he said, "but because it has handled neither pen nor any instrument nor colour, but is unskilled in drawing." "Then, Damis," he said, "we both agree that the imitative faculty comes to men from nature, but painting from art. And this would appear true of sculpture too. But painting itself you do not seem to me to think to be only that which is by colours; for one colour sufficed for the earlier painters, and as it advanced it took to four, then to more; but line too, and what is without colour, which is composed of shadow and light, it is right to call painting. For in these too likeness is seen, and form and mind and modesty and boldness, although these are bereft of colours, and show neither blood nor the bloom of any hair or beard, but, composed in a single mode, resemble the fair-skinned man and the white; and if we draw one of these Indians with a white line, he will surely seem black, for the snubness of the nose and the upright curls and the prominent jaw and the kind of startled look about the eyes blacken what is seen and sketch an Indian for those at least who do not look foolishly. Whence I would say that those who look at the works of painting need the imitative faculty too; for one would not praise a painted horse or bull unless he conceived the animal it is likened to, nor would one admire the Ajax of Timomachus, which is painted by him as maddened, unless he took up into his mind some image of Ajax, and how it was likely that he, having slain the cattle in Troy, sat down spent, taking counsel even to kill himself. But these contrivances of Porus, Damis, let us declare to be neither of the founder's art alone, since they are likened to paintings, nor of painting alone, since they were cast in bronze; but let us hold that one man, painter and founder, devised them, such as is shown in Homer of Hephaestus about the shield of Achilles. For these too are full of slayers and slain, and you would say the earth was bloodied, though it is of bronze."

While the man was busy with such matters, there came to him from the king messengers and an interpreter, saying that the king made him his guest for three days, for it was not customary for strangers to stay longer in the city; and they led him to the palace. The city, as to its wall, I have described; and they say its alleys are laid out irregularly and in the Attic manner, and built with houses which, if one looked at them from outside, had a single story, but if one passed within, were underground, and presented below the earth as much as above.

They say they saw a temple of the Sun, to which the elephant Ajax was dedicated, and golden images of Alexander, and others of Porus, these of black bronze. As for the walls of the temple, gold gleams up from beneath the red stones, sending out a radiance like a sunbeam. The very seat is composed of pearl in the symbolic fashion which all the barbarians use for their temples.

About the palace, they say they saw no mass of buildings, nor spearmen nor guards, but, as about the houses of distinguished men, a few servants, and three, I think, or four who wished to converse with the king; and they admired this order more than the inflamed splendour at Babylon, and far more when they passed within; for the men's halls and the porticoes and the whole court, they say, were kept restrained.

So Apollonius judged that the Indian was a philosopher, and bringing forward the interpreter, "I rejoice, O king," he said, "to see you a philosopher." "And I rejoice exceedingly," he said, "since you think so of me." "Is this the custom among you," he asked, "or did you establish your rule toward this moderation yourself?" "Temperately," he said, "I use what is temperately customary; I have most of men, but need little, for I consider most things to belong to my friends." "Happy in your treasure," he said, "if you value your friends above gold and silver, from whom many good things grow up for you." "And indeed," he said, "I share my wealth even with my enemies. For the barbarians always at variance with this land, who dwell nearby and make raids into my borders, I win over with this money, and by them my country is guarded, and they neither attack my territory themselves nor allow the barbarians who border them, harsh as they are, to do so." When Apollonius asked him whether Porus too paid them money, "Porus," he said, "loved war, but I love peace." By these words he wholly won Apollonius over, and Apollonius was so overcome by him that, once when rebuking Euphrates for not philosophizing, he said, "But let us at least respect the Indian Phraotes"—for this was the Indian's name. And when a satrap, since he had been held worthy of great honour from him, wished to bind upon him a turban adorned with golden gems, "I," he said, "even if I were of those who covet such things, would now refuse them and cast them from my head, having met Apollonius; and how should I now adorn myself with what I never before thought fit to be bound with, forgetting my guest and forgetting myself?" Apollonius asked him too about his diet, and he said: "Of wine I drink as much as I pour in libation to the Sun; what I take in the hunt, others eat, for it is enough for me to have had the exercise; but my food is vegetables and the pith of date-palms and the fruit of the palms and all the river grows in its gardens. And much grows for me from trees too, of which these hands are the farmers." Hearing this, Apollonius was overjoyed and kept looking at Damis.

When they had discoursed sufficiently about the road to the Brahmans, he bade the guide from the Babylonian be entertained, as he was wont to entertain those who came from Babylon, and the guide from the satrap depart with provisions; and he himself, taking the hand of Apollonius and bidding the interpreter withdraw, said, "Would you make me your fellow-drinker?"—asking him in the Greek tongue. When Apollonius was amazed and said, "Why did you not speak so from the beginning?" he said: "I feared to seem rash by not knowing myself, nor that fortune makes me appear a barbarian; but overcome by you, since I see that you too are pleased with me, I could not hide myself; and how full I am of the Greek tongue I will show you in many ways." "Why then," he said, "did you not yourself invite me to the drinking-party, but bid me invite you?" "Because I hold you better than myself," he said, "for wisdom has the more kingly part." And at the same time he led both him and his company to where he was wont to bathe. The bath was a garden a stadium in length, in the midst of which a pool was dug to receive springs of fresh, cold water, and on either side were running-courses, in which he exercised himself with javelin and discus in the Greek manner; for his body was strong both by reason of his age—he was twenty-seven years old—and of this kind of training. When he had had enough, he leapt into the water and exercised himself in swimming. When they had bathed, they went to the common table garlanded, for this is the custom among the Indians whenever they drink at the king's table.

It is worth while not to omit the fashion of the drinking, clearly recorded by Damis. The king feasts upon a couch, and as many as five of his nearest kinsmen with him, while all the rest dine on seats. A table, like an altar, is built up in the midst, the height of a man's knee, embracing a circle such as a chorus of thirty men might form, on which laurels and other branches, like myrtle but bearing the perfume of the Indians, are strewn. There are laid out fish and birds, and whole lions and gazelles and swine and the loins of tigers; for the rest of the beast they refuse to eat, since they say that this animal, when first born, raises its forefeet to the rising Sun. And each guest rises and goes to the table, and taking up some of these things, or cutting off a portion, goes back to his own seat and fills himself, eating bread frequently between. When they have had enough, mixing-bowls of silver and gold are brought in, one sufficing for ten drinkers, from which they drink stooping down, as though being given to drink. And in the midst of the drinking they bring on perilous displays, not without their seriousness. For a boy, like the dancing-girls, was tossed lightly into the air, and an arrow was let fly upward together with him, and when he was high above the ground, the boy turned a somersault, lifting himself over the arrow; and had he failed in the somersault he was sure to be struck; for the archer, before letting fly, went round the drinkers showing the point and giving proof of the dart. And shooting through a sling, and shooting at a hair, and tracing the outline of one's own son with arrows as he stood against a board—these they practice over their cups and accomplish them even when drunk.

Damis and his company were amazed at these things as well-aimed, and admired the precision of the archery; but Apollonius—for he dined with the king, who shared his fare—gave less heed to these, and said to the king, "Tell me, O king, whence have you this command of the Greek tongue, and whence this philosophy about you here? For I do not suppose you trace it to teachers, since it is not likely there are any teachers of it among the Indians." The king, laughing, said: "The ancients used to ask those who sailed in whether they were pirates, so common did they reckon a thing, hard though it is; but you, it seems to me, ask those who come to you whether they are philosophers, so commonly do you think it lies even within the reach of any chance comer, though it is the most divine of human things. And that among you it is the same as piracy, I know; for they say there is none to be met with like you, but that the many, as though they had despoiled it from others, are clothed in it unfittingly and strut about trailing a borrowed garment. And, by Zeus, just as pirates live in luxury knowing they lie under justice, so they too, they say, give themselves to the belly and to love and to fine raiment. And the cause is this: you have laws, I suppose, that if a man debase the coinage he is put to death, and if one falsely register a child—or I know not what penalty there is for this; but those who counterfeit or debase philosophy, no law, I think, restrains among you, nor is any magistrate set over them.

"But among us few lay hold of philosophy, and they are tested in this way. The young man, when he happens to have reached eighteen years—and this, I think, is the measure of an ephebe among you too—must go beyond the river Hyphasis to the men toward whom you have set out, having first declared publicly that he will philosophize, that it may be open to those who wish to bar him, if he comes not pure. And by pure I mean, first, what concerns his father and mother, that no reproach appear about them; then their parents, and a third generation upward, that there be no insolent or intemperate or unjustly money-getting man among them. And when no scar appears about these, nor any blemish at all, then they examine the young man himself and test him: first, whether he is of good memory; then, whether he is by nature modest and not feigning it; whether not given to drink, nor gluttonous, nor a braggart, nor a lover of laughter, nor rash, nor a railer; whether obedient to father, to mother, to teachers, to attendants; and above all, whether he is not corrupt in regard to his own youthful bloom. What concerns those who begot him and those who begot them is gathered from witnesses and from records that lie in public. For when an Indian dies, there comes to his doors a single magistrate appointed by the laws to write down how he lived; and if the magistrate lies or is deceived, the laws penalize him with this, that he shall hold no office again, as having falsified the life of a man. What concerns the ephebes themselves they learn by looking at them; for the eyes interpret much of human character, and much lies in the brows and cheeks to be judged and observed, from which wise and natural men, as in a mirror, behold the minds of men as images. For since philosophy is held in great honour here, and has this honour among the Indians, it is altogether necessary that those who go to it be thoroughly tested and subjected to countless proofs. That we do this under teachers, and that philosophizing comes to us as a matter of examination, I have said clearly; but my own case is thus.

"I was born of a king for grandfather, who bore my own name, but of a private man for father. For my father, left quite young, had two of his kinsmen as guardians according to the laws of the Indians, who managed the kingdom for him not well, by the Sun, nor with measure, so that they seemed heavy to the subjects and the rule was ill spoken of. Some of the powerful, then, conspiring against them, set upon them at a festival and killed them as they sacrificed to the Indus, and themselves, leaping upon the rule, held the state. So the kinsmen, fearing for my father, not yet sixteen, sent him beyond the Hyphasis to the king there. He rules over more than I, and his country is by far more prosperous than this. And when the king wished to make him his son, my father declined, saying he would not strive against fortune which had taken the rule from him, but begged him to allow him to philosophize, going to the wise men; for so he could the more easily endure the troubles at home. And when the king wished to bring him back to his ancestral rule, he said, 'If you perceive me to be genuinely philosophizing, bring me back; but if not, let me remain as I am.' So the king himself, going to the wise men, said he would gain much from them if they took charge of the boy, who was already noble in nature; and they, seeing something more in him, welcomed the chance to impart to him their own wisdom, and eagerly taught him, since he was much given to learning. In the seventh year the king, falling sick—when indeed he died—sent for my father and declared him partner of the rule with his son, and promised him his daughter, who was of marriageable age; but my father, when he saw the king's son to be a slave to flatterers and wine and such evils, and full of suspicions toward himself, said: 'Keep these things and possess the whole rule; for it is foolish that one who could not gain even the kingdom that belonged to him should seem rashly to come to one that does not belong to him; but give me your sister, for this alone of yours is enough for me.' And having taken the marriage, he lived near the wise men in seven prosperous villages, which the king bestowed upon his sister as a dowry. Of this marriage, then, I was born, and my father, having taught me the lore of the Greeks, brought me to the wise men, perhaps before my time, for I was then twelve years old; and they reared me as their own child. For whomever they receive knowing the Greek tongue they love the more, as already akin to them in disposition.

"When my parents died not long after one another, they bade me go to the villages and take care of my own affairs, being nineteen years old. But the good uncle had already taken the villages from me, and did not even leave me the little plots my father had possessed, for he said they all belonged to his own rule, and that I should gain great things from him if he let me live. So, collecting a contribution from my mother's freedmen, I had four attendants. And as I was reading the play of the Heraclidae, someone stood by me bearing a letter from a man friendly to my father, who bade me cross the river Hydraotes and join him about the kingdom there, for I had many hopes of recovering it if I did not delay. The play, I think, some god brought to my mind, and I followed the omen; and having crossed the river, I heard that one of those who had usurped the rule was dead, and the other was being besieged in this very palace. So I went on in haste, crying out to those in the villages through which I passed, that I was the son of such a man and was going to my own rule; and they, rejoicing and greeting me, escorted me, thinking me like my grandfather; and they had daggers and bows, and we grew ever more numerous; and when I approached the gates, those within received me so gladly that, lighting torches from the altar of the Sun, they came before the gates and led me hither, hymning much my father and my grandfather; but the drone within, they shut round about with the wall, though I begged that he not die in such a fashion.

Apollonius, taking up the word, said: "You have plainly described a return of the Heraclidae, and the gods are to be praised for their purpose, in that they helped a noble man going to his own in his return. But tell me this about the wise men: were they not once under Alexander, and brought to him, did they not philosophize to him about heaven?" "Those were the Oxydracae," he said; "and this nation is ever free and arrayed for war, and they claim to handle wisdom, though they know nothing useful. But the truly wise lie midway between the Hyphasis and the Ganges, a country Alexander never even came to—not, I think, fearing what was in it, but, I suppose, the sacred signs warned him off. And even if he had crossed the Hyphasis and been able to take the land about them, yet the tower in which they dwell he would never have mastered, not though he led ten thousand Achilles and thirty thousand Ajaxes; for they do not fight those who attack, but, being sacred and dear to the gods, drive them off by striking with celestial signs and thunderbolts. At any rate the Egyptian Heracles and Dionysus, who overran the Indian nation in arms, are said once to have marched against them and contrived engines and made trial of the place; but the wise men did nothing in resistance, but kept still, as it appeared to them; yet when the others drew near, fiery blasts thrust them back, and thunders rolling downward and falling upon their arms. There Heracles is said to have thrown away his shield, which was of gold, and the wise men have made it a dedication, both for the fame of Heracles and for the device on the shield; for Heracles himself is wrought there marking the bounds of Gadeira and making the mountains his pillars and drawing the Ocean inward—from which it is shown that not the Theban, but the Egyptian Heracles, came to Gadeira and became the bounder of the earth."

While they were thus discoursing, the hymn came on with the flute, and Apollonius asked the king what the revel meant. "The Indians," he said, "sing counsels to the king, when he is about to sleep, that he may have good dreams and rise kindly and well-omened to his subjects." "And how, O king," he said, "are you disposed toward this? For it is you, I suppose, they pipe to." "I do not mock it," he said; "for one must accept it for the law's sake, though I need no counsel; for whatever the king does with measure and goodness, he will surely do as a favour to himself rather than to his subjects."

Having discoursed thus, they took their rest; and when day was breaking, the king himself came to the chamber in which Apollonius and his company slept, and feeling the bedstead, addressed the man, and asked him what he was thinking. "For surely," he said, "you are not asleep, drinking water and mocking wine." "Do you not think, then," he said, "that those who drink water sleep?" "They sleep," he said, "but a thin sleep, such as we may say sits on the very surface of their eyes, not on the mind." "On both," he said, "and perhaps more on the mind; for unless the mind be at rest, neither will the eyes receive sleep. At any rate the mad cannot even sleep through the leaping of the mind, but, as the thought goes off to one thing and another, they look up more fiercely and shamelessly, like the sleepless dragons. Since, then, O king," he said, "the work of sleep has been clearly interpreted, and what it shows to men, let us consider what the water-drinker will lack in sleep compared with the drunken man." "Do not quibble," said the king; "for if you suppose a drunken man, he will not sleep at all, for his mind, raving in revel, will whirl him and fill him with confusion. Indeed all who try to fall asleep from drunkenness seem to be sent up to the roof, and then again to be underground, and a whirling has fallen upon them, such as is said to befall Ixion. So I do not propose the drunken man, but one who has drunk of wine yet is sober, to consider how he will sleep, and how much better than the man without wine."

Apollonius, calling Damis, said: "The argument is against a clever man, and one well-trained in dialectic." "I see it," he said, "and this perhaps was what is meant by meeting a 'black-bottomed' fellow. But the argument he has spoken quite captivates me too; so it is time for you to wake and finish it." Apollonius, lifting up his head, said: "And indeed how much we who drink water have the advantage in sleeping more pleasantly, I will show, keeping to your own argument. For that the mind of the drunken is confused and they are more frenzied, you have clearly said, for we see those held by drunkenness thinking they see two moons and two suns; while those who have drunk less, even if quite sober, reckon none of these things, but are full of cheer and pleasure, which falls upon them often without any good fortune; and such men plead lawsuits though they have never yet spoken in court, and say they are rich though they have not a drachma within. These, O king, are frenzied conditions; for the very being pleased disturbs the mind, and I know many of those who think they fare very well not even able to sleep, but leaping out of sleep; and this would be a case of even good things bringing cares. There are also drugs of sleep contrived for men, by drinking or anointing which they sleep, stretched out as though dead, whence they rise with a kind of forgetfulness and are anywhere else rather than where they seem to be. That, then, what is drunk, or rather poured over the soul and body, brings on a sleep neither genuine nor proper, but either deep and half-dead or short and torn by what runs through it, even if it be sound, you will perhaps grant, unless you pursue contentiousness rather than reasoning. But my fellow-drinkers see things that are as they are, and things that are not they neither record to themselves nor imagine; nor have they ever seemed light, nor full of stupidity or silliness, nor more merry than is fitting, but they are composed and full of reason, like men at evening and when the market is full; for these do not nod, not though they study far into the night. For sleep does not thrust them out like a master pressing heavy upon the neck enslaved by wine, but they appear free and upright, and falling asleep they receive sleep with a pure soul, neither lifted from it by good fortunes nor leaping out of it through any misfortune. For the sober soul is well-measured toward both these things and overcome by neither passion, whence it sleeps most pleasantly and most painlessly, not starting out of sleep.

"And indeed the divination from dreams, which seems the most divine of human things, the soul beholds more easily when not befouled by wine, but receiving it undefiled and surveying it. At any rate the interpreters of visions, whom the poets call dream-readers, would not undertake to read any vision unless they first asked the time at which it was seen. For if it be at dawn and from the sleep about daybreak, they reckon it, since the soul prophesies soundly when it has cleansed itself of the wine; but if it be about the first sleep or midnight, when the soul is still sunk and befouled by the wine, they decline the reading, being wise. And that this is the judgment of the gods too, and that they set the oracular power in sober souls, I will show clearly. There was among the Greeks, O king, a man Amphiaraus, a seer." "I know," he said; "you mean, I suppose, the son of Oicles, whom the earth drew down alive as he returned from Thebes." "This man, O king," he said, "prophesying still in Attica, sends dreams to those who consult him; and the priests, taking the consultant, keep him from food for one day and from wine for three, that he may draw the oracles with a soul that shines through. But if wine were a good drug of sleep, the wise Amphiaraus would have bidden the consultants come to his shrine prepared the opposite way and full of wine, like amphorae. And I could tell of many famous oracles among Greeks and barbarians, in which the priest, having drawn water and not wine, utters the words from the tripod. Hold me too, then, god-borne, O king, and all who drink water; for we are nymph-possessed and bacchants of sobriety." "Will you make me too, then, Apollonius," he said, "a member of your company?" "If you will not seem vulgar to your subjects," he said; "for philosophy in a kingly man, if measured and somewhat relaxed, works a wondrous blend, as is shown in you, but if exact and overstrained, it appears both vulgar, O king, and humbler than your state, and the envious would even reckon it a kind of conceit."

Having discoursed thus—for day had now come—they went out. And Apollonius, understanding that the king must transact business with embassies and the like, said: "Do you, O king, attend to what befits your rule, but release me at this hour to the Sun, for I must say my accustomed prayer." "And may he hear you as you pray," he said, "for he will do a favour to all who rejoice in your wisdom; and I will await your return, for I have certain cases to judge, in which you will greatly profit me by being present."

When he returned, the day being now advanced, he asked what cases he had judged; and the king said: "Today I gave no judgment, for the sacred signs did not allow me." Apollonius, taking up the word, said: "Do you make these matters too dependent on omens, like your goings forth and your campaigns?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said; "for here too there is danger, if the judge be carried aside from the straight." It seemed to Apollonius that he spoke well, and he asked him again what case he was to judge: "For I see," he said, "that you are perplexed and at a loss how to vote." "I confess," he said, "that I am at a loss, whence I make you my counsellor. For a man sold to another land in which a treasure lay hidden, not yet revealed; and in time afterward the land, splitting open, disclosed a chest of gold, which the seller of the land says belongs rather to himself—for he would not have sold the land had he known beforehand that he had a fortune in it—while the buyer claims to have acquired what he found in his own land now. And the argument of both is just, and I should appear foolish if I bade them divide the gold, for even an old woman could so arbitrate." Apollonius, taking up the word, said: "That these two men are not philosophers their disputing about gold makes plain; but you would seem to me to judge best by considering thus—that the gods first care for those who philosophize with virtue, and second for those who are blameless and have never been thought to wrong anyone. To the philosophers they give to discern well things divine and human; to the otherwise good a sufficient livelihood, that they may not, in want of necessities, become unjust. It seems to me, then, O king, that you should weigh these men as in a balance and examine the life of each; for I do not think the gods would have taken even the land from the one, had he not been base, nor again given even what was under the land to the other, had he not been better than the seller." On the next day both came to be judged, and the seller was convicted of insolence and of having neglected the sacrifices which ought to be offered to the gods of the land, while the other appeared decent and most piously serving the gods. So the opinion of Apollonius prevailed, and the good man went away as one holding these things from the gods.

When the case had so ended, Apollonius came to the Indian and said: "Today, O king, is the third of the days in which you made me your guest, and at dawn tomorrow I must set out, following the law." "But the law," he said, "does not yet speak to you; for you may stay tomorrow too, since you came after midday." "I rejoice in your hospitality," he said, "for you seem even to quibble the law on my behalf." "I would I could break it," he said, "for your sake. But tell me this, Apollonius: the camels on which they say you ride, do they not bring you from Babylon?" "From there," he said, "Vardanes having given them." "Will they then be able to carry you on, having now come so many stadia from Babylon?" Apollonius kept silent; but Damis said: "This man, O king, does not yet understand about the journey, nor about the nations among which we yet are, but thinks that, since he will everywhere have you and Vardanes, to pass into India is child's play. But the truth about the camels he does not tell you, in what state they are; for they are so badly off that they are carried by us rather than carry us, and we need others. For if they collapse somewhere in a desert of India, we shall sit, he says, scaring the vultures and wolves from the camels, but no one will scare them from us, and we shall perish along with them." The king, taking up the word, said: "I will remedy this; for I will give you others—four, I think, you need—and the satrap over the Indus will send four others to Babylon. I have a herd of camels by the Indus, all white." "And will you not, O king," said Damis, "give a guide too?" "I will give the guide a camel," he said, "and provisions; and I will write to Iarchas, the eldest of the wise men, that he receive Apollonius as no worse than himself, and you as philosophers and followers of a divine man." And the Indian offered gold and precious stones and fine linens and countless such things; but Apollonius said that of gold he had enough, since Vardanes had secretly given it to the guide, but the linens he would take, since they resembled the cloak of the ancient and very Attic men. And taking up one of the stones, "O best of stones," he said, "how seasonably and not without divine help have I found you!"—having seen in it, I think, some secret and divine power. Damis and his company would not accept the gold either, but laid eager hold on the stones, to dedicate to the gods when they should return to their own homes.

When they had stayed the next day too—for the Indian would not let them go—he gave them the letter to Iarchas, written thus: "King Phraotes to Iarchas his teacher and to those about him, greeting. Apollonius, a most wise man, holds you wiser than himself and comes to learn your lore; send him on, then, knowing all you know, for none of your teaching will be lost; for he speaks best of men and remembers. And let him see also the throne on which, when I sat, you gave me the kingdom, Iarchas my father. And those who follow him are worthy of praise too, that they are devoted to such a man. Farewell, and fare you all well."

Having set out from Taxila, and having gone a two days' journey, they came to the plain in which Porus is said to have fought Alexander, and in it they say they saw gates that shut in nothing, but were built for the sake of trophies. For upon them is set Alexander standing in a four-horse chariot, such as he stands over the satraps of Darius at Issus. And not far apart from one another two gates are said to be built, the one bearing Porus, the other Alexander, having met, I think, after the battle; for the one resembles a man greeting, the other one making obeisance.

Having crossed the river Hydraotes and passed many nations, they came to the Hyphasis; and thirty stadia from it they came upon altars on which was inscribed: "TO FATHER AMMON AND TO HERACLES THE BROTHER AND TO ATHENA PROVIDENCE AND TO OLYMPIAN ZEUS AND TO THE SAMOTHRACIAN CABEIRI AND TO THE INDIAN SUN AND TO DELPHIAN APOLLO." And they say there stands also a bronze pillar inscribed: "ALEXANDER STOOD HERE." Let us hold the altars to be Alexander's, honouring the limit of his own rule, but the pillar I think the Indians beyond the Hyphasis set up, glorying that Alexander did not advance further.