CHAPTER 5

THE LEGACY OF ALEXANDER AND PYTHEAS

The accumulation of data from the journeys of Alexander and Pytheas had its immediate impact on geographical research, both theoretical and topographical, and the following century saw the final movement toward the creation of geography as an academic discipline. The new territories conquered by Alexander became the subject of extensive inquiry. Since he had legally inherited the Persian Empire, the eastern world as far as India was now politically connected to the traditional Greek world, to be explored and analyzed. Even though it was not until the Roman period that anyone returned to the remote regions explored by Pytheas (and the location of Thule was lost), his scientific data were of immense importance in understanding the inhabited world. Moreover, the new Hellenistic governments with their broad territorial extent encouraged the study of topography as a practical need to know about routes, itineraries, and the regions under their control.¹ There were also theoretical developments about the surface of the earth and the extent of the oikoumene.

Dikaiarchos and Straton

Dikaiarchos of Messana (modern Messina in Sicily) was one of the handful of known students of Aristotle, but there are few further details about his life other than the implicit date of the late fourth century BC. He wrote a geographical work, perhaps titled Circuit of the Earth, surviving in a few fragments that include the first references to Pytheas’ journey and the Imaos (Himalaya) mountains, the latter probably from a source close to Alexander.² Although the remnants of his treatise are scant, he is remembered for several important innovations in geographical thought.

Dikaiarchos’ most important achievement was creating a base parallel across the inhabited world. Following the view of Demokritos, he saw the oikoumene as oblong, with its east–west length one-and-one-half times the north–south width. He divided it in two by an east–west line from the Pillars of Herakles through Sardinia, Sicily, the Peloponnesos, Ionia, Karia, Lykia, Pamphylia, Kilikia, and the Tauros Mountains, as far east as the Imaos.³ The line is remarkably straight except for the inclusion of Sardinia, perhaps an error in the transmission of Dikaiarchos’ data. This is the first attempt to make use of the belief that an east–west range of mountains (the Tauros) extended from Anatolia to India, although the southern curve of the Imaos was not yet known. It is also a first step toward plotting points on the surface of the inhabited world. With some modifications, especially by Eratosthenes, this base latitude line became a standard geographical tool for the rest of antiquity.⁴ In addition, Dikaiarchos proposed a number of distances within the oikoumene, all emanating from the Peloponnesos (where he lived) and probably based on sailors’ reports: 10,000 stadia to the Pillars of Herakles, somewhat more to the head of the Adriatic, and 3,000 stadia to the Sicilian Strait (the modern Straits of Messina, at his birthplace).⁵ This last figure is the shortest and most accurate of the three; the other two are greatly in error. Nevertheless, Dikaiarchos made the first attempt to calculate long distances in absolute measurements rather than sailing days.

Also of interest is his attempt to determine the heights of mountains. Despite an extant title, On the Measurement of Mountains in the Peloponnesos, this was probably merely a chapter in Circuit of the Earth. The rugged mountainous terrain of Greece—especially the Peloponnesos—perhaps inspired such thoughts, and high mountains had long been a curiosity, yet earlier comments on their size tended to be more poetic than scientific.⁶ Dikaiarchos measured their height using an optical method of triangulation, perhaps employing a mirror.⁷ Optics was an emergent discipline in his day, as this was the era of Euclid's work on the topic, which discusses the same technique (although not applying it to mountains).⁸ Only one measurement from the Peloponnesos survives, for Kyllene (15 stadia), but others exist for Pelion in Thessaly and Atabyrion on Rhodes, and Mt Olympos in Lykia may be added to the list, although not specifically attributed to Dikaiarchos.⁹ The extant measurements are in stadia or Roman paces (probably converted from stadia), and cannot exactly be equated with modern measurements. The theory is sound but there seems to be a consistent error of about 15–20 percent too high. Dikaiarchos’ method, refined over the years, lasted throughout antiquity,¹⁰ although estimating the heights of mountains continued to be problematic: Pliny thought that the Alps were 50,000 paces high, or 50 miles.¹¹

Dikaiarchos assumed a spherical earth,¹² and may have considered its size. He is perhaps the source for Archimedes’ figure of 300,000 stadia for its circumference, which Archimedes made clear was not his own.¹³ The number dates from after 309 BC, since Lysimacheia in Thrace, founded that year, is mentioned, so it must be later than Aristotle but before Eratosthenes, and Dikaiarchos seems the obvious choice.¹⁴ This figure seems to have been the result of a rough calculation rather than simply an educated guess.¹⁵ Based on the assumption that Syene (at the First Cataract of the Nile) and Lysimacheia were on the same meridian, the relative position of the constellations overhead suggested that the distance between them was 1/15 of the terrestrial circumference. It was believed that the two points were 20,000 stadia apart, resulting in a circumference of 300,000 stadia.¹⁶ The methodology is extremely rough and is based on erroneous data, mostly notably a failure to realize that the meridians of Syene and Lysimacheia are several degrees apart, since the distance between the two places was based in part on the sailing route from Alexandria to Lysimacheia, by necessity circuituous. But the theory was basically sound, and these figures were certainly in Eratosthenes’ mind when he made his detailed calculations somewhat later.

Dikaiarchos also considered the flooding of the Nile, believing that it was due to the influx of the Atlantic somewhere in western Africa, a rather anachronistic theory going back to Euthymenes of Massalia. He further thought that the tides were due to the sun.¹⁷ Neither of these ideas is particularly clearly expressed in the extant sources. Nevertheless, his work on mountain heights, whether a separate treatise or part of Circuit of the Earth, and surviving in only three short fragments, seems to have been unique in ancient literature.

Straton of Lampsakos, Theophrastos’ successor as head of the Peripatetic school (c.286–268 BC), was a natural scientist rather than a geographer, and no work specifically on geography is listed in his bibliography, although a lost treatise, On Mining Machinery,¹⁸ suggests a professional interest in the surface of the earth, which may be connected to his curiosity about the formation of the earth and the physical processes of the cosmos. For some time Greeks had been aware that the earth was not static. Volcanic activity would have been the most conspicuous evidence for this, eventually supplemented by Pytheas’ report on the strange phenomena at Thule. Xenophanes, Herodotos, and Xanthos of Lydia had all remarked on the changing nature of the earth.¹⁹ Straton considered the question of the causes of these changes, noting that the original outlet of the Mediterranean seemed to have been a channel into the Red Sea (the isthmus between the two was below sea level in many places).²⁰ He theorized that the numerous rivers flowing into the Black Sea had once caused it to burst out into the Aegean—on the island of Samothrake, just west of the Hellespont, there was a memory of a cataclysmic flood²¹—and this forced the Mediterranean out through the Pillars. Straton was the first to note the current through the Hellespont, and believed that the sea levels had been different in early times. In fact, he thought that seas had once covered the continents. He also felt that the sea bed was uneven, just like land surfaces, that the seas had currents and flows similar to rivers, and that the bed of the Mediterranean had once been dry land. Despite obvious flaws with this theory (the most notable being, as Strabo commented, that the sea bed does not slope like a river), Straton made a serious attempt to reconcile certain visible elements about the physical history of the earth.²²

Early Ptolemaic Exploration

The Hellenistic states that came into being in the half century after the death of Alexander had profound effects on geography: it was under the patronage of the Ptolemies in Egypt that the actual discipline was created, and a series of Seleukid explorers and envoys examined the new eastern territories in a far more thorough way than had anyone with Alexander.

Alexander's companion and chronicler Ptolemy (I) took up residence in Alexandria-next-to-Egypt, and by 305 BC he had assumed the title of king. For the next 275 years he and his descendants ruled from the city, until the last—Kleopatra VII—fell to Rome in 30 BC. Especially during the time of the earlier Ptolemies, there was intensive support of scholarship, most visibly at the great library that was established early in the third century BC. It became a repository of all Greek literature (and some in foreign languages), including the now lost geographical texts, and served as a research center for scholars. Royal tutors and librarians (often the same person) were the leading intellectual luminaries of the era. Straton was tutor to Ptolemy II, Eratosthenes was both librarian and tutor to Ptolemy IV, and Strabo worked in Alexandria for many years.²³

Egypt proper had long been known to the Greek world, but the Nile above Meroë, and the coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, were little explored, although Anaxikrates had made a reconnaissance of the Red Sea in the last days of Alexander. These regions were of interest to the Ptolemies for a specific reason: their need for elephants, which had become a requirement of Hellenistic warfare.²⁴ India, the traditional source of military elephants, could only be reached through Seleukid territory, and thus was not available to the Ptolemies, and the elephants that had come west with Alexander were probably all gone by the accession of Ptolemy II in 282 BC. Yet regular warfare with the Seleukids demanded a supply. Access to the lucrative Arabian aromatic trade was also important. In this context the Ptolemies explored the upper Nile and Red Sea.²⁵

The course of the Nile above the First Cataract (at ancient Syene or Elephantine, modern Aswan) had been known to Greeks since the fifth century BC: Herodotos went as far as the cataract, and received reports about points upriver into the Aithiopian territory, a journey allegedly of 56 days partially by boat and partially by foot, until one reached the great city of Meroë, the “Aithiopian capital,” located near modern Begrawiyah in Sudan. Two months beyond was the Egyptian Island, occupied by a group of soldiers who had revolted from King Psammetichos (probably the second of that name) in the early sixth century BC, and who had been partially assimilated by the Aithiopians. It was not an island, but appeared as such to those coming from the north, for it was where the two streams of the river, the White and Blue Nile, joined at modern Khartoum. The journey from Meroë to this point was only vaguely known in Herodotos’ day.²⁶

Seeking to enhance its understanding of this region, the Ptolemaic government began to send explorers south. The exact dates are generally not known, but most were commissioned by Ptolemy II, III, or IV, during the third century BC. The first was Dalion, who went “far beyond” Meroë and reported on the peoples and natural history in an Aithiopika.²⁷ He may have gone to the point in the southern Sudan where the White Nile turns to the west as one goes upstream. He also seems to have included ethnyms from west of the Nile, perhaps learned by hearsay, and he may have been one of the first to believe that the Nile originated in northwest Africa. Herodotos had said that the river flows from the west, which may be nothing more than an awareness of the westward tributaries of the While Nile, but a Mauretanian origin of the river was eventually assumed by Juba II in the latter first century BC.²⁸

Other explorers came after Dalion. Aristokreon determined how far the First Cataract was from the Mediterranean (750 miles in Pliny's Latin recension, a reasonable estimate), and also made a detailed report on his journey south of Meroë, although the summary, recorded by Pliny, is difficult to interpret because of the unusual toponyms, which are subject to corruption at all stages of the transmission and have been latinized.²⁹ Few can be associated with known places. Nevertheless Aristokreon provided the name of the Egyptian Island, Aesar, and located it a mere 17 days south of Meroë (as opposed to Herodotos’ two months), certainly a more accurate statement. The toponyms and ethnyms are documented perhaps as far as the region of modern Khartoum, although Aristokreon continued at least eight more days upriver.

Two successive explorers are hardly known. Bion of Soloi wrote in his Aithiopika about the culture and institutions of the Meriotic state as well as the topography between the First Cataract and Meroë.³⁰ Probably the most detailed account of Meroë was by Simonides, who lived in the city for five years during the latter third century BC as a Ptolemaic agent.³¹ Unfortunately nothing survives of his writings.

The emphasis of these explorers and diplomats was on ethnography, topography, and natural history, yet they were also very much aware of being far south of the known parts of the world, and it is difficult to believe that they did not record the unusual celestial phenomena and the reality of living in the tropics (Meroë is at 17° north latitude), with the lowering of the northern constellations and the appearance of new stars in the south. A certain Philon may have been sent by Ptolemy II especially to observe these phenomena, as he determined the latitude of Meroë and reported on the strange position of the tropical sun. He was at Meroë long enough to record at least one solstice and one equinox, and thus he became a southern counterpart to Pytheas at the other end of the oikoumene.³² His data were of fundamental importance to Eratosthenes half a century later.

Thus by the latter third century BC the upper Nile drainage, probably well beyond the location of Khartoum, had been added to the oikoumene. There was also hearsay knowledge about the swamps and mountains beyond, but there was no further exploration in this direction until the Roman period: clearly the Ptolemaic government had learned all that it needed to know. The upper Nile is no farther south than central India or the frankincense country of southern Arabia, but those regions had not been examined nearly as thoroughly, and Meroë, through the course of the Nile, was more easily connected to the Mediterranean, so it became an important southern anchor in creating the plan of the inhabited world.

There were also Ptolemaic explorers on the Erythraian (modern Red) Sea. As with the journeys up the Nile, the details are scant beyond lists of toponyms. Even though Anaxikrates had previously gone to its mouth, those commissioned by Ptolemy II and III examined it more carefully, with an eye to elephants, the aromatics of southern Arabia, and other items of value. Philon, who was later in Meroë, was stationed on the island of Topazos (probably modern Zabargad) on the west side of the Red Sea, and returned to Alexandria with examples of topaz (periodite) that he presented to Queen Berenike I, wife of Ptolemy I.³³ As a report he wrote An Account of the Sailing Voyage to Aithiopia, whose title suggests that sailing down the Red Sea might provide another route of access to the upper Nile. Then Ariston went down the east side of the sea, erecting an altar at Poseideion, the southern end of the Sinai peninsula (modern Ras Muhammed), where the Red Sea begins, perhaps marking the sea as Ptolemaic territory.³⁴ A summary of Ariston's cruise may be preserved in an extant account of the eastern side of the sea as far as the frankincense territory; its emphasis on aromatics may reveal his purpose.³⁵

Satyros explored the western coast on the orders of Ptolemy II, perhaps more than once, looking for elephants,³⁶ but evidently more information was needed, since Ptolemy III sent Simmias to the same region for the same purpose.³⁷ A certain Pythagoras also traveled down the sea, reporting on the available precious stones, mangroves, and fauna in his On the Erythraian Sea.³⁸ A work of a more technical sort was On Harbors by Timosthenes of Rhodes, who was a naval commander for Ptolemy II. About 40 fragments exist, and these show that the work covered most of the areas that might have been of interest to Ptolemaic seamen.³⁹ It may have been a professional manual for sailors, given its title and its inclusion of sailing distances from Alexandria as well as a discussion of the winds. Timosthenes’ profession hints that much of the material may have been gathered by autopsy. The work included all of the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, from the west in the vicinity of Massalia to Sicily and the Aegean, as well as the Red Sea and the Nile. It seems to have gone beyond an ordinary periplous, since Eratosthenes considered it one of his most important sources.⁴⁰

Although these explorers are often little more than names, considering them collectively reveals that by the middle of the third century BC the Ptolemies had covered both sides of the Red Sea from one end to the other, identifying potential elephant hunting grounds, points of access to the Arabian aromatic trade, and other minerals, flora, and fauna that could be economically useful. Many of their reports were summarized in a work titled On the Erythraian Sea, written by Agatharchides of Knidos in the middle of the second century BC.⁴¹ On the Erythraian Sea is more history than geography, but it included a detailed examination of Ptolemaic interests (primarily elephant hunting) in Upper Egypt and Aithiopia, which led Agatharchides to include geographical and ethnographic detail.

Another element of Ptolemaic activity in this region was the establishment of port cities on the Red Sea that could expedite trade and elephant transport.⁴² The most important of these in the early Ptolemaic period was Berenike, about 500 miles south of the head of the sea, at the latitude of the First Cataract of the Nile, named after the same Berenike to whom Philon brought topaz.⁴³ Originally part of a Ptolemaic plan to create a trade network that avoided the Seleukids, it eventually became one of the major commercial centers of the Roman world, with contacts from the Atlantic to China. Trade items went up the Nile from Alexandria to Koptos (in the Egyptian Thebais, at modern Qift), and then by an arduous overland journey 309 miles to Berenike, which took 12 days and passed through an area of such heat that the caravans traveled by night.⁴⁴ Traders of all nationalities came to Berenike—a dozen languages have been documented at the city—which is excellent testimony to the diverse spread of the Hellenistic world and its impact on geography.

Traders at Berenike—and other ports on the Red Sea—knew of a region called the Cinnamon-Bearer (Kinnamomophoroi) Territory. It is not known when this term came into use but it was familiar to Eratosthenes in the latter third century BC.⁴⁵ Cinnamon had been known to Greeks since at least the fifth century BC, but its origin was erroneously believed to be in southern Arabia and Somalia. It actually came from far to the east, in southeast Asia, but in the tradition of long-distance trade, had changed hands many times before coming into the Greek horizon on the Somali coast.⁴⁶ Its true point of origin was not realized until perhaps the time of Alexander,⁴⁷ but the toponym Cinnamon-Bearer Territory continued in use thereafter, located on the Somali coast, which was considered the farthest south inhabited region.⁴⁸ As such, it was important in the geographical plan of Eratosthenes, believed to be 3,000 stadia south of the parallel of Meroë.⁴⁹ In this way Ptolemaic explorers and traders helped define the limits of the oikoumene.⁵⁰

Seleukid Explorers in the Far Northeast

Alexander's companion Seleukos (I) established himself as king in 305 BC and located his capital at the new city of Antioch-on-the-Orontes, founded in 300 BC.⁵¹ In the early years of the Seleukid empire, when its territorial extent was the greatest, Seleukos I sent explorers to examine its farthest areas, in part with the intention of rectifying some of the confusion caused by Alexander's topographers. Demodamas, probably from Miletos, crossed the Silis River, perhaps in response to a local threat.⁵² Pliny identified the river as the one “Alexander and his soldiers thought was the Tanais,” in other words, the Iaxartes (modern Syr Darya). Demodamas erected altars to Apollo of Didyma, thus honoring his local shrine and claiming the region across the Iaxartes for the Seleukids. The date of his expedition is uncertain, but he was still active professionally as late as the reign of Antiochos I, who came to the throne in 281 BC. Demodamas was Pliny's major source for his own account of this part of the world, but it is impossible accurately to ascertain exactly which specific toponyms or ethnyms in Pliny's narrative came from Demodamas’ account. A list of 22 ethnyms, all beyond the Silis, may have been reported by him, as well as two rivers, the Mandragaeus and Caspasus (in Pliny's Latin). Some of the peoples had already been encountered (such as the Massagetai, mentioned by Herodotos),⁵³ but there are new ones, and some who appear nowhere else.⁵⁴ The two rivers are also otherwise unknown, although Caspasus is similar to Caspian, and may be one of the affluents of that sea. Any details of Demodamas’ expedition are thus lacking, but he crossed the Iaxartes into central Asia and probably went beyond where Alexander had gone, into modern Kazakhstan, perhaps going farther northeast than anyone else in Greek antiquity.

Patrokles, a high-ranking officer and trusted confidant of Seleukos I, was sent to explore the Caspian Sea and its possible connection to other bodies of water.⁵⁵ There is no exact indication of date, although the commission would have been before the king's death in 281 BC. Despite the assumption by Alexander and others that the Caspian was an inlet of the External Ocean, no one had ever been to the place where they allegedly joined.⁵⁶ Patrokles, using unpublished documents from the expedition of Alexander, set sail on the Caspian, and reported on the various peoples on either side, as well as the trade route from the Black Sea, whose eastern end was at the outlet of the Kyros River. He eventually reached what he called the “mouth” of the Caspian, 6,000 stadia north of its southern end. He also astutely estimated that the Caspian was almost as large as the Black Sea.⁵⁷ There seem to have been no later expeditions on the sea before the Roman period, and thus other details about the Caspian and its surroundings that are not specifically attributed to Patrokles may also be from his report.⁵⁸ The distance of 6,000 stadia conforms favorably with the actual length of the sea (about 640 miles), so it seems that Patrokles did cover its entire coast; yet he held to the view that it was connected to the External Ocean and thus one could sail from its mouth to the east coast of India. Either he badly misinterpreted what he saw—perhaps too driven by previous conceptions—or simply agreed with earlier views without truly investigating them. He may have realized that to assume an ocean route to India was politically correct, and that no one was likely to challenge him, as indeed was the case for hundreds of years. There are two major rivers that flow into the north end of the Caspian—the Volga and the Ural—and a curious statement by Pomponius Mela, reinforced by Pliny, describes the Ocean as bursting (inrumpit) into the Caspian, whose northern reaches are a channel like a river.⁵⁹ This suggests that Patrokles did see the mouths of at least one of these rivers, and assumed it was the connection to the Ocean.⁶⁰ Both the Volga and the Ural were known in antiquity, and by the second century AD the Volga (ancient Rha) could be described in detail.⁶¹ Patrokles gathered data about the trade routes east of the Caspian, to India, and believed that the Iaxartes and Oxos (modern Syr Darya and Amu Darya) emptied into the Caspian 80 parasangs (about 320 miles) apart.⁶² They actually empty into the Aral Sea, which Patrokles was unlikely to have reached, yet the precise figure suggests a specific report, which he probably obtained by hearsay, confusing the two rivers with ones flowing into the southeastern Caspian. He also made estimates of the size of India, a common activity among Greek scholars of the era. He suggested 15,000 stadia east–west at the north, and 12,000 stadia north–south.⁶³ His figures are among several from this period, but Eratosthenes did not find his numbers credible.

Patrokles is a difficult personality to assess. Despite Eratosthenes’ objections, both he and Strabo tended to find him reliable. By contrast the more mathematically inclined Hipparchos did not, perhaps objecting to his distances.⁶⁴ Like Pytheas, Patrokles had the advantage of exploring regions that no one returned to for hundreds of years. His report on the size and coasts of the Caspian, as well as the northeastern trade routes, is the only one before the Roman period, but he was also influenced by the legacy of Alexander, and if he had been commissioned to untangle the topographic errors from that era, he failed to do so.

The Envoys to the Mauryan Court

Greek control over the Indian portions of Alexander's empire did not last long, due to the rise of Chandragupta (Sandrakottos or Andrakottos in Greek).⁶⁵ It was said that as a young man he saw Alexander,⁶⁶ and he came to power around 317–312 BC, taking control of the Indian parts of Alexander's conquests. Eventually Seleukos I—who probably realized the futility of holding India—recognized Chandragupta's sovereignty.⁶⁷ Chandragupta, his son Bindusara, and grandson Ashoka, all played important roles in the spread of Greek geographical knowledge.

Chandragupta established his Mauryan dynasty in northern India late in the fourth century BC, situating his capital at Pataliputra (in Greek, Palimbothra or Palibothra, modern Patna) on the Ganges. Despite the end of any Greek political control over India, he was open to Greek influences, and from the beginning of his reign Greeks lived at the Mauryan court. The first known is Megasthenes, who came to Pataliputra at an uncertain date early in Chandragupta's reign, staying until sometime before the king's death around the end of the century.⁶⁸ It is unlikely that Megasthenes was a Seleukid envoy—the empire had not been fully formed yet—but was probably a representative of Sibyrtios, Alexander's satrap of Arachosia and Gedrosia, stationed at Alexandria in Arachosia (modern Kandahar in Afghanistan), and an important figure in the years immediately after Alexander's death.⁶⁹ Megasthenes spent several years at the Mauryan court, traveling down the Ganges by an existing royal road and becoming the first Greek to go that far east and to report on the great river and its access to the Ocean.⁷⁰

During his stay, Megasthenes collected material for his Indika, a treatise of at least four books, the most thorough work to date on the region.⁷¹ It has not survived, but extensive quotations remain, and it was of great importance to Eratosthenes, Strabo, and Arrian, who provide most of the extant fragments.⁷² The Indika contained a wide range of ethnographic, cultural, and geographical information, much of it gathered at the court, but also while Megasthenes consorted with a group of wise men who lived under a banyan tree just outside Pataliputra.⁷³ He gained the confidence of Chandragupta and accompanied him on campaign, and also described Pataliputra in detail.⁷⁴ Moreover, he added significantly to the geographical understanding of India, through his own travels and from information received. This included the earliest data on the dimensions of India, more accurate than the later figures of Patrokles.⁷⁵ He also had the first conception of the long southward extent of India and listed some ethnic groups in the south, as well as providing a catalogue of dozens of Indian rivers.⁷⁶ Greeks were fascinated by the rich fertility of the region, with its two annual harvests and unusual fauna and flora: for example, the Indika has the earliest mention of sugar.⁷⁷ There were also many marvels, especially anatomically impossible people, best explained through mistranslation and misunderstanding of indigenous customs, coupled with a Greek credulity due to the local exoticism.⁷⁸

Megasthenes also obtained some knowledge of the world beyond India. He was the first to publish a report on Taprobane (modern Sri Lanka). Alexander may have heard of the island, but Megasthenes attemped to locate it and provided some ethnographic details.⁷⁹ It was placed seven days south of India, probably reflecting a sailing distance from a point in northern India and thus very much at odds with its actual position only a few miles off the Indian coast, an error that was to cause difficulties when Eratosthenes attempted to create his grid of the oikoumene.⁸⁰

There were also the Seres, the Silk People.⁸¹ No details were provided, other than they were extremely long-lived. They were presumably silk traders who came to Pataliputra from somewhere to the northeast, and there is no connection with any specific place, certainly not China, yet contact with them is the first Greek awareness of a world far beyond India. It was only in the Augustan period that further details about the origin of silk came to be known.⁸²

Chandragupta was succeeded by his son Bindusara (Amitrochates in Greek) around 300 BC. Daimachos of Plataiai was sent to his court, presumably by the Seleukids.⁸³ He wrote On India in at least two books, which included distances across India and along the route into Baktria, natural history, and certain marvels. Unfortunately his later reputation was poor—Eratosthenes called him an amateur, a view supported by Strabo⁸⁴—and thus his treatise has almost entirely vanished, surviving in only five fragments. It is therefore difficult to determine his contribution to geography, but he may have been the first to connect the position of India to the previously-known parts of the oikoumene.

There were others who reported on early Hellenistic India, but they are little more than names.⁸⁵ Ashoka, Bindusara's son, who came to the throne about 270 BC and ruled for 35 years, showed his interest in Greek culture by writing decrees in Greek (among other languages) and reaching out to the Greek kingdoms, sending ambassadors to Antiochos II, Ptolemy II, and other monarchs.⁸⁶ But there is no record of prominent Greeks at his court, and during his reign contact between the two worlds began to diminish, as both the Seleukids and Mauryans weakened and became more involved with problems closer to home. The early reports, especially that of Megasthenes, were of great use to Greek geographers, particularly Eratosthenes, but after the time of Ashoka no significant new details about India were acquired for more than a hundred years, until the latter second century BC.

The legacy of Pytheas and Alexander was widespread. In the century between the time Pytheas started north and Ashoka died, Greek knowledge of the inhabited world expanded in all directions except the west, where the Atlantic prevented any further exploration, although as early as the fourth century BC there were suggestions of peoples beyond the ocean.⁸⁷ Pytheas went far to the north, the Ptolemaic explorers to the south, and those of the Seleukids and others to the east and northeast. The theory of an encircling Ocean had long been taken for granted, but now the idea was believed to have been proven, since by the third century BC it was thought that the inhabited world had been completely circumnavigated except for a small distance in the north.⁸⁸ To be sure, this was part absurd exaggeration and part wishful thinking, since this “small distance in the north” was from the mouth of the Baltic to the Caspian, or, in reality, to the east side of India. Obviously no one had made the impossible sail from the Caspian to India, despite Patrokles’ assertion that it was feasible. The African coast had presumably been covered, but nothing was really understood about it other than what was near the mouth of the Red Sea and in the northwest. Nevertheless, it was believed that the perimeter of the oikoumene was now defined, and this was the last important topographical step before the establishment of a discipline of geography.