CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA.

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principal officers, Ptolemy the fon of Lagus, sect.

Ariftobulus, and Nearchus . The two former have i.

not indeed reached our times, but it is probable

that the mod important fads which they contained,

are preferved, as Arrian profeffes to have followed

them as his guides in his Hiftory of the Expedition

of Alexander”; a work which, though compofed

long after Greece had loft its liberty, and in an

age when genius and tafte were on the decline,

is not unworthy the pureft times of Attic literature.

With refped to the general ftate of India , welearn from thefe writers, that in the age of Alex-ander, though there was not eftablilhed in it anypowerful empire, refembling that which in moderntimes ftretched its dominion from the Indus almoftto Cape Comorin , it was even then formed intomonarchies of coniiderable extent. The king ofthe Prafij was prepared on the banks of the Gangesto oppofe the Macedonians, with an army of twentythoufand cavalry , two thoufand armed chariots,and a great number of elephants The territoryof which Alexander conftituted Porus the fove-reign, is faid to have contained no fewer than twothoufand towns”. Even in the moft reftridtedfenfe that can be given to the vague indeliniteappellations of nations and toivns , an idea is con-veyed of a very great degree of population. Asthe fleet failed down the river, the country oneach fide was found to be in no refpedt inferior

” Arrian , lib. i. in proemio. ” Diod. Sicul. lib.

xvii. p. 232. ” Arrian , lib. vi. c. 2.

c 3