CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. , zr

it was found that the measures of Alexander for sthe preservation of his conquests had been con-certed with such sagacity , that upon the finalrestoration of tranquillity, the Macedonian domi-nion continued to be established in every part ofAsia, and not one province had shaken off theyoke. Even India, the most remote of Alexander’sconquests, quietly submitted to Pytho the son ofAgenor, and afterwards to Seleucus, who succes-sively obtained dominion over that part of Asia.Porus and Taxiles, notwithstanding the death oftheir benefactor, neither declined submission to theauthority of the Macedonians , nbr made anyattempt to recover independence.

During the contests for power and superiorityamong the successors of Alexander, Seleucus, who,in every effort of enterprising ambition, was infe-rior to none of them , having rendered himselfmaster of all the provinces of the Persian empirecomprehended under the name of Upper Asia,considered those countries of India which had beensubdued by Alexander, as belonging to that portionof the Macedonian empire of which he was nowthe sovereign. Seleucus, like all the officers formedunder Alexander, entertained such high ideas ofthe advantages which might be derived from acommercial intercourse with India, as induced himto march into that country, partly with a viewof establishing his own authority there, and partlyin order to curb Sandracottus, who having latelyacquired the sovereignty of the Prasij, a powerfulnation on the banks of the Ganges, threatened to

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