MEGASTHENES

A Greek historian, who stayed for a considerable time, as ambassador of king Seleucus Nicator, at the court of the Indian king Sandracus (B.C. 315-291), at Palibothra on the Ganges. From information about the country and the people, obtained while he occupied that position, he compiled a historical and geographical work about India, the chief treatise on that country left us by the ancients. On it are founded the accounts of Diodorus and Arrian; beyond this only fragments are preserved. His record of the state of India at the time has been discredited; but recent investigations have to a great extent shown its trustworthiness.