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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
When Alexander turned back at the Hyphasis (Beas), how much did he know about what lay before him? And why, in the vulgate tradition, does he know of the distant Ganges and the distant kingdom of Magadha, but not of the next great river to the Beas, the Sutlej (a question often asked), or of anything else between the Beas and the Ganges? The answer is not difficult, once the elements of our tradition are sorted out chronologically; that, as in so many questions, is the real problem.
We possess one contemporary document bearing on the matter which has escaped notice, a satrapy-list or gazetteer of ‘Asia,’ i. e. Alexander's empire, dating from the last year of his life; very possibly Hieronymus used it by way of introduction to his history of the Successors, and it now forms the basis of Diodorus 18, 5 and 6. We can date this document with certainty. It includes the Indian provinces, and so is later than Alexander's return from India. The ‘Hyrcanian sea’ (not Caspian) is still a lake, so it is earlier than Patrocles. Chandragupta is unknown, so it is certainly earlier than Megasthenes and probably earlier than circ. 302. Porus is still alive, so it is earlier than 317.
2 ‘Asia’ or ‘all Asia’ means, in the later part of the fourth century, the Persian Empire which Alexander claimed to rule; so used both by Alexander himself (Arr. 2, 14, 8, in 333; Lindian Chron. c. 103, in 330; and Nearchus ap. Arr. Ind. 35, 8, in 325) and in common parlance (e. g. Syll. 3 326, in 307/6).
3 I called attention briefly to this document in J.H.S. 1921, p. 8, n. 36a. As to Hieronymus, see Reuss', acute suggestion, Rh. Mus. 57, 1902, p. 586Google Scholar, n. 1. If so, Diodorus got it from Hieronymus.
4 18, 6, 3; Persis 
5 Dexippus fr. 1 (on the partition of Babylon), with von Gutschmid's emendation of 
for 
Sogdiana has already been mentioned, so the corruption is certain, and the emendation is certain also on geographical grounds, the order being Carmania, Persis [Σουσιανῶν], Baby-Ionia, Mesopotamia. What Dexippos says is this:—as to the Susians, after death overtook ‘Oropios’ (name admittedly corrupt) for rebellion, ‘then he had the authority over them jointly with’ something, 
The subject of εἶχε, whether ἐκεῖνος has fallen out before κοινῶς or not, is the person last mentioned before ‘Oropios,’ i. e. Peucestas, satrap of Persis; and κοινῶς means ‘as well as over Persis.’ The fact that, at the time of the partition of Babylon, Susiana was reckoned part of Persis explains the omission of Susiana from all our lists (except Justin's) of the satrapies dealt with at that partition, the lists being otherwise complete (see the table of lists in Beloch 3, 2, 240). Justin 13, 4, 14 does give gens Susiana Coeno, but ‘Coeno’ is merely a corruption of κοινᾶς and not vice versa, as Beloch, 3, 2, 242 curiously suggested (repeated by Lehmann-Haupt, art. Satrap in Pauly-Wissowa); Coenus was dead (Arr. 6, 2, 1), and no one else of the name is known, and one cannot suppose that Coenus left a younger son of the same name who became a satrap and is never otherwise heard of, seeing that his heir Perdiccas, (Syll. 3332)Google Scholar, i. e. his eldest or only son, never held any office. Justin's version of the list contains other blunders, and Droysen, (Kl. Schr. 2 201)Google Scholar saw long ago that Coeno must be corrupt, though he did not see the solution.
6 18, 5, 4, 
Fischer's addition of 
in his text is as indefensible as his insertion of ὸνομαζόμενος Γάγγης in 18, 6, 2.
7 Details collected in Beloch 3, 2, 245.
8 Eratosthenes took his similar division from this document, and not vice versa; apart from the date, which is certain, it contains no trace of the real characteristic of his geographical scheme, the σφραγίδες.
9 Strabo, 15, 702; Arr. Ind. 10, 5; both explicitly from Megasthenes.
10 See Cambridge History of India, Vol. I. (1922), Map no. 5.
11 Reuss, F., Rh. Mus. 57 (1902), 581 and 63 (1909) 58Google Scholar; Schnabel, P., Berossos und Kleitarchos, 1912.Google Scholar Cf. Lenschau, Th., Bericht über griech. Geschichte, 1907–1914, p. 191Google Scholar, in Bursian's, Jahresbericht, 1919Google Scholar; Pöhlmann, R. v., Griech. Gesch. 5 1914, p. 287Google Scholar, (in Müller's Handbuch); Lehmann-Haupt, C. F., Klio, 15, 1918, 255Google Scholar, n. 3. I do not agree with Reuss and Schnabel on all their points; but I regard their main position, that Cleitarchus was not a primary source, as conclusively established. (The latest exposition of the traditional view that Cleitarchus was a contemporary and companion of Alexander is F. Jacoby's article Kleitarchos in Pauly-Wissowa, 1921 (very full); a careful perusal will show that there is no single one among the suppositions urged in support of the traditional view that is a valid or compelling argument.) The points proven are, that Cleitarchus used Berossos, Patrocles, and Timaeus, and had never himself seen Babylon; add perhaps that he used the name Galatai, unknown before 279. Make every deduction you please: say that he might have used Timaeus' chronology before Timaeus had finished his history (though we do not know that it was published in sections), that Γαλατῶν in Diod. 17, 113, 2 may be a later addition (which I myself find incredible), and that the argument from the first official use of the name Soter in Egypt (on which and on Timaeus Niese's date of ‘after 260’ depends) is uncertain: there still remain three things that cannot be explained away; two of these are Berossos and Babylon, and the third is that a named fragment of Cleitarchus (Pliny, , N.H. 6, 36Google Scholar) quotes a named fragment of Patrocles (Strabo 11, 508), and that on a matter (the size of the Caspian) as to which no writer before Patrocles could even have attempted a guess.
12 Πέραν δὲ τούτου (Diod.); ulteriorem ripam colere (Curt.).
13 Diod. 17, 93, 2; Curt. 9, 2, 3; Just. 12, 8, 9; Plut. Alex. 62.
14 On the confusion of Hydaspes and Acesines cf. Diod. 17, 89, 4 with 95, 3 (see Arr. 6, 1, 1). On Cleitarchus as a geographer see Jacoby op. cit., who gives instances.
15 Arr. Ind. 4, 7; Strabo, 15, 702, ὁταν ᾖ μέτριος. (Both Megasthenes.)
16 The other figures we have all give a very different breadth from 30 stades. Mela 3, 68, 10, ten Roman miles (= 100 stades); Pliny, , N.H. 6, 65Google Scholar, on a moderate estimate 100 stades, on the lowest 7 miles (= 70 stades); Solinus 52, 7, minimum. 80 stades, maximum 200; Aelian, , περὶ ζῴων 12, 41Google Scholar, minimum 80, maximum 400. Mela and Pliny of course reproduce the 100 of Megasthenes; I do not know what the other figures represent.
17 E.g. the Indus: Ctes. ap. Arr. 5, 4, 2, 100 stades to 40; Strabo, 15, 700, either 100 or 50; Arr. 6, 14, 5, perhaps 100 at Patala; Pliny, , N.H. 6, 71Google Scholar, fifty. For the Ganges see n. 16.
18 Such anticipations are common enough in Diodorus; e. g. 17, 23, 2 (Agathocles), 17, 57, 2 (the Argyraspids); 18, 4, 1 compared with 18, 12, 1; 18, 4, 8 compared with 18, 7, 1 seq.
19 This identification is clearly seen again in the late rhetorical composition which figured as Alexander's speech at the Beas; Arr. 5, 26, 1, 
so markedly inconsistent with what follows in 5, 26, 3,—between the Beas and the eastern sea are many war like nations. On the other hand, Diod. 17, 108, 3—the Macedonians refuse to cross the Ganges—has nothing directly to do with this identification; it is a reference, not part of the narrative, and is therefore not Cleitarchus; it belongs to a later legend, see post.—That Diodorus did use Cleitarchus in Book 2 is shown by the reference to him in 2, 7, 3.
20 Strabo 15, 690 and 719. It is to be remembered that, for a long period subsequent to Megasthenes, the Ganges to Greeks meant primarily the Ganges at Pataliputra (Patna).
21 For example, the eunuch Bagoas, who was merely part of the revenge which the Peripatetics took on Alexander for Callisthenes' death; see Dicaearchus, fr. 19 = Athen. 13, 603 b.
22 Kiessling, s.v. Gandaridae in Pauly-Wissowa, makes the people of Gandhara, the Gandaridae, and the Gangaridae, three sections of one tribe, which had moved across India leaving parts of itself behind.
23 Amplified in Strabo, 15, 702: a ruling oligarchy of 5000, each of whom gave an elephant to the State!
24 J.R.A.S. 1903, 685,—Arr. 5, 22, 1, ὅμορα, may mean that it was the Oxydracae who adjoined the Cathaeans.
25 So Müller, in F.H.G. ii. p. 415Google Scholar, where the numerous variants of the name are collected.
26 By Williams-Jackson, A. V. in Camb. Hist. India, i, 341.Google Scholar
27 Kiessling, Ganges in Pauly-Wissowa.
28 Rose,3 fr. 248; a Latin summary of Aristotle's lost 
For its genuineness, see Partsch, , Abhandlungen d. k. sächsischen Ges. d. Wiss., Ph.-h. Kl., 27, 1909, p. 551Google Scholar; it dates from before Alexander's expedition, Bolchert, , Neue Jahrb. 27, 1911, 150.Google Scholar
29 Most recently by Kiessling, s.v. Ganges and Hypobaros in Pauly-Wissowa.
30 Kiessling, Hypobaros, above.
31 We have not the context of Nearchus' obscure statement (Strabo 15, 689) that the ὁδὸς ἡ διὰ τοῦ πεδίου took four months; but it cannot have anything to do with the real size of India, and must relate in some way to Alexander's march.
32 The vulgate's idea that Alexander meant to cross the Ganges, involving a conflict with Magadha, would almost arise naturally from its substitution of the Ganges for the Sutlej.
33 J.H.S. 1921, 1.
34 Diodorus' habit of occasionally interpolating remarks or quotations of his own is now well established, anyhow for the later books; for instances see Jacoby, Hieronymos in Pauly-Wissowa; Schubert, Die Quellen zur Geschichte der Diadochenzeit, passim.
