III. STRABO
(A) i—Pāṇḍyan (?) embassy to Augustus
The merchants of the present day who sail from Egypt to India by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf have seldom made a voyage as far as the Ganges. They are ignorant men and unqualified for writing an account of the places they have visited. From one place in India and from one king, Pandion, but according to other writers, Poros, there came to Caesar Augustus[^1] gifts and an embassy accompanied by the Indian sophist who committed himself to the flames at Athens, like Kalanos, who had exhibited a similar spectacle in the presence of Alexander.
—Ancient India as described in Classical Literature, J. W. McCrindle, p. 9, para 4.
(A) ii—Indian embassy to Augustus
Nikolaos Damaskenos[^2] says that at Antioch by Daphne he met with the Indian ambassadors who had been sent to Augustus Caesar. It appeared from the letter that their number had been more than merely the three he reports that he saw. The rest had died chiefly in consequence of the length of the journey. The letter was written in Greek on parchment and imported that Poros was the writer, and that though he was the sovereign of 600 kings, he nevertheless set a high value on being Caesar’s friend and was willing to grant him a passage wherever he wished through his dominions, and to assist him in any good enterprise. Such, he says, were the contents of the letter. Eight naked servants presented the gifts that were brought. They had girdles encircling their waists and were fragrant with ointments. The gifts consisted of a Hermes born wanting arms from the shoulders whom I have myself seen, large snakes and a serpent ten cubits long, and a river tortoise three cubits long, and a partridge larger than a vulture. They were accompanied, it is said, by the man who burned himself at Athens. This is done by persons in misfortune seeking relief from their present circumstances, and by others in prosperity, which was the case with this man. For as everything had gone well with him up to this time, he thought it necessary to depart, lest if he tarried longer in the world some unexpected calamity should befall him. He therefore with a smile leaped upon the pyre naked and anointed, and wearing a girdle round his loins. On his tomb was this inscription, ‘Zarmanochegas,[^3] an Indian from Bargosa,[^4] having immortalised himself according to the custom of his country, lies here.’
—Ibid., pp. 77-78, para 73.[^5]
(B) Ceylon
They say that Taprobanê is an island lying out in the sea, distant from the most southern parts of India which are next to the country of the Kôniakoi, a seven days’ voyage to southward, and extending about 8000 stadia in the direction of Ethiopia. It too produces elephants. Such are the accounts of Eratosthenes; and these, when supplemented by the accounts of other writers when they convey exact information, will determine the nature of our description of India.
Onesikritos,[^6] for example, says with regard to Taprobanê that it has a magnitude of 5000 stadia, without distinction of length or breadth; that it is distant from the mainland a voyage of twenty days, but that the vessels employed for the voyage sail badly owing to the wretched quality of their sails, and to the peculiarity of their structure; that other islands lie between it and India, but that Taprobanê lies farthest to the south; that there are found around its shores cetaceous animals which are amphibious and in appearance like oxen, horses, and other land animals.
—Ibid., pp. 20-21,—paras 14 and 15.
(C) On Gallus’ expedition to Arabia and Sailings to India
The entrance of a Roman army into Arabia Felix under the command of my friend and companion Aelius Gallus, and the traffic of the Alexandrian merchants whose vessels pass up the Nile and Arabian Gulf to India, have rendered us much better acquainted with these countries than our predecessors were. I was with Gallus at the time he was prefect of Egypt, and accompanied him as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I found that about one hundred and twenty ships sail from Myos-Hormos[^7] to India, although in the time of the Ptolemies scarcely any one would venture on this voyage and the commerce with the Indies.
—Ancient India as described in Classical Literature, McCrindle, p. 98.