c. 340-c. 282 B.C.

Greek Historian and Diplomat

Megasthenes was neither the first European to travel to India nor the first to write of it. Yet his work attracted considerable attention in ancient times, and exerted an impact on the portrait of India in the writings of Strabo, Arrian, and others.

Some 70 years before Megasthenes, Ctesias of Cnidus (416 B.C.), served as physician in the courts of the Persian emperors Darius II Ochus (r. 432-404 B.C.) and Artaxerxes II Mnemon (r. 404-358 B.C.). Ctesias wrote the Persicha, which covers the histories of Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia in 23 books. Though modern scholars regard the work as unreliable in many particulars, for many years it was the principal Greek source on the area from Mesopotamia to India.

Something crucial happened in the period between Ctesias and Megasthenes: the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great (356-...