PREFACE

I HAVE attempted, in this monograph, to
furnish a succinct account of the intercourse
between India and the Greco-Roman world from
the earliest times to the fall of Rome. This
subject has never, so far as I am aware, been dealt
with as a whole in any English work. Yet it is
replete with interest to the student of Hellenism
in its wider and more neglected aspects, and to
Orientalists, who depend largely upon references in
Greek and Roman authors for information about
many obscure points of Indian History.

I have, so far as possible, consulted every
passage bearing upon India in Roman and Greek
Literature. Many, but not quite all, of these
passages have been collected, annotated, and
translated by the late Dr J. W. McCrindle, in his
six valuable volumes of translations of such
references. On these the present monograph is
very largely based, though I have, in nearly every
case, referred to the original text rather than to
the translation.