96                       The Ptolemies

voyage had been accomplished by Skylax of
Karyanda. Strabo's statement^ that in the days
of the Ptolemies " very few accomplished the voyage
to India and brought home merchandise," seems
to imply that some did. One of these, the famous
explorer Eudoxus, actually made the voyage twice,
and fortunately a brief account of his adventures^
is preserved in a chapter of Strabo, taken, we are
told, from the lost work of the Stoic philosopher
Poseidonius.

Eudoxus was a native of Cyzicus. Having
acquired a certain reputation as a geographer and
ethnologist, he was sent by the authorities of his
native city to undertake the exploration of the
Nile. While in Egypt, however, his attention was
diverted by a romantic incident. The coast¬
guards from the Red Sea brought to Alexandria
an Indian whom they had found drifting in a
boat, half dead with hunger and thirst. After
he had learnt a little Greek, the Indian explained
that he had set out from India with a ship's
company ; they had lost their bearings and drifted
for months, till his companions had perished, one
by one, of hunger ; and at last, at the point of
death, he had been picked up off the entrance to
the Red Sea. He offered, if the government would
provide a ship to take him back, to shew them
the way to India.   The offer was gladly accepted

^ IIpoTepov eVt Twv IlToXe/^aiKwv /3a(rtXecov, oXtycov TravTaTracrt
6appovvT(j)v TrXelv Koi tov 'Iv8lk6v iixwopeveadai cl>6pTov. Strabo,
Geog. II. 5. 12,                                         2 /j^-^_ jj_ 2. 4.