Note 444 — II. THE COLOSSIAN HERESY. (continued 2)

Consistently with this view, we may allow that single Indians would visit Alexandria from time to time for purposes of trade or for other reasons, and not more than this is required by the rhetorical passage in Dion Chrysost. Or. xxxii (p. 373) ὁρῶ γὰρ ἔγωγε οὐ μόνον Ἕλληνας παρ’ ὑμῖν ... ἀλλὰ καὶ Βακτρίους καὶ Σκύθας καὶ Πέρσας καὶ Ἰνδῶν τινάς. The qualifying τινας shows how very slight was the communication between India and Alexandria. The mission of Pantænus may have been suggested by the presence of such stray visitors. Jerome (Vir. Ill. 36) says that he went ‘rogatus ab illius gentis legatis.’ It must remain doubtful however, whether some other region than Hindostan, such as Æthiopia for instance, is not meant, when Pantænus is said to have gone to India: see Cave’s Lives of the Primitive Fathers p. 188 sq.

How very slight the communication was between India and the West in the early years of the Christian era, appears from this passage of Strabo XV. 1. 4 (p. 686); καὶ οἱ νῦν δὲ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου πλέοντες ἐμπορικοὶ τῷ Νείλῳ καὶ τῷ Ἀραβίῳ κόλπῳ μέχρι τῆς Ἰνδικῆς σπάνιοι μὲν καὶ περιπεπλεύκασι μέχρι τοῦ Γάγγου, καὶ οὗτοι δ’ ἰδιῶται καὶ οὐδὲν πρὸς ἱστορίαν τῶν τόπων χρῆσιμοι, after which he goes on to say that the only instance of Indian travellers in the West was the embassy sent to Augustus (see below p. 155), which came ἀφ’ ἑνὸς τόπου καὶ παρ’ ἑνὸς βασιλέως.

The communications between India and the West are investigated by two recent writers, Reinaud Relations Politiques et Commerciales de l’Empire Romain avec l’Asie Centrale, Paris 1863, and Priaulx The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana and the Indian Embassies to Rome, 1873. The latter work, which is very thorough and satisfactory, would have saved me much labour of independent investigation, if I had seen it in time.