Note 4 — INTRODUCTION

Patroklês, who held an important command in the East under Seleukos Nikatôr and his son Antiochos I., stated, in a work (now lost) which included a description of India, that while the army of Alexander took but a very hasty view of everything (in India), Alexander himself took a more exact one, causing the whole country to be described by men well acquainted with it. This description, Patroklês says, was put into his hands by Xenoklês the Treasurer. On this subject Humboldt thus writes: “The Macedonian campaign, which opened so large and beautiful a portion of the earth to the influence of one sole highly-gifted race, may therefore certainly be regarded in the strictest sense of the word as a scientific expedition, and, moreover, as the first in which a conqueror had surrounded himself with men learned in all departments of science, as naturalists, geometricians, historians, philosophers, and artists.”