¹ There are three Greek recensions of the Alexander Romance (A, β and γ), of which the earliest (A) is not later than AD 300 and may be essentially Hellenistic: see the introduction to my Penguin translation of the Romance (1991). It contains some historical material but except in rare cases cannot be used as historical evidence. The encounter with the Brahmans appears in all three recensions at 3.5 ff., and in γ also at 2.35a. In the A recension, chapters 3.7–16 reproduce Palladius De Bragmanibus, which also appears in γ after 2.35a. (See further n. 4). In A, chapter 17 is the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle about India, which becomes a third person narrative in recension β and its derivatives. For convenience I cite my own translation, which is based on the expanded β-recension, L, edited by van Thiel, H., Leben und Taten Alexanders von Makedonien (Darmstadt 1983)Google Scholar, plus additional material from the other recensions.

² Alexander historians: FGrH 134 Onesicritus, FGrH 133 Nearchus, FGrH 139 Aristobulus. On these see Pearson, L., The lost histories of Alexander the Great (Chico, CA 1983)Google Scholar; Brown, T.S., Onesicritus: a study in Hellenistic historiography (Berkeley 1949)Google Scholar; Pédech, P., Historiens compagnons d'Alexandre (Paris 1984), 104–14.Google Scholar The other major classical source on India is Megasthenes (FGrH 175): the fragments are collected in translation in McCrindle, J.W., Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian (Calcutta, Bombay and London 1877).Google Scholar See also Stein, Otto, Megasthenes und Kautilya, Abh. Kaiserl. Akad. Wien cxci 5 (1922).Google Scholar

³ On Greek knowledge of India see the general accounts of Bevan, E.R., ‘India in Greek and Roman literature’, Cambridge History of India i (1922), 351–83Google Scholar; J.W. McCrindle, op. cit. (n. 2) and The invasion of India by Alexander the Great (London 1896) and Ancient India described in classical literature (Westminster 1901, repr. Delhi 1979); Lassen, C., Indische Alterthumskunde (Leipzig 1847–1862)Google Scholar; Majumdar, R.C., The classical accounts of India (Calcutta 1960)Google Scholar; Sedlar, J.W., India and the Greek world (Totowa NJ 1980)Google Scholar; Karttunen, K., India in early Greek literature (Helsinki 1989)Google Scholar-his work stops short of the period of Alexander; Dihle, A., ‘The conception of India in Hellenistic and Roman literature’, PCPS n.s. x (1964), 15–23Google Scholar; Puri, B.N., India as described by early Greek writers (Allahabad 1939)Google Scholar; better is the same author's later book, India in classical Greek writings (Ahmedabad 1963).

⁴ The meeting in the Alexander Romance is greatly expanded in the work of the fifth-century Palladius, De Gentibus Indiae et de Bragmanibus, which contains a much longer version of Dandamis' speech but does not include the question-and-answer episode. An earlier version of Palladius' work has been discovered on papyrus (Pap. Genev. inv. 271 )and is generally interpreted as a Cynic diatribe, which Palladius adapted to his own purposes.

Palladius' work has been interpolated in two of the three main recensions of the Greek Alexander Romance, but does not feature in any of the eastern or western derivatives of the Greek Romance which derive from the lost recension δ*. The short medieval Greek prose Life of Alexander does not contain the encounter with the Brahmans at all, and hence neither does the popular Phyllada tou Megalexantrou. However, the meeting does feature in the Byzantine poem on the Tale of Alexander known as the Rimada, where it follows the same pattern as in the beta versions of the Romance, without the additions of Palladus.

The meeting does appear in Julius Valerius iii 10 ff, which derives from A: it concerns the Brahmans or gymnosophists who live ‘among the Oxydorkai’. The question-and-answer session is given in oratio obliqua, and there is no gift-giving at the end of the episode. In the second Latin translation, by Leo the Archpriest (10th century AD), known as the Historia de Proeliis (ed. Pfister, F., Heidelberg 1913)Google Scholar, the people are the Oxidraces who ‘dicuntur gymnosofistae’. (iii.5). The episode is very brief in Leo, containing neither Alexander's ‘credo’ nor the gift-giving.

A further variant on the meeting is represented by a Latin work known as the Collatio Alexandri cum Dindimo, (ed. Pfister, F., Kleine Texte zum Alexanderroman, Heidelberg 1910)Google Scholar which consists of a long debate in epistolary form on the merits of the Brahmans' ascetic life, in the course of which Alexander criticises them heavily. No Greek original of this text is extant, but one is likely to have existed since the episode is incorporated in all the interpolated versions of the Historia de Proeliis. (See Bergmeister, H.J., Historia de Proeliis: Synoptische Edition der Rezensionen des Leo Archipresbyter und der interpolierten Fassungen J¹, J², J³ Meisenheim am Gian 1975).Google Scholar One result of this addition is that the meeting with the Brahmans actually appears twice, in different forms, the first time treating them under the name of gymnosophists or naked sophists, and corresponding to the meeting in the Romance, and the second under the name of Brahmans, incorporating the Collatio. See for example Schell, R., Liber Alexandri Magni: Die Alexandergeschichte der Handschrift Paris, B.N. n.a. 1.310 (Munich 1989), pp. 170 f. and 178 ff.Google Scholar

In addition, the meeting with the Brahmans is one of only three episodes from the history of Alexander deemed worthy of inclusion in his chronicle by the ninth-century writer George the Monk. (The other two are Alexander's meeting with the High Priest in Jerusalem, which reads like a fashion show report, and the story of Candace.) George's account of the Brahmans is clearly based on Palladius', though he seems also to have been using Bardaisan of Edessa's work on barbarian customs, de Fato.

⁵ Arr. Anab. vii 2.

⁶ Arr. Anab. vi 7 and 16; D. S. xvii 102–3.

⁷ McCrindle, J.W., The invasion of India by Alexander the Great (1896), 355 f.Google Scholar Arr. Ind. 4.9 places the Sydracae (i.e. Oxydracae) at the confluence of the Jhelum and the Chenab, which conflicts with the location of his Anabasis. See Brunt, P.A., Arrian (Loeb) ii p. 468.Google Scholar

⁸ Plin. N.H. vi 64; McCrindle, J.W., Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian (1877) 133.Google Scholar

⁹ D. S. xvii 102.4. Dionysius Periegetes refers to Thirlwall wishes the names to be those of two races containing predominantly the respective castes -quoted by McCrindle (n. 7) 351—surely too neat a solution.

¹⁰ Str. xv 1.66.

¹¹ Str. xv 1.59.

¹² Plut. Alex. 59.8; cf. Arr. Ind. 11; Str. xv 1.39 (Megasthenes).

¹³ Arr. Anab. vi 16.5.

¹⁴ Quintus Curtius ix 4.15 calls them Sudracae; Pliny, NH xii 6Google Scholar Sydracae; Strabo xv 1.6 Hydracae. The name has been thought (McCrindle, AIDCW 12 n. 1) to be reflected in the city of Uch, but the location of this city is rather far south for the data given by Arrian. Their appearance in the Mahabharata is at ii 52.15 (vol. ii, p. 118 in the translation by J.A.B. van Buitenen (Chicago 1975)).

¹⁵ Philostr. Vit.Ap. ii.33.

⁶ A visit of Alexander to the Ganges crept into the fabulous accounts of his travels quite early: see Craterus' letter to his mother, FGrH 153F2 (= Str. xv 1.35). It became canonical in later works like the lter Alexandri ad Paradisian.

¹⁷ Dandamis, and Dandamis' views on the renegade Calanus, play an important role in Palladius' monograph.

¹⁸ Str. xv 1.61.

¹⁹ Str. xv 63 ff.

²⁰ Ps-Origen 24, quoted in McCrindle, Ancient India 120; see Thapar, Romila, Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas (Delhi 1961) pp. 18, 60.Google Scholar

²¹ Apol. 42.

²² The location of the Brahmans beyond the Ganges in the Far East is also found in the Narrative of Zosimus (Ante-Nicene fathers add. vol. ii 219–24), who visits the land of the Brahmans where one would expect the Land of the Blessed: Pfister, F., Kleine Schriften zum Alexanderroman (Meisenheim am Gian 1975), 149 f.Google Scholar

²³ Str. xv 1.63–65.

²⁴ Str. xv 1.64. Cf. Tarn, W.W., The Greeks in Bactria and India (2nd ed. Cambridge 1951) 429 n. 1Google Scholar, who suggests that the first stage was from an Indian local dialect (i.e. a Prakrit) to Sanskrit.

²⁵ Pearson, L., The lost histories of Alexander the Great (Chico, CA 1983) 99.Google Scholar

²⁶ Brown, T.S., Onesicritus (Berkeley 1949) ch. 2.Google Scholar On the Cynic elements in Calanus' ideas, especially his selfimmolation, see my article, CQ xliv (1994) 500–510.

²⁷ Pédech, op. cit. (n. 2) 104–14.

²⁸ Berg, B., ‘Dandamis: an early Christian portrait of Indian asceticism’, C&M xxxi (1970) 269–305.Google Scholar

²⁹ Sayre, F., Diogenes of Sinope (Baltimore 1983) 40.Google Scholar

³⁰ D.L. ix 35.

³¹ Aristoxenus of Tarentum fr. 53 in Wehrli, , Die Schule des Aristoteles (Basel 1945) II p. 24Google Scholar; from Euseb. praep. evang. xi 3.

³² For the Magi, Seneca Ep. 58.31. See Flintoff, E., ‘Pyrrho and India’, Phronesis xxv (1980), 88–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 105 n.7. Flintoffs article is an argument for strong Indian influence on the philosophy of Pyrrho.

³³ The Laws of Manu, translated by Doniger, W. with Smith, B.K. (Harmondsworth 1991).Google Scholar

³⁴ Cf. Upanishad Mundaka 1.2.11 (forest dwelling is best); Jabala 4. The Sanskrit term is Vanaprastha: C. Lassen, op.cit. in n. 3, ii (1852), 699.

³⁵ Manu vi 87. Cf. Flintoff 99 on Pyrrho's adaptation of this pattern. He cites Bhagat.

³⁶ Str. xv 1.66.

³⁷ Str. xv 1.59.

³⁸ The implication is that they may be found near any city. The same passage of Megasthenes seems to be at the root of Ps. Origen's description of ‘a sect of Brahmans’ who drink of the River Tagabena. Unfortunately the location of this river is undecidable. See further n. 52.

³⁹ Dihle, A., ‘The conception of India in Hellenistic and Roman literature’, PCPS n.s. x (1964), 15–23 (21).Google Scholar On Megasthenes see in general Brown, T.S., ‘The reliability of Megasthenes’, AJP lxxvi (1955) 18–33Google Scholar, and O. Stein (n. 2). For the case against Megasthenes, Majumdar, R.C., ‘The Indika of Megasthenes’, JAOS lxxvi (1958) 276.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ For a lucid account of the requirements of brahmacharya see e.g. Gandhi, M.K., Autobiography (Harmondsworth 1982)Google Scholar, part iii, chs. 7 and 8, and passim.

⁴¹ Str. xv 1.70. The Pramnae are the philosophic kind of Brahmans known as Pramanikas: Mookerji, R.K., Chandragupta Maurya and his times (Delhi etc 1943), 309Google Scholar = fourth edition (1966) 189.

⁴² Manu iii 1. In other words thirty-seven years is a maximum for the first of the four stages of the Brahmanical life: Mookerji (op.cit. in preceding note) 298=185. Calanus (according to Strabo xv. 1.61, following Aristobulus) said that he could leave his ascetic life after having practised it for ‘forty’ years.

⁴³ Cf. Manu iv 1— from life with one's guru to married life; and iii 4.

⁴⁴ Str. xv 1.57.

⁴⁵ Str. xv 1.39 and Arr. Ind. 11.

⁴⁶ Thapar, R., Asoka and the dedine of the Mauryas (Delhi 1973) 58.Google Scholar For the reliability of Megasthenes, see Mookerji (op. cit. in n. 41) 297–309 = 184–196; Halbfass, W., Indien und Europa (Basel 1981), 26–28Google Scholar, of which there is a revised version in India and Europe (Albany 1988) 13–15. Megasthenes receives the ultimate accolade of having a children's comic devoted to his career, Megasthenes the Greek Ambassador to India (Amar Chitra Katha no. 384 (Bombay 1987).)

⁴⁷ Str. xv 1.61.

⁴⁸ Marshall, J., A guide to Taxila (Cambridge 1951) 19 n. 3Google Scholar; Karttunen, K., India in early Greek literature (Helsinki 1989) 223.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Dani, A.H., The Historic City of Taxila (Paris 1986), 42 fGoogle Scholar; Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 136 f.

⁵⁰ Dani 168, cf. 130, stating that there are Buddhist monuments from Taxila from the third century BC, contra Sir John Marshall who stated that Bhir mound had Buddhist settlements as early as the sixth to fifth centuries BC.

⁵¹ Guide to Taxila 3; Palladius de Bragm. ii 4. So also McCrindle, Alexander's invasion, 342–3, and Ancient India as described by classical writers, 22, 33; Puri, B.N., India in classical Greek writings (Ahmedabad 1963) 30 f.Google Scholar

⁵² Is there any connection of the Tamra-nala/Tiberoboam with the river Tagabena beyond which Megasthenes is said (in Ps.-Origen) to have seen a group of ascetic Brahmans? The connection is unconvincing, even if we are suspicious of McCrindle's suggestion (Invasion of India 120) that the Tagabena is the modern Tunghabadra, the Sanskrit name of which was Tungavena. If I were looking for a model for Palladius' Tiberoboam, I might equally pick on Pliny's Tonberum (NH vi 96), which was apparently near the mouth of the Indus, or the river Tamrapani in south India. The similarity of this latter name to Tambapanni, the Indian name for Ceylon, which the Greeks called Taprobane, suggests that there may, somewhere here, be a reason for the medieval location of the Brahmans in the island of Taprobane (e.g. in the Book of Sir John Mandeville, World's Classics ed. p. 32). Palladius' information on the Brahmans is alleged to come from a Theban scholastikos who visited Taprobane ‘where the Makrobioi live’. He does not locate the Brahmans in Taprobane, but a reader ignorant of geography might conclude that he did. But I cannot believe that there is anything to be gained for history by consideration of these names.

⁵³ Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 415, and J.D.M. Derrett in his edition of Palladius hint at such a view. See below on the implications of the dialogue form.

⁵⁴ Derrett, J.D.M., ‘The History of Palladius on the Races of India and the Brahmans’, C&M xxi (1960), 64–135Google Scholar; the reference is to pages 74–76.

⁵⁵ Thapar, Asoka 60; Sayre, Diogenes, 42, followed by J. Sedlar, India and the Greek world 68 ff. Cf. also. O. Stein, op. cit. (n. 2) 292. The name of Jains may have been known to late classical antiquity, as Hesychius has a lemma which in Stein's view (293) could be derived from Megasthenes.

⁵⁶ Craven, R.C., Indian Art (London 1976) 33Google Scholar asserts that the philosophers Alexander met were Jains, specifically those of one of the two main sects, known as Digambaras, ‘those who are clothed in air’. Cf. Dundas, P., The Jains (London 1992) 40–8, esp. 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁷ Nudity: e.g. Rig Veda hymn 10.136.

⁵⁸ Bouquet, A.C., Hinduism (2nd ed.London 1962) 64Google Scholar; Dundas, The Jains, 155. It seems however to be implied by Archelaus FGrH 123F1 (ap. Solinus lii 18–23), who describes an Indian race who go naked, live on vegetables (but also fish) and whose sick creep away to die. However, they also eat the flesh of dead relatives, which casts doubt on the value of this testimony.

⁵⁹ Str. xv 1.68. Megasthenes shows knowledge of Jain doctrines according to O. Stein, op. cit. (n. 2) 294.

⁶⁰ Dani 93.

⁶¹ Chatterjee, A.K., A comprehensive history of Jainism (Calcutta 1978) i 17–43.Google Scholar

⁶² Str. xv 1.61.

⁶³ Dundas, The Jains 134. Bardaisan ap. Stob. Phys. i 54 mentions the shaving of bodies. (Translation in McCrindle, Ancient India as described in classical literature, 167–9).

⁶⁴ Anderson, G., Philostratus (Beckenham 1986), 210.Google Scholar The Samanaioi of Bardaisan (cited in Porphyry, de Abst. iv 18) have a monastic organization but do practise suicide by fire. Curiouser and curiouser…

⁶⁵ Dundas, The Jains 104.

⁶⁶ Laws of Manu iv 36.

⁶⁷ Thapar Asoka 59.

⁶⁸ Clem. Strom, i 15. 71.3–6. P. 359 P (= Megasthenes fr. 43 in McCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian):

⁶⁹ McCrindle, Ancient India as described by classical writers, p. 65.

⁷⁰ Dihle 22. McCrindle 98 confidently takes the sramanas to be Buddhists. Lang, D.M., Wisdom of Balahvar (London 1957) 24Google Scholar says that classical sources ‘refer to Buddhists ‥ as Samanians’.

⁷¹ Buddhism as a doctrine must have been known to Greeks dwelling in the land of its origin, at least if any of them troubled to read the two Greek-language inscribed edicts of King Asoka (third century BC) announcing his conversion to Buddhist practice: see Schlumberger, D. et al. , ‘Une bilingue gréco-araméenne d'Asoka’, Journal Asiatique ccxlvi (1958) 1Google Scholar and Schlumberger, D., ‘Une nouvelle inscription grecque d'Asoka’, Journal Asiatique cclii (1964) 137Google Scholar; these items have entered scholarly discussion in Halbfass, W., India and Europe (Albany 1988) 19 and 457 n. 98Google Scholar, and Sherwin-White, S. and Kuhrt, A., From Samarkhand to Sardis (London 1993) 101–2Google Scholar, both with further bibliography. But this would not necessarily make even local Greeks any clearer about the difference of Buddhist and other forms of asceticism. The name of Buddha does appear on a coin of the Kushan king Kanishka (late 1 steady 2nd c. CE) wisth a representation of the Buddha inscribed in Greek BOΔΔ (reproduced in Craven, R.C., Indian Art (London 1975) 85Google Scholar). Thereafter the Buddha appears in classical texts from time to time. Jerome adv. Jovin. I writes that the gymnosophists have the doctrine of the birth of Buddha from the side of a (virgin) mother. One does encounter statements such as that ‘the classical world would have become acquainted with the Buddhist religion at the time of Alexander the Great's expedition to India’, (D.M. Lang, loc.cit.). Lang goes on to say that Buddhist teachings were absorbed by Gnostic philosophers including the Elkesaites from whom Mani sprang. Bardaisan acquired information on Buddhism from Indian ambassadors to Elagabalus, according to Porphyry De Styge ap. Stob. i 3.56 9144) ff; see Anderson, G., Philostratus (Beckenham 1986) 209.Google Scholar But in the Book of the Laws of Countries he describes only Brahmans, who abstain from idolatry, sexual intercourse, meat and wine. (Cureton, W., Spicilegium Syriacum (1855) 17).Google Scholar In an unnamed work by Bardaisan quoted by Jerome (adv. Jovin. 2.14). Bardesanes. vir Babylonius, in duo dogmata apud Indos gymnosophistas dividit: quorum alterum appelat Brachmanas; alterum Samanaeos. These too live by the Ganges. Bardaisan got his information probably from Indian ambassadors to the emperor Elagabalus; see Drijvers, H.J.W., Bardaisan of Edessa (Assen 1966) 175, 218.Google Scholar

⁷² O. Stein (n. 2) 290.

⁷³ Dihle(n. 3)21.

⁷⁴ Flintoff (n. 32) 100 f.

⁷⁵ B.N. Puri (n. 3 (1939)) 29; cf. R.K. Mookerji (n. 4) 304=189.

⁷⁶ Dundas, The Jains 104. Maybe even later: Schübring, W., The doctrine of the Jainas (Delhi etc 1962), 50–51.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ OED: ‘properly an indigent person [[Arabic faqir], but specially applied to a Mahommedan (sic) religious mendicant, and then loosely and inaccurately to Hindu devotees and naked ascetics.’

⁷⁸ Dundas, The Jains 146.

⁷⁹ Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India 414–36.

⁸⁰ Fourth Omen in Mahavastu tr. J.J. Jones; cited from D.M. Lang, The Wisdom of Balahvar 15–16. This encounter is the basis also of Josaphat's encounter with the monk Barlaam in the Romance of Barlaam and Josaphat attributed to John Damascene. However, there is no reason to believe that the story of Barlaam and Josaphat reached Greek ears before the 10th-11th century AD. (St John Damascene (Loeb edition) introd. by D.M. Lang, xxxvi if). One may note that the testing of the false Barlaam by the king's picked sages is an important episode in Barlaam and Josaphat, with death as the penalty for losing; another king-and-philosopher conflict.

⁸¹ Rhys Davids, T.W., The Questions of King Milinda (London 1890–1894).Google Scholar

⁸² Rhys Davids, T.W., Sacred Books of the East (London 1890–1894) xxxv–xxxviGoogle Scholar; Tarn, loc.cit.; D.M. Lang, Wisdom of Balahvar 151–6.

⁸³ Tarn, loc cit.

⁸⁴ Merkelbach, R., Die Quellen des griechischen Alexanderromans ² (Munich 1977).Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Derrett, J.D.M., ‘Greece and India: the Milindapanha, the Alexander-romance and the Gospels,’ Zschr. f. Religions- und Geistesgeschichte xix (1967) 33–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁶ Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad is a good example (pp. 127–32 in the Penguin selection). West, M.L., Early Greek philosophy and the Orient (Oxford 1971) 201Google Scholar, rightly castigates classical scholars for being ‘frightened of Upanishads’.

⁸⁷ Iamblichus Vit. Pyth. 82.

⁸⁸ D. S. ix 26.

⁸⁹ D. L. i 103–4. Another poser put to Anacharsis was ‘What among men is both good and bad?’ ‘The tongue’. (This occurs also in Vit. Aesopi 51–55). Anacharsis also praised a life according to nature, according to Ep. 9 in the supposititious collection (p. 48.29 f. in A. Malherbe's edition). On the letters of Anacharsis see also Reuters, F.H., Die Briefe des Anacharsis (Berlin 1963).Google Scholar The collection belongs to early Hellenistic times: Kindstrand, J.F., Anacharsis: the legend and the Apophthegmata (Uppsala 1981), 63 f.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Plut. Alexander 64. The questions vary slightly in all the versions: e.g. Julius Valerius iii 12, ‘To whom may a man not lie?-God’.

⁹¹ Boissonade, , Anecdota Graeca i 45–6Google Scholar (codex regius Paris. 1630), containing several collections of aphorisms and wisdom texts. The date of this text is unknown; it could as well be an excerpt from Plutarch as a forerunner.

⁹² PBerol 13044 of c 100 BC (= FGrH 153.9); ed. Wilcken, U., ‘Alexander der Grosse und die indischen Gymnosophisten’, SB Berlin 1923, 161 ff.Google Scholar This story also influenced the Jewish accounts of Alexander's encounter with the sages of the South: see Wallach, L., ‘Alexander the Great and the Indian Gymnosophists in Hebrew tradition’, Proc. Amer. Acad. Jewish Research xi (1941) 47–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kazis, I. (ed.), The Book of the Gests of Alexander of Macedon (Cambridge MA 1962).Google Scholar

⁹³ Cf. AIT. Anab. vi 16.

⁹⁴ Alexander is again the addressee of a discourse on kingship in Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship; on which see Jones, C.P., The Roman world of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, Mass. 1978) 116–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹⁵ It is possible that India turned Alexander's head. Recognised as a son of Dionysus in Nysa (QCR viii 10.1) he began to see himself as a god from now onwards: Goukowsky, P., Essai sur les origines de la légende d'Alexandre (Paris 1978).Google Scholar However he may have appeared to the Nysaeans, this was not a view that could commend itself to the Hindu Brahmans. His claim to divinity became more aggressive after the death of Hephaestion (who does not feature in the Romance); the Romance situates his claim in the context of his penetration of the furthest east.

⁹⁶ Merkelbach, R., Die Quellen des griechischen Alexanderromans ² (Munich 1977) 74.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Derrett (n. 84).

⁹⁸ van Thiel, H., ‘Alexanders Gespräch mit den Gymnosophisten’, Hermes c (1972) 343–59Google Scholar; Huizinga, J., Homo ludens (London 1970) ch. 6.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ van Thiel op. cit.

¹⁰⁰ Dudley, D.R., History of Cynicism (London 1937) 95.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ D. L. ii 108.

¹⁰² D. L. ii 106 ff.

¹⁰³ D. L. n 113–20, esp. 119, the Vegetable Puzzle; RE s.v. Megarikoi. Diodorus Cronus denied ambiguity: Aul. Gell, ii 2.

¹⁰⁴ Cf. Lucian Vitarum audio 22. Long, A.A., BICS xviii (1971) 26Google Scholar; also Long, , Hellenistic philosophy (London 1974)Google Scholar index s.v. ‘Megarians’.

¹⁰⁵ Str. xv 1.63.

¹⁰⁶ It is not impossible that the Alexander Romance influenced the Milindapanha, as Derrett suggests; but I would disagree with his suggestion that Anantakaya in the Milindapanha could be identified with Onesicritus, who has no part in this story. Hamilton in his commentary on Plutarch's Alexander ad loc. (p. 179) regards the entire encounter as unhistorical.

¹⁰⁷ Brown, T.S., Onesicritus (Berkeley 1949) 47–8.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Conybeare, J., Harris, R. and Lewis, H.The Story of Ahikar (Cambridge 1898).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Wills, L.M., The Jew in the court of the foreign king (Minneapolis 1990).Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Perry, B.E., Aesopica (Urbana 1952).Google Scholar The story-pattern became entrenched in Greek literature, and reappears strikingly in Plutarch's Dinner of the Seven Sages (153a ff.) suggesting that the motif may well be grounded in Greek folklore. Curiously it is introduced in the text by a request from Amasis, Pharaoh of Egypt, to Bias for assistance in a contest of wits with the king of the Ethiopians, a situation recalling the contest of Nectanebo and Esarhaddon in the tale of Ahiqar which provided the basis for an episode in the Life of Aesop.

¹¹¹ Perry, B.E., The Life of Secundus the Philosopher (Ithaca 1964).Google Scholar