506 COSMOS 



Euphrates and the Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, \vai 

 employed to explore the course of the Indus, from the then- 

 existing territory of Caschmeer (Kaspapyrus)* to its mouth. 

 An active intercourse was carried on between Greece and 

 Egypt (with Naucratis and the Pelusian arm of the Nile), 

 before the Persian conquest, and even under Psammitichus and 

 Amasis.f These extensive relations of intercourse with other 

 nations drew many Greeks from their native land, not only for 

 the purpose of establishing those distant colonies which we 

 shall consider in a subsequent part of the present work, but 

 also as hired soldiers who formed the nucleus of foreign 

 armies in Carthage,^ Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and in the 

 Bactrian district of the Oxus. 



A deeper insight into the individuality and national charac- 

 ter of the different Greek races has shown that, if a grave and 

 reserved exclusiveness prevailed amongst the Dorians, and in 

 part also amongst the ^Eolians, we must, on the other hand, 

 ascribe to the gayer Ionic race a mobility of mind, which, 

 under the stimulus of an eager spirit of enquiry and an ever- 

 wakeful activity, was alike manifested in a faculty for mental 

 contemplation and sensuous perception. Directed by the 

 objective bent of their mode of thought, and adorned by a 

 luxuriance of fancy in poetry and in art, the lonians scattered 

 the beneficent germs of progressive cultivation, wherever they 

 established their colonies in other countries. 



As the landscape of Greece was so strikingly characterised 

 by the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of land and 

 sea, the configuration of the coast line to which this cha- 

 racter was owing, could not fail early to awaken in the 

 minds of the Greeks a taste for navigation, and to excite them 

 to an active commercial intercourse and contact with foreign 

 nations. The maritime dominion of the Cretans and Rhodians 

 was followed by the expeditions of the Samians, Phocceans, 

 Taphians, and Thesprotians, which were, it must be owned, 



* Regarding the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus of Heca- 

 taeus (Fragm. ed. Klausen, No. 179, v. 94), and the Kaspatyrus of 

 Herodotus (iii. 102, and iv. 44), see my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 101-104. 



f* Regarding Psammitichus and Aahmes, see p. 489. 



j Droysen, Geschichte der BUdung des hettenistischen 8taaJensy 

 tans, 1843, s. 23. 



See p. 376. 



