756 Lassen on the History traced [No. 104. 



they, half a century afterwards,, united in one power, and pene- 

 trated beyond the Indian Caucasus to the southward. Looking 

 for historical authorities of the further fate of the Tochares and 

 Saces, I find, that they are brief and meagre, and it appears 

 hardly possible to derive from them any certain results ; they 

 must however be examined. 



If the geographer Dionysios composed his poem as early as 

 it is ordinarily apprehended, he would have been the first who 

 made mention of the Scythians about the Indus, v. 1088. 'Iv^ov 

 Trap TTOTajxov vortoi ^KvOai evvaiovariv, 



Eusthathius makes the just remark, that they were Indo-Scy- 

 thians, as this name could not have been given them previously 

 to their arrival in India. The era of Dionysios being however 

 very uncertain, nothing can be inferred from his passage as to 

 the time of the first advancement of the Scythians to the Indus. 



The Periplus of the Erythraean sea, as well as Ptolemy, enable 

 us to determine the extent of the Indo-Scythian empire, al- 

 though this determination can only refer to a considerably later 

 time than the first appearance of the Scythians on the Indus. 



Indo-Scythia embraces, with Ptolemy (vii, 1), the following 

 provinces : — In the direction nearest to the south and the east, 

 Surashtra or the Peninsula Guzerat ; then the delta of the Indus 

 or Pattalene ; further the country Abiria,* situated above it ; he 

 includes in the Scythian empire a small district, and some towns 

 on the eastern bank of the river ; most of them lie however on 

 the western bank. How far up the Indus the Scythian domini- 

 on extended, is not quite evident ; but Artoartar, above held by 

 us to be a Scythian town, is mentioned as situated in the near 



* This, and not Sabiria, is to be read, any more than Iberia in the 

 Periplus. They are the Abhira of Indian geography. De Pentap. Ind. 

 p. 28. The passage in Periplus p. 24, must perhaps be written : Tavrrjg 

 TO, ^£ julIv /neffojEia rrig ^KuSiag * A^ripia koXhtui, to, ^e irapa* 



OaXaacTia ^vvpaaTpr]vr] for *Ij3r)pia, KaXeirai Se to. k, t, X, 



The delta of the Indus is ascribed to the Scythians in the following passage 

 of the Periplus, p. 22, on the emporium on the mouth of the Indus : 



TTpoKHTai ^£ avTOv vr)(Tiov fxiKpov' Koi Kara vcjtov fxzcroyHoq y} 



fiCTjDOTToXtc, avTr}g TYjg ^KvOiag Mivvayap, ftacnXiViTai Se vno 



UapOwVf (Tvvs'yiog aXXr^Xovg e/cSiwfcovrwv. 



