71 
Ashmolean Society of Oxford, to contain notices of the 
natural productions of the country, which, though often 
extravagant and absurd, are nevertheles founded on 
truth. Besides, there were always Grecian mercenaries 
in Persian pay ; and the Grecian prisoners taken at 
Eretria were settled in Persia, within a day's journey of 
Susa. In the year 830 B.C., Darius Codomanus was 
killed, and an end put to the Kaianian dynasty of the 
Persian empire by Alexander, who carried his arms to the 
shores of the Indus, and there, as we learn from his histo- 
rians, held intercourse with Indian sages. On his death, 
Persia fell to the share of Seleucus, (307 B.C.) who soon after- 
wards penetrated even to the Ganges : but being threatened 
by Antigonus, he entered into an alliance with the Indian 
Sovereign, Sandracottus (Chundragupta) which was main- 
tained for many years; he even, it is related, gave his 
daughter in marriage to the Indian sovereign, as well as 
sent him Grecian auxiliaries to assist in repelling his 
enemies. Megasthenes and Onesicratus were also sent as 
an embassy, and the former having resided for some years 
at Palibothra (Patna), gave the Greeks some of the most 
correct accounts they had of India. During the reign of 
the Seleucida?, and their successors, who held possession of 
all the countries between the Euphrates, the Indus, and 
the Oxus, the commerce of India with the North is described 
as having been very considerable. The recent discovery in 
the north-western part of ancient India, and in Caubul, of 
innumerable coins, commencing with the third of the 
Seleucida?, and his known successors, and continuing for 
many centuries, has revealed a series of unrecorded Bactrian 
princes, who, at first independent, afterwards held sway 
under the Persian King of Kings over the countries between 
Persia and India, including some of the north-western pro- 
vinces of the latter. It is extremely interesting, in this long 
series of coins, to observe the purely Greek ones succeeded 
