Ancient India, as Described by Ctesias. By J. W. McCrindle.
(Calcutta, Thacker and Spink ; London, Triibner and Co.)—Ctesias is receiving something of the same kind of rehabilitation as regards his truthfulness which Herodotus long ago received at the hands of the learned. Lucian, in his Vera Historia, puts the two together in the Isles of the Wicked, among those who had written false things in history or travel. But modern research seems to show that many at least of his marvels can be, if not made out as facts, at least accounted for. The Indica which included the result of what Ctesias saw and heard daring his residence in Persia (he was physician —being one of the Asclepiad gees—to Darius II. and Artaxerxes Mnemon) has been lost ; but the patriarch Photius epitomised it, and other fragments have been preserved by various writers, among whom YElian, Aristotle, and Pliny the Elder are the best known. These relics have been here collected and translated. The volume is one of a series, one or two of which we have already noticed, and to which we wish all success. It proposes to give all the works of the Classical writers relating to India.
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