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Headword:
Γάγγης
Adler number: gamma,4
Translated headword: Ganges
Vetting Status: high
Translation: A king of the Ethiopians, whom Alexander [the Great] killed,[1] "[...] 10 cubits tall,[2] with a youthful beauty that no other man has yet matched, son of the river
Ganges. His father would flood India, so he turned him toward the Erythraean [Sea][3] and settled his differences with the land so that it brought bounty to him while he lived and vengeance when he was dead.[4] When
Homer brings
Achilles to
Troy for
Helen, he says he took 12 cities by sea and 11 by land, and that the woman[5] taken away by the king reduced him to wrath, at which time he seemed unrelenting and cruel; let us compare the Indian with this.
Ganges settled 60 cities, which were the most renowned of the ones in that country. If anyone thinks sacking cities is more glorious than founding a city, it is not. Once when Scythians from beyond the
Caucasus invaded this land, he drove them out. To appear a good man by freeing one's own land is much nobler than to bring slavery on a city."
Γάγγης, βασιλεὺς Αἰθιόπων, ὃν ἀπέκτεινεν Ἀλέξανδρος, δεκάπηχυς τὸ μῆκος, τὴν δὲ ὥραν οἷος οὔπω τις ἀνθρώπων, ποταμοῦ δὲ Γάγγου παῖς. τὸν δὲ πατέρα τὸν ἑαυτοῦ, τὴν Ἰνδικὴν ἐπικλύζοντα, αὐτὸς ἐς τὴν ἐρυθρὰν ἔτρεψε καὶ διήλλαξεν αὐτὸν τῇ γῇ, ὅθεν ἡ γῆ ζῶντι μὲν ἄφθονα ἔφερεν, ἀποθανόντι δὲ ἐτιμώρει. ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα Ὅμηρος ἄγει μὲν ὑπὲρ Ἑλένης ἐς Τροίαν, φησὶ δὲ αὐτὸν ιβ# μὲν πόλεις ἐκ θαλάττης ᾑρηκέναι, πεζῇ δὲ ια#, γυναῖκα δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ βασιλέως ἀφαιρεθέντα εἰς μῆνιν ἀπενεχθῆναι, ὅτε δὲ ἀτεράμονα καὶ ὠμὸν δόξαι: σκεψώμεθα τὸν Ἰνδὸν πρὸς ταῦτα. πόλεων μὲν τοίνυν ξ# οἰκιστὴς ἐγένετο, αἵπερ εἰσὶ δοκιμώταται τῶν τῇδε: τὸ δὲ πορθεῖν πόλεις ὅστις εὐκλεέστερον ἡγεῖται τοῦ ἀνοικίζειν πόλιν, οὐκ ἔστιν. Σκύθας δὲ τοὺς ὑπὲρ Καύκασον στρατεύσαντάς ποτε ἐπὶ τήνδε τὴν γῆν ἀπώσατο: τὸ δὲ ἐλευθεροῦντα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γῆν ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν φαίνεσθαι, πολλῷ βέλτιον τοῦ δουλείαν ἐπάγειν τῇ πόλει.
Notes:
The bulk of the entry, from "10 cubits tall.." on, is a quotation from
Philostratus,
Life of Apollonius 3.20.2-3, in a story about how the Ethiopians supposedly came to leave their original homeland in India and move farther west. In what follows this quotation in the original, the speaker, Apollonius himself speaking to the Indian sage Iarchas in India, claims to be a reincarnation of this
Ganges. Cf., in brief,
epsilon 807.
[1] Apparently the
Suda or its source has confused this king with one of the Indian kings known in Greek sources as Poros (see next note), neither of which, however, was killed by Alexander.
[2] Approx. 15 feet, and thus twice the five-cubit height attributed to Poros (Arrian, Anabasis 5.19.1;
Diodorus Siculus 17.88.4;
Plutarch, Alexander 60.12, with an un-rounded-up four cubits and one span -- six feet nine inches -- which modern scholars are prepared to accept). But NB: in prosaic fact, Alexander withdrew from India before reaching the
Ganges; see A.B. Bosworth,
Conquest and Empire: the reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge 1988) 132-3.)
[3] Not the Red Sea, but the Indian Ocean.
[4] Apollonios had just explained that the Ethiopians killed
Ganges and were therefore driven from their home by the angry earth, which refused to produce crops for them, as well as by the ghost of
Ganges.
[5] That is
Briseis, taken away by king
Agamemnon, as related in Book 1 of
Homer's
Iliad.
Translated by: Anne Mahoney on 27 March 1999@18:23:29.
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