Megasthenes

MEGASTHENES. This Author ought to be admitted into this Dictionary, because he is often quoted by Josephus the Historian, by Eusebius, and also by Strabo, Athenæus, Pliny, and some other Ancients, as having wrote upon the Antiquities of the Indies, and relating many Things therein, which concern the Empire of Babylon, and the Power of Nebuchadnezzar, which have a great Relation to what we learn from Scripture. Now Megasthenes was a Grecian¹, and had the Honour of having the Confidence of Seleucus King of Syria, who made Use of him in the Negotiations he had with Sandrorotenus King of the Indies. He had Opportunity, while he was at the Court of this Prince, to study the History and Manners of the Countrey, and to see several Provinces of it, which enabled him afterwards to write the History of it. This Work is entirely lost, and there only now remain some Fragments, as they are quoted by Joseph. Antiq. l. x. c. 11. And against Appion, l. i. In Eusebius’s præparat. Evang. l. ix. In Strabo, l. xv. p. 687, &c. Annius Viterbensis, a famous Impostor born in 1437, published several Authors that he had forged, and Megasthenes among others, whom he calls Metasthenes, because he had so found it in the Latin Version of Josephus, made by Rufinus. But the Books he then published, with Commentaries after his Manner, are every where fallen into so great Contempt, that no one is now rash enough to make Use of their Testimony.

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