![]() ![]() At last, however, Alexander bade them get up and not be alarmed whereupon Acuphis addressed him in the following words. The sight of him sitting thus surprised them so much that they prostrated themselves upon the ground and for a long time spoke never a word. The story is that when they entered Alexander's tent, they found him sitting there dusty and travel-stained, still wearing his equipment, his helmet on his head and a spear in his hand. The people of Nysa, upon Alexander's approach, sent their chief, Acuphis, to him accompanied by thirty of their most distinguished men with instructions to ask him to leave their city to its god. However, one should not inquire too closely where ancient legends about the gods are concerned many things which reason rejects acquire some color of probability once you bring a god into the story. Nobody knows, however, who this Dionysus was, nor the date of his invasion of India, nor where he started from, and I myself should hardly care to say if this Theban deity marched with his army against the Indians from Thebes or from Tmolus in Lydia, or how it was that after passing through the territories of so many warlike peoples unknown to the Greeks of that date, he fought and conquered only the Indians. In the country on Alexander's route between the river Cophen and the Indus lay the city of Nysa, supposed to have been founded by Dionysus, at the time of his conquest of the Indians. The story of the discovery is told by the Greek author Arrian of Nicomedia, whose Anabasis (section 5.1.1-2.2) was translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. ![]() The mountain Meru mentioned below was the center of the Indian universe.) The only description of the temple is to be found in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by the Greek author Philostratus ( more). (Probably, this was the Indian god Shiva. In 327/326, Alexander invaded the Indus valley, where he discovered in Gandara a town called Nysa that was dedicated to the god Dionysus. ![]()
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