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102.
Other Indians dwell near the town of Caspatyrus and the Pactyic country,1 north of the rest of India; these live like the Bactrians; they are of all Indians the most warlike, and it is they who are sent for the gold; for in these parts all is desolate because of the sand.
[2]
In this sandy desert are ants,2 not as big as dogs but bigger than foxes; the Persian king has some of these, which have been caught there. These ants live underground, digging out the sand in the same way as the ants in Greece, to which they are very similar in shape, and the sand which they carry from the holes is full of gold.
[3]
It is for this sand that the Indians set forth into the desert. They harness three camels apiece, males on either side sharing the drawing, and a female in the middle: the man himself rides on the female, that when harnessed has been taken away from as young an offspring as may be. Their camels are as swift as horses, and much better able to bear burdens besides.
1 N.E. Afghanistan. Caspatyrus (or Caspapyrus) is said to be probably Cabul.
2 It is suggested that the “ants” may have been really marmots. But even this does not seem to make the story much more probable.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Harper's, Aurum
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AURUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CASPATYRUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), I´NDIA
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, Forms of the subject.
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