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The 17th satrapy seems to correspond to Beloochistan. H. does not use the later name Gedrosia, for which cf. Arr. Anab. vi. 22 seq. On the coast of this country still lives a primitive race which is dark brown (the Brahvî, but v. i.); so too, on the south-east corner of Arabia, Curzon speaks of the scanty survivors of a ‘dark aboriginal race living in the rocks by C. Mussandum’ (ii. 447). This race had of course no connexion but that of colour with the Ethiopians of Africa (for whom cf. iii. 17. 1 n. and vii. 70. 1). Lassen (I. A. i. 390) thinks the dark race was perhaps once widely spread in Asia; he quotes the Mahâbhârata for ‘black dwellers in the Himalaya’. But he denies that it survives in Beloochistan. The Paricanii are otherwise unknown, but may well be the inhabitants of the interior. Their name is explained by some as = ‘worshippers of demons’, by others (e. g. Holdich, p. 34) as the Sansk. ‘Parvaka’ (= mountaineers). H. couples them in vii. 68 with the Utians and Mycans, and the Ethiopians with the Indians (vii. 70. 1). The 18th satrapy seems to have consisted of the southern and eastern parts of the mountainous region which, beginning with the basin of the upper Aras, stretches west to the upper Euphrates and south to the upper Tigris. For the Matieni cf. i. 72. 2 n. The Saspeires lay north of Matiene; they occupy a ‘small’ district between Media and Colchis (i. 104; cf. iv. 37). Rawlinson, iv. 223, identifies their name with the ‘Iberians’, but this is very doubtful. The Alarodii are only mentioned here and in vii. 79, where they are again joined with the Saspeires and armed like the Colchians. Sir H. Rawlinson (ib. iv. 245 seq.) sees in their name a survival of the ‘Urarda’ (cf. Ararat) of the Inscriptions; this is generally accepted (Maspero, iii. 55); they were a Semitic race who preceded the Aryan Armenians in the mountain region north-west of the Assyrian plain (round Lake Van), and who fought the Assyrians at first for supremacy, then for independence. After H. they disappear, being absorbed by the Armenians.
The 19th satrapy lay north and north-west of the 18th, north and north-east of the 13th (93. 1), and south of Colchis. All the tribes in it, except the Moschi, lay on the coast of the Black Sea (cf. Xen. Anab. iv. 8 for the Macrones—whose name survives in the Makur Dagh—and v. 5. 2 for the Tibareni); their armament resembles that of the Colchians. The Mares only occur here (and in vii. 79) and in Hec. fr. 192 (F. H. G. i. 12). The Tibareni and Moschi (Assyr. ‘Tabali and Muskana’) are the Tubal and Meshech of Ezek. xxvii. 13 (cf. 32. 26), where they are among the ‘merchants of Tyre’, trading in slaves and brass; they had long resisted the Assyrians, and seem to have been finally driven into the mountains by the Cimmerian invasion (cf. i. 15 n.). They were independent later (Xen. Anab. vii. 8. 25). Ἰνδῶν. Two questions arise: I. What knowledge had H. of the Indians? II. How far were they under Persian rule? I. The following points may be accepted. H. thinks that (a) the Indians are the most remote nation known on the east; beyond them is desert (98. 2; iv. 40. 2). This idea is based partly on some rumour as to the great deserts east of the Indus, partly on ignorance. As H. knows nothing of mountains in these parts, it is difficult to think (as Rawlinson) that he refers to the great deserts north of the Himalaya. （b) The subject Indians are the inhabitants of the lower Indus valley and the modern Sind and part of the Punjab east of the Indus. The wealth of the satrapy compels us to believe that much of the country which is now desert, e. g in Sind, was then irrigated and fertile; but even in Strabo's (p. 697) time part of the south Indus valley was θηρίοις μᾶλλον ἢ ἀνθρώποις σύμμετρος. （c) Beyond this region H. knows (1) vaguely of a great population; the Indians are the most numerous race in the world (v. i.). (2) Most of them are utter barbarians (c. 98 seq.). So far as his stories are true, they can only refer to the primitive Dravidian races, who were left behind in the hilly country on the frontier by the tide of Aryan conquest. (3) But he has accurate information of the Indian canoes and cotton dresses (98. 3, 4) and of their respect for animal life (100. 1). （d) H. as usual is free from the ridiculous tales which later writers give, e. g. Ctesias (cf. 98. 3; 102 nn.). II. (a) H. (iv. 44. 3) tells us that Darius, after the voyage of Scylax, subdued some Indians and used the Indus as a waterway. This agrees with Darius' inscription at Persepolis, where he puts India among his conquests. H. (102. 1 n.) seems to limit the tributary Indians to the region in north-west India. It is noticeable that Strabo (687) is ignorant of these Persian conquests. （b) It is probable that Darius received regular gifts from the trans-Indus tribes, though by the time of Alexander, the Persians had lost all authority beyond that river. H.'s statements here and in v. 3. 1 as to the number of the Indians are implicitly contradicted by Thucydides (ii. 97. 5-6), who says that with the Scyths no nation in Europe or Asia could be compared. Thucydides' narrow Hellenism involves him in a double error: (a) He does not know that the Scyths proper were a comparatively small race (App. XI. 6). (b) He ignores the great populations of the East, of which H. has dimly heard. ἑξήκοντα καὶ τριηκόσια. The 360 talents, being paid in gold, have to be multiplied by 13 for the reckoning (95. 1).
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