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Megasthenes
Sign in to saveMegasthenes ( ; , died 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, indologist, diplomat, ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indica, which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors that quoted his work. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India.
Person · Open Library
- Works
- 10
Top works
- Indica
- Megasthenes' Indica
- Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian
- Megasthenis indica
- Indica
via Open Library + Wikidata
Key facts
- Person.name
- Megasthenes
- Person.native_name
- Μεγασθένης
- Person.occupation
- Historian and diplomat
- Person.notable_works
- Indica
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Seleucid Empire
- Place of birth
- Asia Minor
- Occupation
- Indologist
- Position held
- ambassador
- Languages spoken
- Ancient Greek
Show 6 more facts
- date of birth
- 0350-01-01
- date of death
- 0290-01-01
- birth name
- Μεγασθένης
- time period
- Hellenistic period
- described by source
- Pauly–Wissowa
- writing language
- Ancient Greek
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
8 sectionsContents
- Biography
- As ambassador
- Assessment
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
- Further reading
- External links
Megasthenes ( ; , died 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, indologist, diplomat, ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book Indica, which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructed from literary fragments found in later authors that quoted his work. Megasthenes was the first person from the Western world to leave a written description of India.
== Biography ==
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Megasthenes” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.