Template:Short description Template:Redirect Scylax of Caryanda (Template:Langx; Template:Floruit) was a Greek explorer and writer during the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE of the Achaemenid Empire. His own writings are lost, though occasionally cited or quoted by later Greek and Roman authors. The periplus sometimes called the Periplus of Scylax is not, in fact, by him; that so-called Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax was written in about the early 330s BCE by an unknown author working in the ambit of the post-Platonic Academy or the Aristotelian Peripatos (Lyceum) at Athens.
ExplorationEdit
Scylax was from Caryanda, a small city on an island close to Iasos in Asia Minor.Template:Sfn He was probably an ethnic Carian, who might have been familiar with Greek and used it for his writings.Template:Sfn Not much is known about Scylax, except for the few fragments of information relayed by later Greek writers. Herodotus calls him a sea-captain from Ionia. He is said to have sailed down the Indus River at the behest of the Achaemenid emperor Darius I (522–486 BCE) and then around the Arabian peninsula to reach Suez.Template:Sfn In the narrative of Herodotus:
Several questions have been raised about this narrative. The city of Caspatyrus and the country of Pactyica have not been traced to any real locations. Assuming that it is somewhere in the vicinity of Gandhara, which was under the control of the Achaemenid emperor, it is unclear how Scylax was able to assemble a fleet of vessels in this land-locked country. More importantly, the Indus does not flow east, but rather in a south-westerly direction.Template:Sfn Due to these reasons, some commentators doubted if Scylax's journey ever took place.Template:Sfn
Scholars have constructed various explanations for these questions. David Bivar has noted that 'Caspatyrus' was written as 'Caspapyrus' by the later Greek writer Hekataios, and both the names seem to have been misspellings of 'Paskapyrus', a known Greek spelling of the name of Peshawar. Scylax is presumed to have started by sailing east along the Kabul River and turned south after its confluence with the Indus River near Attock.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn The idea that the Indus itself flowed east must have been a misunderstanding by Herodotus or his source.Template:Sfn
Scholars state that Scylax's expedition was not merely for exploration, but rather for reconnaissance for future conquest by Darius. According to Matthew R. Christ and Grant Parker, "Herodotus presents geographical curiosity as a feature of foreign kings, particularly when they plan conquest".Template:Sfn Olmstead characterised it as a "spying" expedition.Template:Sfn It lasted thirty months. Soon afterwards, Darius seems to have added to his empire the lands explored by Scylax as a new province called Hinduš. It was referred to as "India" by the Greek writers. The extent of the province is not precisely known, though Herodotus's description of it as lying to the west of the desert (Thar desert) limits it to essentially Sindh (middle and lower Indus basin).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Darius also commissioned the completion of the canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, stating in an inscription:
Template:Quote Afterwards, oceanic communication between India and Persia as well as Egypt and Mediterranean were established and maintained for some time.Template:Sfn
WorksEdit
Scylax wrote an account of his travels, perhaps entitled Periplus (Circumnavigation) and said to have been dedicated to Darius. The work has disappeared except for seven quotations by later writers. The surviving quotations indicate it was not merely a logbook, but contained accounts of people, landscape, the natural conditions and perhaps also political affairs. Scholar Klaus Karttunen believes that it might have been written in Greek, in which case it would have been among the first works to be written in Greek prose. Hekataios was influenced by the work and Herodotus knew about it, though he may not have actually seen it himself.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The surviving quotations appear fabulous. One talks about Troglodytes (cave-dwellers), another about Monophthalmic (one-eyed people), yet another about Henotiktontes (people that produce only one offspring). According to Tzetzes, Scylax claimed that all these things were true and not made up. Scholar R. D. Milns states that Scylax would have reported the stories he heard from the natives, which he would have accepted in good faith.Template:Sfn
Scylax's Periplus provided the West with its first account of the easterly people and served as a model for later Greek writers.Template:Sfn More lastingly, it gave India its name. The people of the Indus region were referred to as Hiduš or Hindush in Persian (due to sound change of *s > h from Proto-Iranian Sindhu).<ref name="FT159">Template:Cite journal</ref> If Scylax wrote in the Ionic dialect of Greek, which did not pronounce initial h sounds, he would have transformed it to Indos (plural: Indoi). Their land was characterised as Indike (the adjectival form, meaning "Indian").Template:Sfn Herodotus uses these terms as equivalent to the Persian terms Hiduš and Hindush, even though he also generalised them to all the people living east of Persia, leading to considerable ambiguities.Template:Sfn
Scylax was famous in the ancient world. He is mentioned by Strabo as an "ancient writer."<ref>Strabo, Geography 14. 2. 20 (Σκύλαξ ὁ παλαιὸς συγγραφεύς). Scylax was mentioned 12. 4. 8 and 13. 1. 4</ref> According to the Suda, he also wrote (perhaps "in the decades around 480 BC"<ref>Arnaldo Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography, Harvard UP, 1971, p. 29</ref>) a life of his contemporary, Heraclides of Mylasa (τὰ κατὰ Ἡρακλείδην τὸν Μυλασσῶν βασιλέα), who is mentioned in Herodotus 5.121.
In popular cultureEdit
In the historical fiction novel Creation by Gore Vidal Scylax of Caryanda appears as a character who is on such familiar terms with King Darius I of Persia that they engage in humorous banter about extending Persian rule to India.
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