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The companions of Damis welcomed this speech and took to their good cheer with a will, thinking that they would find the journey easier if they lived rather better.
8. They crossed the river Cophen, themselves in boats, but the camels by a ford on foot; for the river has not yet reached its full size here. They were now in a continent subject to the king, in which the mountain of Nysa rises, covered to its very top with plantations, like the mountain of Tmolus in Lydia, and you can ascend it, because paths been made by cultivators.
They say then that when they ascended it, they found the shrine of Dionysus, which it is said Dionysus founded in honor of himself, planting round it a circle of laurel trees which encloses just as much ground as suffices to contain a moderate sized temple. He also surrounded the laurels with a border of ivy and vines; and he set up inside an image of himself, knowing that in time the trees would grow together and make themselves into a kind of roof; and this had now formed itself, so that neither rain can wet nor wind blow upon the shrine. And there were sickles and wine-presses and they are dedicated to Dionysus, as if to one who gathers grapes, all made of gold and silver. And the image resembled a youthful Indian, and was carved out of polished white stone. And when Dionysus celebrates his orgies and shakes Nysa, the cities underneath the mountain hear the noise and exult in sympathy.
9. Now the Hellenes disagree with the Indians, and the Indians among themselves, concerning this Dionysus. For we declare that the Theban Dionysus made an expedition to India in the role both of soldier and of reveller, and we base our arguments, among other things, on the offering at Delphi, which is secreted in the treasuries there. And it is a disk of silver bearing the inscription:
"Dionysus the son of Semele and of Zeus, from the men of India to the Apollo of Delphi."
But the Indians who dwell in the Caucasus and along the river Cophen say that he was an Assyrian visitor when he came to them, who knew the religious rites of the Theban. But those who inhabit the district between the Indus and the Hydraotes and the continental region beyond, which ends at the river Ganges, declare that Dionysus was son of the river Indus, and that the Dionysus of Thebes having become his disciple adopted the thyrsus and devoted himself to the orgies; that this Dionysus on saying that he was the son of Zeus and had lived safe inside his father's thigh until he was born, gained from this Dionysus a mountain called Merus or "Thigh" on which Nysa borders, and planted Nysa in honour of Dionysus with the vine of which he had brought the suckers from Thebes; and that it was there that Alexander held his orgies.
But the inhabitants of Nysa deny that Alexander ever went up the mountain, although he was eager to do so, being an ambitious person and fond of old-world things; but he was afraid lest his Macedonians, if they got among vines, which they had not seen for a long time, would fall into a fit of home-sickness or recover their taste for wine, after they had become accustomed to water only. So they say he passed by Nysa, making his vow to Dionysus, and sacrificing at the foot of the mountain.
Well I know that some people will take amiss what I write, because the companions of Alexander on his campaigns did not write down the truth in reporting this, but I at any rate insist upon the truth, and hold that, if they had respected it more, they would never have deprived Alexander of the praise due to him in this matter; for, in my opinion, it was a greater thing that he never went up, in order to maintain the sobriety of his army, than that he should have ascended the mountain and have himself held a revel there, which is what they tell you.
10. Damis says that he did not see the rock called the "Birdless" (Aornus), which is not far distant from Nysa, because this lay off their road, and their guide feared to diverge from the direct path. But he says he heard that it had been captured by Alexander, and was called "Birdless", not because it rises 9,000 feet, for the sacred birds fly higher than that; but because on the summit of the rock there is, they say, a cleft which draws into itself the birds which fly over it, as we may see at Athens also in the vestibule of the Parthenon, and in several places in Phrygia and Lydia. And this is why the rock was called and actually is "Birdless".
11. And as they made their way to the Indus they met a boy of about thirteen years old mounted on an elephant and striking the animal. And when they wondered at the sight, Apollonius said: "Damis, what is the business of a good horseman?"
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