In his description of India Strabo (after Eratosthenes)Footnote 2 alludes to various Indian crops: in the rainy seasons (summer) the land grows flax, millet, sesame, rice and bosmoron,Footnote 3 and in the winter – wheat, barley, pulse ‘and other edible crops with which we are unacquainted (καὶ ἄλλοι καρποὶ ἐδώδιμοι, ὧν ἡμεῖς ἄπειροι)’ (15.1.13, C 690). Later on in his survey, Strabo briefly refers to the cultivation of rice, where he relies mainly and specifically on Aristobulus of Cassandria, one of the companions of Alexander the Great in his campaign in the East.Footnote 4 Aristobulus composed an account of Alexander's expedition and, in all likelihood, personally witnessed most of the details included in the fragments of his lost work (FGrHist 139). His descriptions are therefore highly valuable as reports reflecting one of the first encounters of the Greek culture with India.
Aristobulus is specifically Strabo's source also for the information on rice:
Aristobulus says that the rice stands in a water enclosure and that there are beds containing it; that the height of the plant is four cubits, both rich in ears of corn and rich in fruit; that it is reaped about the time of the setting of the Pleiades,Footnote 5 and winnowed like spelt; that it [rice] grows also in Bactriana and Babylonia and Susis, and also Lower Syria produces it.
(15.1.18, C 692 = Aristobulus FGrHist 139 F 35)Most of this account is in all probability based on autopsy and Aristobulus may have also touched, smelled and tasted rice grains. The additional details of the geographical distribution of rice could be an extension offered by Strabo or Eratosthenes before him. This comment indicates that rice was known to have grown in regions nearer – from a Greek point of view – than India, as near as Lower Syria.Footnote 6 Strabo next supplements Aristobulus' account with the following comment:
Μέγιλλος δὲ τὴν ὄρυζαν σπείρεσθαι μὲν πρὸ τῶν ὄμβρον φησίν, ἀρδείας δὲ καὶ φυτείας δεῖσθαι, ἀπὸ τῶν κλειστῶν ποτιζομένην ὑδάτων.
Megillos says that the rice is sown before the rains, but still requires irrigation and planting, being watered from the water enclosures. (15.1.18, C 692)
References to this Megillos in modern scholarship are very scant, indeed practically non-existent.Footnote 7 Felix Jacoby did not ascribe this fragment to Megillos but included it in a collection of fragments of anonymous authorship on India in his section ‘Autoren über Länder, Völker und Städte’ (FGrHist 721 F 12). Pape and Benseler in their dictionary of proper names (1863–70) merely mentioned him as an author who wrote on rice (s.v. Μέγιλλος (3)), and while Megillos had no entry in the original edition of Pauly's Real-Encyclopädie, Wilhelm Kroll referred to him in a very brief and meagre entry in volume 7 of the supplement (1940):
An author; only Strabo XV 692 quotes him on the cultivation of rice (vol. I A, p. 517, 61, where Kramer's emendationFootnote 8 should be ignored: Megillos surely said that rice requires cultivation). Who Megillos was we do not know; he could have been an historian, but the fact that Strabo does not name him elsewhere does not support this assumption.
Clearly, the fragment is not ‘anonymous’ as defined by Jacoby. Moreover, Kroll's speculative suggestion that he may not have been an historian does not follow from the fact that he is mentioned only once in Strabo. In view of this informational lacuna regarding Megillos, it seems worthwhile to have a more attentive look at this obscure writer even if all we have is a single, possibly paraphrased, sentence of his lost work. The following discussion offers several avenues to Megillos' identity, even if conjectural.
1. THE AUTHOR
1.1 Corrupt name?
Carl Müller has included the fragment in question under ‘Menyllus’ (FHG 4.452–3 F 3), thus implying that the Μέγιλλος in Strabo's text was perhaps a corruption of Μένυλλος. This Menyllos is known only from one solid reference in the Parallela Minora attributed to Plutarch (26, Mor. 312B = FHG 4.452–3 F 1; Ceccarelli, BNJ 295 F 2Footnote 9), where Book 3 of Menyllos' Italica is cited for the mythological tradition regarding Tuscinus the son of Mars and Silvia. Müller and Ceccarelli both add another citation from pseudo-Plutarch (ibid., 14, Mor. 309B = FHG 4.452–3 F 2; Ceccarelli, BNJ 295 F 1) on Iphigenia in Aulis, taken from ‘Μέρυλλος in Book 1 of his Boeotiaca’ and claim that it should be read, here too, as Μένυλλος because a Meryllos is elsewhere unknown. However, the references in this pseudo-Plutarchan work are all highly suspect and one would do best, all in all, to disregard them.Footnote 10 We can only assume that Müller suggested Menyllos also for ‘our’ fragment, on the same ground he suggested it for Meryllos, i.e. that Megillos was elsewhere unknown, while Menyllos had at least one solid fragment. Beside the somewhat unsound logic of this premise, thematically too this suggestion is incoherent because Menyllos' fragment is taken from an Italica and discusses mytho-historical details while the fragment preserved in Strabo deals with eastern botanical items. Thus, since not much is known on this Menyllos, and since what is known does not have a typical tie to Megillos and rice, the emendation seems unnecessary.
Müller himself indeed expressed his doubts regarding the identification with Menyllos and, despite including the fragment under ‘Menyllos’, suggested another emendation into Μένιππος implying that the fragment might belong to Menippos of Pergamon, who lived in the first century b.c.e. and composed a Periplous of the Mediterranean in three books, and possibly another one of the Black Sea.Footnote 11 Menippos' orientation was navigational and exploratory but there is no clue in his fragments that he reached regions east of Asia Minor. Therefore, the emendation of the name in Strabo's text is not topically well supported and thus seems unnecessary.Footnote 12
1.2 Other Megilloi
Unfortunately, other, perhaps better-known, MegilloiFootnote 13 do not prove useful as a possible match for our obscure Megillos. A Spartan envoy named MegillosFootnote 14 seems unsuitable for practical reasons: how likely is it that a Spartan active at the very end of the fifth century b.c.e. and involved in political affairs with Persia and in social contacts with Athens could have a chance to see eastern rice beds at a time when travel to Mesopotamia and India was rare and reserved for sporadic mercantile endeavours? Another supposed Megillos of Acragas, the music teacher of Plato,Footnote 15 should also be disqualified because, again, the probability that he travelled to the East and saw rice is seemingly low. And a Pythagorean Megillos of an unspecified date and with very little documentationFootnote 16 does not lead to any conclusions regarding his chances to discuss the cultivation of rice. Thus, for chronological or practical reasons all these Megilloi seem irrelevant to our quest and the Megillos cited by Strabo must be another, distinct person, not quoted elsewhere.
2. THE FRAGMENT
2.1 The Greek encounter with rice
Rice (Oryza sativa) was cultivated in Anatolia and Mesopotamia already at the beginning of the first millennium b.c.e.,Footnote 17 and reached Greece and Europe through commercial routes. Although some remains of rice have been found, for instance in a first-century c.e. Roman military camp in Neuss, Germany,Footnote 18 there is no proof that rice was cultivated in antiquity west of the Middle East.Footnote 19
The earliest, even if somewhat indirect, allusion to rice (ὄρυζον)Footnote 20 in classical literature appears in a tragedy by Sophocles as cited in Athenaeus:
Sophocles in Triptolemus mentions orindes bread, either bread made of rice, or of a seed which grows in Ethiopia and resembles sesame. (Ath. 3.110E = F 552 Nauck = F 609 Radt)
The explanation regarding this bread and its geographical and visual traitsFootnote 21 are probably Athenaeus', and Sophocles perhaps did not mention rice as a specific plant. Even Herodotus' reference to some Indian grain is still obscure and may have meant to describe rice without naming it:
They [the Indians] have a grain growing of itself from the earth in a shell, like millet in size; after they gather it in its shell they boil and eat it. (Hdt. 3.100)
In extant sources Theophrastus, in his Enquiry into Plants, is the first (after Aristobulus, and see below) to name the plant and to supply a more detailed description:
Above all they [the Indians] sow the cereal called rice, of which they make their mash. This is like spelt, and when bruised makes a sort of porridge, which is easily digested; in its appearance as it grows it is like darnel, and for most of its time of growth it is in water; however it shoots up not into an ear, but as it were into a plume, like the millet and Italian millet (ἔλυμος). (Hist. pl. 4.4.10)Footnote 22
Theophrastus was indeed active at a time when he could easily exploit the newly acquired information transmitted to the West by Alexander's companions.Footnote 23 However, his data on Indian flora is often inconsistent with details preserved in fragments of Alexander's companions.Footnote 24 Still, Theophrastus' accounts of the cotton-plant, the banyan, pepper, cinnamon, myrrh and frankincense are based on their accounts, and he constantly reports what ‘the Macedonians say’ (Hist. pl. 3.3.4, 3.4.1, etc.) and refers to ‘the Greeks’ (Hist. pl. 4.4.4, 4.4.10, etc.) and their naming of Indian plants.Footnote 25 Theophrastus mentions by name only Androsthenes of Thasos,Footnote 26 who, as a member of Alexander's entourage, left a written description of his sailing trips including information on the botany of Tylos (Bahrain).Footnote 27
As for Theophrastus' reference to Indian rice, there is no outright evidence for the specific author whose writings were the source for these details (Aristobulus? Megillos? Others?), and this piece of the Enquiry into Plants is not included anywhere in Jacoby's collection of fragments.
The next testimony is supplied by Megasthenes in the second book of his Indica:
At the dinner among the Indians a table is set before every one … and on the table a golden bowl is placed, in which they throw first the boiled rice … and then much meat cooked in the Indian dressings.
(Ath. 4.153D = FGrHist 715 F 2)Clearly Megasthenes, who visited India as an ambassador of Seleucus I, places emphasis on the Indian dietary nomoi and not on rice as a plant. Similarly, and also based on Megasthenes' survey, Strabo refers to rice beer and rice porridge consumed by the Indians (15.1.53 = FGrHist 715 F 32). At about the same time, Diodorus of Sicily described the nutrition of the soldiers led by Eumenes of Cardia, when he withdrew from Antigonus' attack in 318 b.c.e. and crossed the Tigris with his troops:
Marching through the country [Susiana, in modern Iran] … he [Eumenes of Cardia] was completely in want of grain, but he distributed to his soldiers rice, sesame and dates, since the country had such fruits in abundance. (Diod. Sic. 19.13.6)
It seems then that the only sources we possess which focus on rice as a crop and discuss its botanical and agricultural traits are Aristobulus, Theophrastus and Megillos.Footnote 28
2.2 Content of Megillos' fragment
MegillosFootnote 29 refers to three details regarding the cultivation of rice. First, he mentions the sowing season: ‘before the rains’. This timing is according to local conditions in India and thus relates to summer monsoon rains. The rains are specified also to emphasize (μέν … δέ …) a second detail: the need to water the plants additionally. The third detail reports that rice is irrigated by the water included in the water enclosures. Megillos supplies pieces of information which do not appear in other Greek sources on rice: the specific time of sowing and the need to irrigate the plantations and transplant the seeds. He also refines the details regarding the use of water enclosures: while both Theophrastus and Aristobulus indicated that rice grows in water, Megillos explains that these puddlings nourish the plants.
Adamantios Koraes (= Corais)Footnote 30 has emended Megillos' fragment by inserting μή before δεῖσθαι, thus suggesting that rice did not require irrigation and planting, but was watered by water enclosures. Gustav KramerFootnote 31 has inserted μή before ποτιζομένην, so that the sentence implied that rice was watered through irrigation but not by water enclosures. The emendations of both Kramer and Koraes seem to derive from the same difficulty: the supposed duplicity of the means for watering rice – irrigation and water enclosures. Stefan RadtFootnote 32 has rightly dismissed both emendations, since one option does not reject the other: rice is botanically and practically known to be watered both by regular irrigation and by being planted in puddlings.
In order to supply such information one had to view rice fields, to see people cultivating them – sowing, planting, irrigating – and to spend some time around, or else gain oral information, in order to be able to indicate the season in which these actions are fulfilled. These details match botanical and archaeological facts: in early times rice was grown in Asia in forest clearings and by direct seeding without standing water. The process of puddling soil and transplanting seedlings, which became an integral part of rice farming, was accepted from China and adopted in India (c. 2500 b.c.e.) and Sri Lanka (c. 1000 b.c.e.).Footnote 33 By the time Alexander's companions and Megillos arrived at the region they could probably see such rice paddies in north-west India.Footnote 34
2.3 Vocabulary
The vocabulary of the one-sentence fragment is post-classical and rare.Footnote 35 The verb ἀρδεύω (irrigate) appears already in Aeschylus (Pers. 852) and Aristotle (Hist. an. 601b13), but the noun ἀρδεία (irrigation) is attested first in Strabo 4.6.7, C 205 in the context of the exploitation of the stream of the Durias river in northern Italy for gold mining and for agricultural purposes (his source for this information is unknown). Thus, Strabo may be responsible for the noun in our passage also.
LSJ seems to have missed Strabo for ποτίζω (irrigate) in the passive voice, ποτιζομένη, meaning land that is being watered, and refers to a first-century c.e. papyrus and to Lucian's Abdicatus as the earliest occurrences of this use. Even earlier than Strabo, however, it has appeared in the Septuagint referring to the land in the Jordan valley (Gen. 13:10: πᾶσα ἦν ποτιζομένη). Therefore, the occurrence in our fragment could be as early as Megillos especially in view of its other Hellenistic use.
The phrase used to indicate water enclosures, κλειστὰ ὕδατα, appears only once again in Greek literature, in the singular, in Aristobulus' reference to rice quoted above.Footnote 36 Thus, this phrase was perhaps coined by one of Alexander's companions when he saw flooded fields of rice in India, or else already found in an earlier source if Megillos preceded Aristobulus. It is however impossible to tell confidently whether it was Aristobulus or Megillos who first used this combination in writing.
2.4 Megillos' conjectured date
The occurrence of rice in Greek literature until Strabo suggests the following chronology: [Sophocles (dubious: rice bread, not the plant)] > [Herodotus (dubious: description with no clear identification)] > Aristobulus > Theophrastus > Megasthenes > Eratosthenes > Diodorus > Strabo. This sequence does not necessarily mean that each author was influenced by his predecessor(s). Strabo, however, specifically refers to Aristobulus and Megasthenes, and we may assume that the information in Theophrastus is also, at least partially, based on the impressions of Alexander's companions. As far as we know, Aristobulus and Megasthenes are the only authors on the above list who had an actual chance to have direct acquaintance with rice plantations. Where does Megillos fit in this tradition?
The information ascribed to Megillos seems based on autopsy, thus hinting that Megillos perhaps visited India. He could as well have belonged with the group of Alexander's companions who left written records of their eastern experience while chance caused his work to be lost or, possibly, not to be specified by his name, if, for instance, Theophrastus derived additional data from his treatise.
There could be another, improbable but possible, scenario on which Megillos was earlier than Aristobulus. The construction of the excerpts in Strabo, quoting first Aristobulus and then Megillos, as well as the similar use of the phrase for water enclosures, may suggest that it was Aristobulus who originally quoted Megillos. If this assumption is possible, Megillos could be the earliest Greek authority on Indian rice and thus the Greeks knew details of rice cultivation before Alexander went to India.
3. CONCLUSION
There is no convincing reason to assume that Strabo's Megillos is a corruption of either Menyllos or Menippos. Therefore, we should accept it as Megillos. Kroll was not entirely wrong in saying that not much may be said about Megillos. The author, however, still deserves redemption from total anonymity and there are several assumptions regarding his identity we might offer with relatively high certainty even if these seem somewhat trivial: Megillos left a written Greek record of the cultivation of rice; this record could be part of a larger work possibly of botanical orientation or of geographical nature based on actual travel; the context in Strabo's Geography may suggest that Megillos' work possibly dealt with, at least, India; Megillos' work was available to Strabo (or to his sources, perhaps Aristobulus); Megillos saw rice fields and was therefore in the nearer or further East; Megillos lived before Strabo and probably at about the same time as Aristobulus, possibly before him. Last but not least, he may be the first Greek who saw and described the cultivation of Indian rice.
