suzerainty. In the wars which Antiochus I. waged against the Gauls and Celts, who had invaded Asia Minor at the invitation of Nicomedes, a rebel against the suzerainty of the "King of Kings," he had used elephants, which he, like his contemporary, Pyrrhus of Epirus, had obtained from As'oka's father, Bindusara, King of Magadha, a favour which, it may be, As'oka was expected to continue in the case of Antiochus II. The kings of Pergamus were famous for their collections of books and parchments (the latter a pergamene substitute for the papyrus which the Egyptian government would not allow to be exported); also for the botanical gardens of medicinal herbs, which antedated the more famous collections of Alexandria, into which they were afterwards merged; and Cyrene was noted, the whole world over, for a medicinal plant called silphium (a kind of asafoetida), which formed one of the staple articles of its extensive commerce. The plant was almost extinct in the West in Pliny's time (though it is still, I believe, to be found in India), but it is to be found engravers on the coins of Cyrene as the emblem of the city, and there has been found a silver cup from Cyrene, with a representation of the king himself personally superintending the packing, weighing, and dispatching of the precious herb. We can imagine that Antiochus Soter would have much pleasure in forwarding As'oka's memorandum touching medicinal herbs to his subordinate kings. We can also imagine that Antiochus II., who surnamed himself "the God," would not be equally pleased to receive the sermon about the "True Conquest." And yet As'oka would have us believe that the Dharma was being

observed and practised in the territories of the Syrian king. Stoicism was already a power in the world of philosophy and morals, and Stoicism is notoriously a semi-oriental mode of thought.