We know that Bindusara was in touch with Alexander’s successors in the Middle East. He once asked Seleucus’s successor Antiochus for figs, wine and a Greek philosopher. Antiochus sent the figs and the wine but politely refused to send the philosopher on the grounds that Greek law forbade the sale of scholars! So, what did Bindusara send in return? We know that Antiochus used Indian war elephants to fend off a major invasion by Gauls into Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). So it is quite likely that he was being supplied elephants and their mahouts by Bindusara. In other words, the Greeks had
...more
