A A A

Followed Chronologies

Table 4 Followed chronologies for the Greco-Roman world and India.

Greco-Roman world	Dates	India²⁰⁸

Homer (ca. 800-750) Iliad (ca. 775) Odyssey (ca. 775)	8th c. BCE

Aeschylus (b. 524)	6th c. BCE

Aeschylus (d. 455) The Suppliants (ca. 463) Euripides (480-406) Phoenix (ca. 425) Cyclops (ca. 408)	5th c. BCE

Ps.-Euripides Rhesus (ca. 336) Aristotle (384-322) Poetics (ca. 335)	4th c. BCE	Alexander’s Indian Campaign (327-325)
Hegesippus the epigrammatist Mnasalces of Sicyon Nicias of Miletus Plautus (b. 254) The Little Carthaginian (ca. 191) The Rope (ca. 189)	3rd c. BCE	Pillars of Aśoka (first written sources) Greco-Bactrian kingdom (begins) Greek theater at Aï Khanoum (opened ca. 225)

Plautus (d. 184) The Two Menaechmuses (ca. 186) Terence (185-159) The Eunuch (ca. 161)	2nd c. BCE	Greco-Bactrian kingdom (ends) Indo-Greek kingdom (begins) Greek theater at Aï Khanoum (closed ca. 150)

Meleager of Gadara Virgil (70-19) Aeneid (Posth. 17)	1st c. BCE	Indo-Greek kingdom (ends) Indian Embassies to Augustus (ca. 27)

Dio Chrysostom (b. in 40) Plutarch (b. in 46)	1st c. CE	Kushan Empire (begins) Vyāsa Mahābhārata
Dio Chrysostom’s (d. in 115) Plutarch (d. in 119) Philostratus (b. in 170) Aelian (b. in 175)	2nd c. CE	Kushan Empire (continues) Bharata Nāṭyaśāstra (Ps.-)Bhāsa The Embassy The Five Nights The Middle One

Aelian (d. in 235) Philostratus (d. in 250)	3rd c. CE	Kushan Empire (ends)

208 The authors and texts included in the chronology are limited to those mentioned in this study. Even though, generally speaking, India’s literary tradition antedates the Greco-Roman ones, in the case of epic and theater, especially in relation to the motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre, the situation is reversed.

Powered by Epublius