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Secondary sourceBook1896

The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great

John Watson M'Crindle · 1896

An 1896 collection of translated ancient accounts of Alexander's campaign in India, compiled from Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch and Justin.

This compiles ancient accounts of Alexander's invasion of India, drawn from several classical historians writing after his death.

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The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great
John Watson M'Crindle (trans.), The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, 1896. Scanned book, Internet Archive.

About this source

What it is

This book, compiled and translated by John Watson M'Crindle in 1896, gathers together passages from several ancient historians — Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch and Justin — describing Alexander's invasion of India.

Why it matters

Because no single ancient source on Alexander survives complete and unbiased, historians rely on compilations like this one that bring different ancient accounts together for comparison. This helps reveal where ancient writers agree or disagree about events in Alexander's eastern campaigns.

The book also shows how 19th-century scholars like M'Crindle worked to make classical sources on Alexander accessible to English readers.

Look closer

  • Why might it be useful to compare several ancient accounts of the same events side by side?
  • What biases might ancient Greek and Roman historians have had when writing about Alexander's campaigns in India?
  • What does this book's existence tell us about 19th-century interest in Alexander's history?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Alexander the Great on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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