Rumphius and modern writers upon the Malay Archipelago give it only as a cultivated plant. The multitude of names and varieties points to a very ancient cultivation. In British India it dates at least from the Aryan invasion, for rice has Sanskrit names, _vrihi_, _arunya_[1958] whence come, probably, several names in modern Indian languages, and _oruza_ or _oruzon_ of the ancient Greeks, _rouz_ or _arous_ of the Arabs. Theophrastus[1959] mentioned rice as cultivated in India. The Greeks became acquainted with it through Alexander’s expedition. “According to Aristobulus,” says Strabo,[1960] “rice grows in Bactriana, Babylonia, Susida;” and he adds, “we may also add in Lower Syria.” Further on he notes that the Indians use it for food, and extract a spirit from it. These assertions, doubtful perhaps for Bactriana, show that this cultivation was firmly established, at least, from the time of Alexander (400 B.C.), in the Euphrates valley, and from the beginning of our era in the hot and irrigated districts of Syria. The Old Testament does not mention rice, but a careful and judicious writer, Reynier,[1961] has remarked several passages in the Talmud which relate to its cultivation. These facts lead us to suppose that the Indians employed rice after the Chinese, and that it spread still later towards the Euphrates—earlier, however, than the Aryan invasion into India. A thousand years elapsed between the existence of this cultivation in Babylonia and its transportation into Syria, whence its introduction into Egypt after an interval of probably two or three centuries. There is no trace of rice among the grains or paintings of ancient Egypt.[1962] Strabo, who had visited this country as well as Syria, does not say that rice was cultivated in Egypt in his time, but that the Garamantes[1963] grew it, and this people is believed to have inhabited an oasis to the south of Carthage. It is possible that they received it from Syria. At all events, Egypt could not long fail to possess a crop so well suited to its peculiar conditions of irrigation. The Arabs introduced the species into Spain, as we see from the Spanish name _arroz_. Rice was first cultivated in Italy in 1468, near Pisa.[1964] It is of recent introduction into Louisiana.