THE GREEK-ROMAN PERIOD.--In 327 B.C., _Alexander the Great_ advanced in his victorious career as far as India, entered the Punjab, which was then divided among petty kingdoms, and defeated one of the kings, _Porus_, who disputed the passage of the river Jhelum. The heat of the climate and the reluctance of his troops caused the Macedonian invader to turn back from his original design of penetrating to the Ganges. Near the confluence of the five rivers he built a town, Alexandria. He founded, also, other towns, established alliances, and left garrisons. On the death of Alexander (323 B.C.) and the division of his empire, Bactria and India fell to the lot of Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy. About this time a new kingdom grew up in the valley of the Ganges, under the auspices of _Chandra Gupti_, a native. After various conflicts, Seleucus ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab to this prince, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. The successors of Seleucus sent Græco-Bactrian expeditions into India. Thus Greek science and Greek art exerted a perceptible influence in Hindustan. During the first six centuries of the Christian era, Scythian hordes poured down into northern India. They were stoutly resisted, but effected settlements, and made conquests. The events as well as the dates of the long struggle are obscure. The non-Aryan races of India, both on the north and on the south of the Ganges, many of whom received the Buddhistic faith, were not without a marked influence--the precise lines of which it is difficult to trace--upon the history and life of India during the period of Greek and Scythic occupation and warfare. The _Dravidian_ people in southern India, made up of non-Aryans, number at present forty-six millions. LITERATURE.--Mill's _History of India_ (Wilson's edition, 9 vols.); MONIER WILLIAMS, _Indian Wisdom_; Max Müller's _History of Sanskrit Literature_; EARTH'S _The Religions of India_, 1882; _Encycl. Brit._, Arts. _India, Brahmanism, Buddhism_. SECTION II. THE EARLIEST GROUP OF NATIONS. CHAPTER I. EGYPT.