India (Herodotus) India (Herodotus) In ancient Greek geography, the basin of the Indus River (essentially corresponding to the territory of modern Pakistan) was on the extreme eastern fringe of the known world. The Greek geographer Herodotus (5th century BC) describes India, calling it (Roman transliteration: "hē Hindikē chōrē", meaning "the Indian land"), after "Hinduš", the Old Persian name of the Indus river and the associated satrapy of Sindh in the Achaemenid Empire. Darius the Great had conquered this territory in 516 BC. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor (western Turkey) were already part of the Achaemenid Empre since 546 BC and, thus,
Ancient Greek astronomy find remarkable information such as that the Earth is round, it has an axis and it moves around it in one day, it has three climate zones and that the Sun magnetizes the Stars and planets. The name "planet" comes from the Greek term πλανήτης ("planētēs"), meaning "wanderer", as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Five planets can be seen with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the Greek names being Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus and Cronus. Sometimes the luminaries, the Sun and Moon, are added to