A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Ἰάμβουλος), a Greek author, who is known for having written a work on the strange forms and figures of the inhabitants of India. (Tzetz. Chil. 7.144.) Diodorus Siculus (2.55, &c.), who seems only to have transcribed Iambulus in his description of the Indians, relates that the latter was made a slave by the Ethiopians, and sent by them to a happy island in the eastern seas, where he acquired his knowledge. The whole account, however, has the appearance of a mere fiction; and the description which Iambulus gave of the east, which he had probably never seen, consisted of nothing but fabulous absurdities. (Lucian, Verae Hist. 3; comp. Osann, Beiträge zur Griech. u. Röm. Lit. Gesch. vol. i. p. 288, &c.)

[L.S]