193Arrian on Dionysus’ Visit to Nysa and India: The Indikē as the Generic alter ego of the Anabasis of Alexander

The thematic and compositional divergences between the Anabasis and the Indikē show that Arrian differentiated in his mind the generic physiognomy of the one work from that of the other and, exactly for this reason, in the Indikē he had no qualms about deviating from the limitations of the Anabasis ’ march narrative and about creating its generic alter ego with a clearly more concentrated presence of paradoxical, supernatural and marvelous elements. His choice to present Dionysus as the ultimate ancestor of some Indian monarchs belongs to these passages of the Indikē where the supernatural and human history cross paths in a way unknown to the Anabasis . Within the framework of his effort to associate the Indians’ prehistory with Dionysus, Arrian seems to have felt more confident to share with the readers his certainty about the myths of Dionysus and India and to avoid addressing speculations we find in the Anabasis which would elicit the readers’ doubts about what they read.