Evelyn Abbott - The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6)

Beyond this indication of the state of the civilisation in these districts, we learn but little of their fortunes under the dominion of the Persians. Darius (521-485 B.C.) informs us, at the beginning of his reign, that his father Hystaspes (Vistaçpa), his viceroy in Persia, the native land of the kingdom, and with him Vivana the Persian, the satrap of Arachosia, and Dadarshis the Persian, the satrap of Bactria, had quelled the rebellions of the Parthians, Hyrcanians, and Margiani; that the Mede Takhmaçpada had conquered the rebellious Sagartians, and captured their leader, Chitratakhma, whom he, Darius, had crucified at Arbela. The army of the second Pseudo-Smerdis, which attempted to gain possession of Arachosia, Vivana had defeated at the fortress of Kapisakani, in Arachosia, and the leaders, with their chief associates, had been captured in the fortress of Arsada and put to death. Hystaspes had slain 6560 men of the Parthians and Hyrcanians, and taken 4182 of them captives. Dadarshis had subjugated the Mardians by slaying 4203 of them in battle, and taking 6562 of them captive. 35 35 Behist. 2, 14-16; 3, 10-12. Xerxes, the successor of Darius, successively intrusted two of his brothers, Masistes and then Hystaspes, with the government of Bactria. 36 36 Herod. 7, 64, 82; 9, 113. In the great campaign against Hellas, the Bactrians, like all the other nations of the kingdom, had to furnish their contingent; and when Mardonius had to select the best troops in the army in Hellas, in order to winter with them in Thessaly, he retained, besides the Persians and Medes, the infantry and cavalry of the Bactrians, Sacæ, and Indians. 37 37 Herod. 8, 93. The Bactrians, under their viceroy Hystaspes, revolted against Artaxerxes, the brother of Hystaspes. The first battle was not decisive; in the second Artaxerxes conquered, "because the wind blew in the face of the Bactrians," and subjugated the land. 38 38 Diod. 11, 69; Ctes. Pers. ecl. 31. To the army of Darius III. with which he met the Macedonians in Assyria, the Bactrians contributed 30,000 cavalry; and in the battle of Arbela they fought with the Arachoti on the left wing. Accompanied by Bactrian horsemen, Darius escaped from the field of battle to Media, and sought afterwards to maintain his position in their country. The Caspian gates, the pass of Damaghan, were gained, when the satrap of Bactria got possession of the king, and put him to death before he reached Bactria. The satrap hoped to establish an independent power there, 39 39 Arrian, "Anab." 3, 21. but without success. Though Alexander at first overcame the Bactrians, who were astonished at his rapid approach, he soon found a stubborn resistance in Sogdiana and Bactria, which occupied him for two years. 40 40 Arrian, loc. cit. 3, 29. Not till then could he make his preparations in Bactria for the invasion of India, and collect at Bactra the army intended for the subjugation of that country, in order to pass over the Hindu Kush into the valley of the Cabul.

In the contests which the successors of Alexander carried on for the supremacy after his death, the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the table-land of Iran, finally fell to the lot of Seleucus. But in the middle of the third century (256 B.C.), Arsaces in Parthia and the satrap Diodotus in Bactria rebelled against the second successor, Antiochus Theos. The descendants of Arsaces not only succeeded in maintaining their independence against the Seleucids, in spite of severe reverses, but Mithridates I., the sixth Arsacid (174-136 B.C.), united all Iran under his dominion. The Greeks lost their supremacy, and Iran again became subject to native princes.

Meanwhile Diodotus had founded an independent supremacy in Bactria. His son, of the same name, was succeeded by Euthydemus, against whom, towards the year 200 B.C., Antiochus III. marched, in order to force Bactria to submission. Euthydemus was defeated at the river Areios (p. 10), and fled to Zariaspa. By the surrender of his elephants he obtained an established recognition from Antiochus. Demetrius and Eucratides, the successors of Euthydemus (after 180 B.C.), extended the sphere of their dominion to the east over the land on the Cabul to the Indus. The kingdom of Chandragupta, Vindusara, and Açoka, which, as we know, included the east of Iran, and has left us inscriptions at Peshawur (IV. 525), fell to pieces under Açoka's grandsons. Apollodorus of Artemita told us above that the fertility of the Bactrian soil enabled the Greek rulers to make important conquests (p. 12); he informs us that Eucratides founded the city of Eucratideia in Bactria, and subjugated a thousand cities in India. We may assume that Bactria under these princes was not merely powerful, but prosperous. According to the statement of Justin, a thousand cities were at that time enumerated in Bactria, 41 41 Justin. 41, 4. and we possess satisfactory evidence that these rulers and their courts, and the Greek settlements which Alexander founded in the distant East, were able permanently to establish the style and art of Hellas. The coins of these princes, who are designated in Greek as "kings," "great," "invincible," rival the best work which proceeded from Greek mints. The faces present the heads of the princes, in characteristic and individual portraits; the reverses exhibit Heracles, Athena, Apollo with a crown of rays, the Dioscuri on horseback, lance in hand. But by degrees the national types of the East are again employed on these coins. The reverse presents the galloping horse, the animal of Bactria, the elephant, and the humped ox. 42 42 As was shown in Vol. IV. p. 278, the Vishnu Purana represents the sacrificial horse of Pushpamitra, who sat on the throne of Magadha between 178 and 142 B.C. (Vol. IV. p. 550), to have been carried off by an army of Yavanas on the right bank of the Indus, and then restored. The dominion of the Græco-Bactrian princes in the East existed from 200 to 150 B.C. The head of Demetrius, who first conquered territory in India, and that of some of his descendants, is covered by a helmet adorned with the tusks and trunk of an elephant. Besides the round, numbers of rectangular coins have also been found, from which we can discover the native traditional form of the Bactrian coinage. After the reign of Eucratides these rectangular coins present on one side Greek inscriptions, which are repeated in other characters on the reverse. To the inscriptions of king Açoka at Kapur-i-Giri, and to these coins, together with those of the Græco-Indian kings, and some later coins belonging to the Arsacids and the Indo-Scythian princes, we owe the information that the east of Iran possessed a peculiar alphabet and mode of writing, while the Medes and Persians of the west borrowed their earliest letters from the Assyrio-Babylonian cuneiform writing, and afterwards, from about the fourth century B.C., adopted the cursive character of the Aramæans.

Although, as we may conclude from these indications, the Greek sovereigns of Bactria resolved to pay a certain respect to the civilisation of their subjects, their kingdom was short-lived. The nations of the steppes of the Oxus, themselves under pressure, began to advance to the south (after 160 B.C.); in the west the Parthians rose into power. Mithridates I. of Parthia incorporated Bactria in his kingdom about 140 B.C., and Bactria subsequently became a part of the Parthian empire. Heliocles, the son of Eucratides, was thus limited to the land of the Cabul and Indus, but on the borders of India the power and influence of the Greeks remained unbroken. Greek captains – Menander, and after him Apollodotus, who had previously no doubt been subject to the Bactrians – issued from the southern slope of the Hindu Kush in the last decades of the second century B.C., and conquered the land of the Indus as far as the mouth of the river, and the Panjab. They advanced to the Yamuna, and reduced Surashtra (Guzerat) and Cashmere to dependence. Even at the end of the first century B.C. coins of these princes were current on the coast of Surashtra, and they are still found on the banks of the Yamuna. 43 43 Strabo, p. 516. I need not prove that Ἰωμάνης must be read here for Ἰσάμος, or that Σαραόστου παραλία is Surashtra; cf. Wilson, "Ariana antiq." p. 281. Apollodotus, Apaladata on the Arian legends of his coins, is no doubt the Bhagadatta of the Mahabharata, just as the Dattamitra there mentioned is Demetrius; Vol. IV. p. 80, n . Among the Indians Menander appears in the form Milinda.