The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.260

v1.c26.260

If the witness of the coins is an inarticulate one, its cumulative effect is nevertheless impressive. It proves that there was a busy life throbbing on both sides of the Indian frontier during the forty or fifty years about which history is silent, that merchants were constantly coming and going, buying and selling. When the silence is at length broken, it is by the confused echo of an occurrence that was fraught with momentous consequences to India’s immediate future. The birth of the new kingdom of Bactria was an event of first-rate political importance. Bactria was the rich country between the Hindu Kush and the Oxus, corresponding in large measure to Northern Afghānistān. Beyond it, between the Oxus and the Jaxartes (Syr Daria), lay Sogdiāna (Bukhāra). The two provinces had cost Alexander no small effort to subdue. Partly on this account, and partly because of their natural wealth, he had planted them thickly with Greek colonies. Probably Seleucus, who experienced at least equal difficulty in getting his sovereignty acknowledged, had to encounter the determined resistance of colonists as well as of natives. In the end, as we know, he triumphed. During the rest of his reign, as well as throughout that of his successor, Bactria and Sogdiāna remained quiescent; the policy of stationing a viceroy at Seleucia was evidently justified by success. Under Antiochus II they shook themselves entirely free. Our chief authority for what happened is Justin. After speaking of the revolt of Parthia, he proceeds (XLI, 4): 'At the same time Diodotus, governor of the thousand cities of Bactria, rebelled and had himself proclaimed king.' In most texts the name of the leader of the movement is wrongly given as 'Theodotus.' The mistake, which goes back to the manuscripts, can be readily accounted for. The chronology is much more troublesome, since the several events by which Justin seeks to date the Parthian outbreak are spread over a period of not less than ten years. In the face of so much inconsistency we may be content with the broad conclusion that the formal accession of Diodotus took place about 250 B.C., at a time when Antiochus was not in a position to put an effective veto on the proceeding. An examination of the numismatic material may enable us to go a little further.