The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.266

v1.c26.266

Regarding the detailed history of the reigns of the two monarchs the records leave us almost entirely in the dark. The little we do learn is from Justin (*loc. cit.*), and it has reference to the struggles that attended the rise of the Parthian kingdom. The nucleus of what was in the fullness of time to become one of the most formidable powers that Asia has ever seen, was among the districts that had been included in the sixteenth satrapy of Darius, a land of mountain and forest, comparing ill in point of fertility with Bactria. Historians are not agreed as to the race to which its population belonged, although their habits and customs would lead one to suspect a strong infusion of an element closely akin to the wild nomads of the steppes. Nor are the current traditions as to the beginnings of the royal house sufficiently consistent to be worthy of much, if any, credence. According to these the first Arsaces, the founder of the dynasty, is sometimes a Parthian, sometimes a Bactrian, sometimes even a descendant of the Achaemenids. One point in which all accounts agree, is that he made his way to the throne by violence. The name of the Seleucid satrap murdered by him and his brother Tiridates, afterwards Arsaces II, is variously given. Arrian (*F.H.G.* III, 587) calls him Pherecles, and Syncellus (*ibid.*) speaks of him as Agathocles, while Justin—who, by the way, knows nothing of the cooperation of Tiridates—refers to him (XLI, 4) as Andragoras. In favour of Justin may perhaps be cited certain gold and silver coins (Pl. II, 15 and 16)¹, whose style is not unsuited to the middle of the third century B.C., and which bear the legend ΑΝΔΡΑΓΟΡΟΥ. They are very rare, almost all of the known specimens being apparently from the Oxus find (see *supra*, p. 390). Their genuineness has sometimes been questioned, but on grounds that seem hardly sufficient; the circumstance that they are struck from dies that have been adjusted with great precision (↑↓), a peculiarity that is characteristic of the region and the period to which they are attributed, is a strong incidental argument in favour of their authenticity.