The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.292

v1.c26.292

In speaking of Demetrius, something has already been said of the troubles that beset Eucratides during the earlier portion of his reign. According to Justin (XLI, 6) he had much ado to hold his own, not merely against Demetrius, but also against 'the Sogdiani.' The meaning of the latter reference is obscure. Possibly Sogdiana strove hard to maintain its loyalty to Demetrius rather than submit to the upstart who had presumed to supplant him. More probably the northern tribes took advantage of the absence of Demetrius in India and wrested from Hellenic rule the whole of the country to the north of the Oxus. We find them in full possession of Bactria itself, before many years have elapsed. The Parthians, too, were a grievous thorn in the flesh of Eucratides. They fell upon his flank when his energies were exhausted by the various other wars in which he had been forced to engage, with the result that part of the Bactrian kingdom was permanently absorbed in their empire. We shall have occasion presently to try and measure the extent of this success. Meanwhile it will be convenient to follow Eucratides in his pursuit of Demetrius into India. His victory there was complete in the ancient Indian provinces of the Persian empire. As it is put by Justin (*loc. cit.*), ‘he reduced India’—that is to say, the country of the Indus—‘to subjection.’ Strabo (xv, 686) says he made himself master of ‘a thousand cities.’ The princes of the house of Euthydemus had now to be content with the eastern districts of the Punjab. But Eucratides did not enjoy his triumph long. While he was on the march homewards towards Bactria, where he had founded a great city to which he gave the name of Eucratidia, he was attacked and murdered by his son, whom he had trusted so implicitly that he had made him a colleague in the kingship. The details added by Justin (*loc. cit.*) as to the callous conduct of the murderer in driving his chariot through his father’s blood have a suspicious resemblance to the story Livy (I, 48) tells as to the death of Servius Tullius. It would have been more to the purpose if he had mentioned the parricide’s name. The date of the incident is quite uncertain, but it is usually given as c. 155 B.C.