The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.298

v1.c26.298

The portentous growth of this semi-barbarian power could not but have the most serious effect on the development of Hellenic civilisation in Central Asia. Parthia now lay like a great wedge between the Bactrian Greeks and their kinsmen beyond the Euphrates. Intercommunication had become difficult, reunion impossible. More than one of the successors of Antiochus Epiphanes—notably Demetrius II (146–140) and Antiochus VII (138–129)—flung themselves against the rock, only to be broken. And it is not without significance that, if we may trust Josephus (*Ant. Jud.* XIII, 5, 11 [185]), the enterprise of Demetrius was undertaken in response to repeated requests from 'Greeks and Macedonians.' This should, perhaps, be read in the light of the hint given by Justin (XXXVI, 1), when he includes the Bactrians among the allies who lent Demetrius their assistance in his attempt to break down the domination of the Arsacidae. It was all in vain. The Seleucid kings were hopelessly cut off from what had been in early days one of the fairest provinces of their empire. On the other side of the impenetrable barrier, Eucratides and his fellow-countrymen, hemmed in by Mithradates on the west and exposed on the north to ever-increasing pressure from the wandering tribes whom they vaguely designated 'Scythians,' were being steadily driven south-eastwards into the plains of India. Even there, they were not to be safe either from Scythians or from Parthians. That, however, is for a future chapter to show. Meanwhile it remains to summarise the little that is known as to the final relinquishment of Bactria by the Greeks.