The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.19

v1.c31.19

The immediate cause of the downfall of Greek rule in Bactria would therefore seem to have been an overwhelming invasion of Çaka hordes who had been driven from their own lands. The native inhabitants of Bactria, the Ta-hia or Dahae, are represented as an unwarlike people living in towns and villages which were governed by their own magistrates. The state of society described is such as prevailed also in India: it is a society made up of local groups self-governed and self-contained. In the case of such communities the military conquest of a country merely determines the landlord to whom the customary dues must be paid. It is probable that for a brief period Çaka warrior chiefs took the place of Eucratides and Heliocles as rulers of the Ta-hia. Such would appear to have been the state of affairs when the Chinese envoy in 126 b.c. visited the Yueh-chi and found them still in the territories to the north of the Oxus from which they had expelled the Çakas. The political conditions then existing were in a transient stage of unstable equilibrium. They were the outcome of a disturbance of peoples which began in far distant China nearly forty years before. But the movement had not yet completed its course: it was resumed in consequence of an attack on the Yueh-chi.