Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c9.6

c9.6

After their advent, it became the capital of eastern Irān, separated from the rest of the Persian Empire by the vast Karmanian Desert, and never perfectly subdued. It became a fixed policy on the part of the Persian kings to leave the satrapy of Baktria in a state of practical independence, as it formed an outpost against the ever-growing menace of the Scythian hordes beyond the Oxus. Baktra was famous in Persian literature as the centre of the worship of Anahid, probably a Scythian goddess originally, who had there a great temple. Baktra fell, like the rest of Persia, before the invincible arms of Alexander, and formed a natural base for his invasion of India. Of the far-reaching projects of Alexander, his colonies in the Indus valley, and their fate, we have already spoken. Meanwhile Baktria, which had been made an important Macedonian settlement, became a part of the Syrian Empire, until its ruler, a certain Diodotus, took advantage of the incessant wars which distracted the king's attention to declare himself an independent sovereign. Parthia quickly followed suit. This must have been about 250 B.C., or a little later. Baktria finally extorted her independence in 208 B.C., when Antiochus III, after an unsuccessful siege of the capital, acknowledged the claims of Euthydemus, the Baktrian ruler, and gave him a Seleukid princess in marriage.