The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c26.s1.50

c26.s1.50

Much obscurity has been caused by the failure of writers on the subject to recognize the plain truth that, besides some subordinate satraps, there were two main lines of Indo-Parthian princes, one of which ruled in Arachosia and Sīstān, while the other governed the Western Panjāb, or kingdom of Taxila. Maues, as has been seen, became king, perhaps, about 95 B. C., of the latter province, which, in or about 138 B. C., had been annexed to Parthia by Mithradates I. It is probable that the direct administration of the newly conquered province by the government of Ctesiphon lasted only for a few years. The struggle with the nomads, which cost Phraates II and Artabanus their lives, between 130 and 120 B. C., must have caused a relaxation in the grip of the central power on remote dependencies like the Indian borderlands; and it is highly probable that Maues, who may have been a Saka, availed himself of the opportunity thus offered to establish himself upon the Panjāb throne in the enjoyment of practical, if not theoretical, independence.