The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.110

c10.s1.110

One result of this conquest of Euthydemus, wherever it extended to, was that nickel, which was not isolated in Europe till 1751, began to appear in Bactria. The Chinese used several alloys in which nickel was combined with other metals; and since chemical analysis has shown that the composition of the Bactrian ‘nickel’ coins is almost identical with that of the alloy known to the Chinese as ‘white copper’¹ there can be no doubt that the Bactrian nickel came from China, whether it came as an alloy or otherwise. But Euthydemus himself did not coin nickel; and as all the nickel coins known were struck by sub-kings of his son Demetrius—Euthydemus II, Pantaleon, and Agathocles—it seems that the penetration of Chinese Turkestan must be placed towards the very end of Euthydemus’ reign. Whether he was seeking touch with China, ruled since 201 by the enterprising Han dynasty, cannot be said.² There was certainly no *direct* trade with China during the Greek period, for through caravans from China to Iran only started in 106 B.C. as a consequence of Chang-k’ien’s missions;³ such exports from China as reached Greek Bactria were passed along from one people to another, as they always had been; in this way came the nickel, and in this way the bamboos and cloth from Szechuan which so astonished Chang-k’ien when he saw them in Bactria.⁴ But when in 128 B.C. Chang-k’ien first reached Ferghana it is recorded that the people there were overjoyed, because ‘they had tried in vain to communicate with China’;⁵ presumably therefore attempts to open up through communication had been made from the Greek side, though it was the Chinese who finally succeeded in doing it.