The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.170

c10.s1.170

This finishes the outlying provinces of the Bactrian realm; but before coming to Bactria itself something must be said about the extremely important country which under the Persians and Alexander had been the satrapy of the Paropamisadae,⁵ though it may not have been acquired till after Euthydemus’ death. Certainly it lay on the Indian side of the Hindu Kush; but at this time it belonged very definitely to the Iranian and not to the Indian system, which I understand accords with the physical nature of the country. This satrapy had once extended to the Indus,¹ but in the second century B.C., as doubtless since Alexander’s time, it only reached from the Hindu Kush to the Kunar river, comprising the country which was to be one of the Greek strongholds for a century after the loss of Bactria itself—the valleys of the Panjshir and Ghorband rivers under the Hindu Kush, some part of Kafiristan, and also Laghman, Kabulistan, and the country about the Kabul (Kophen) river to the frontier town towards Gandhāra, Ptolemy’s Nagara-Dionysopolis, represented to-day by Jalalabad. (See Map 3.)