The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.182

c10.s1.182

There was a good deal of Greek settlement in the country, and there was one city of considerable importance, the double city Alexandria-Kapisa,³ capital of the Paropamisadae and gateway of India, which stood at the ‘τρίοδος from Bactra’, the point where the three routes over the Hindu Kush (p. 139) from Bactria met; roughly speaking, the τρίοδος was about the junction of the Panjshir and Ghorband rivers. Alexander had founded Alexandria of the Caucasus, the ‘Queen of the Mountains’ of the Alexander-Romance, on the west side of the united Panjshir-Ghorband river near their confluence in what was afterwards Opiane, facing the old native town of Kapisa on the east side in what was afterwards Kapisene. Alexandria was the Greek city, and must have had a substantial Greek population, but the chief god of the combined city, as the coins show, was the elephant-god of Kapisa who lived on Mount Pilusāra and was graecised as Zeus (pp. 138, 213). The two towns must have formed one city, but their political relationship cannot be guessed. The Hellenistic world was familiar with double cities, like Demetrias-Pagasae,¹ but it is hardly possible that Kapisa should have been a deme of Alexandria as Pagasae was of Demetrias; it may have ranked in Greek eyes as its ‘village’, but we really know no more how the native city was part of Alexandria than we do how Babylonian Opis was part of Seleuceia on the Tigris. But if a modern theory be correct,² there was a close parallel to Alexandria-Kapisa in Seleuceia-Ctesiphon (Old Ctesiphon), which was also one city though divided by the Tigris, and which may have been copied from the older foundation. Native Ctesiphon must have received some Greek settlers, and, though at first a ‘village’, perhaps ultimately became, or called itself, a *polis*.³ There is nothing to show that Kapisa ever became a separate *polis*; but as it was the capital of Kapisene there must have been some Greek settlement there. It would be natural to suppose that the palace and government buildings, and also the mint, were in the Greek city; but though Alexandria had doubtless been the satrapal seat, it does not follow that it was the seat of the Euthydemid sub-kings who from time to time governed the Paropamisadae. Given the Euthydemid native policy, which we shall come to, there are many reasons why these sub-kings might have preferred to live in the native city: Demetrius, we shall see, built what was virtually an Indian city to be his capital, and Menander, who carried on the Euthydemid tradition, took for his capital the Indian Sāgala and not the Greek Bucephala; and apart from policy the same motives of convenience may have come into play as those which led the later Parthian kings to make Ctesiphon and not Seleuceia their capital. Towards the close of Greek rule Alexandria and Kapisa, again like Seleuceia and Ctesiphon, were not always, it seems, under the same government; and there must have been a branch of the mint in both towns, normally using the same types, but each able on occasion to function independently. If we could distinguish the two mints, which at present seems impossible, it would be a great help towards reconstructing the story.