The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.232

c10.s1.232

The gold question in Bactria and India is so peculiar and so illuminating for one point in the history of Euthydemus that it merits closer examination. For in the past Bactria had been, in legend and in fact, a golden land; from Bactria the Persian empire had drawn its gold, as is illustrated by the golden Treasure of the Oxus of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.¹ Bactria’s neighbours the Massagetae had also in the fifth century possessed gold in such abundance that they used it to make bits and trappings for their horses,² as the Turdetani in Spain made their horses’ mangers of silver.³ The Bactrian gold supply is epigraphically attested in the inscription already referred to, in which Darius I listed the countries which supplied the various materials for building the Apadāna at Susa; the gold, he says (l. 35), came from Sardis and Bactria, the silver (l. 40) from Egypt. But Egypt has never produced an ounce of silver from one end of its history to the other; it was transit silver, Egypt being the middleman, and Darius’ statement means that the satrap of Egypt sent the silver; where it originated is not said.⁴ In the same way the satraps of Sardis and Bactria sent gold; the gold of the Pactolus in Lydia is well known, but Bactria, like Egypt, was only a middleman.