The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.318

c10.s1.318

The first business of every Greek king of Bactria was to hold the gateway of Iran against the semi-barbarism of the north and north-west, a task they successfully accomplished till the great upheaval of the peoples caused by the migration of the Yueh-chi. The pressure upon them came principally from two quarters, from the north across the Jaxartes and from the north-west up the line of the Oxus. As to the Jaxartes, the Persian government and subsequently Alexander had built and maintained a number of fortified places both to hold the river line at the great southward bend by Chodjend and to protect the Chodjend country from the nomads of the lower Jaxartes steppes to the westward; these the Greek kings of course maintained and perhaps added to, and if, as seems certain enough, Euthydemus ruled Ferghana, the line he had to hold was longer but perhaps easier. Whether under Euthydemus there was much pressure on this frontier cannot be said; it must at first have been a matter of local peoples only, such as those whom Alexander had found there; the movements which finally brought fresh hordes of nomads across the river and ended Greek rule in Bactria belong to a later period (Chap. VII). The real pressure at first must have come from the north-west, where there was no natural barrier like the Jaxartes, the Oxus only providing a roadway; and the frontier on the west and north-west must have been a chain of military colonies and of fortified posts, some of the latter anyhow going back to Persian times.¹ The enemy here was primarily the great Saca confederacy known as Massagetae, and secondarily the Sacaraucae (p. 291); ultimately they were to break through, but this was not yet. It does not appear that the Greek kings ever attempted to subdue the Massagetae and hold Chorasmia and the line of the lower Oxus, as the Parthians were to do for a little while under Mithridates II;² they had the Alexander-tradition firmly in mind and their thoughts of expansion turned in another direction. Also these peoples might supply mercenaries, as the Dahae had done to Alexander and as, farther west, the Galatae were doing to any Greek king who would pay them; indeed, if things were really desperate, the nomads might be used as allies, as Nicomedes and Hierax had used the Galatae, though the danger was great; we shall meet a strange story of this later (p. 342). This was the threat which Euthydemus had used to induce Antiochus III to make peace. Naturally the Massagetae were watching the siege of Bactra from the frontier, in case there might be opportunities, and Euthydemus threatened that, if he were driven to it, he would admit them and destroy Antiochus, even if he destroyed himself in the process.³ Antiochus could not foresee that, when their day did come, the Sacas would kill two Parthian monarchs and all but master Parthia; but he had at this time a sense of what was possible, and he gave way.