The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.360

c10.s1.360

The conclusions here come to are not contradicted by the history of art. This book is not concerned with art as such, but some slight indication must be given here of recent developments and their bearing on the general position. Two things, as regards Bactria, have to be distinguished, and the first is the art of the Greeks. The great art of the coins with their wonderful portraiture is not only purely Greek but bears eloquent witness to the vitality of the Graeco-Bactrian State; it shows no trace of deterioration down to the Yueh-chi conquest, when it is suddenly cut off and never reappears, in India or anywhere else; the school of Greek engravers in Bactria was wiped out (p. 301). But it is inconceivable that a man with the gifts of the artist whom I have called *X* should have done nothing in his life but engrave three coin-portraits; there must have been a corresponding school of purely Greek sculpture, of which nothing can ever be known⁶ till northern Afghanistan, and especially Bactra, be excavated (for the bust of Euthydemus was carved in Asia Minor); it cannot be deduced from the Greek pieces found at Taxila (though perhaps the child with its finger to its lips is good enough to have been an importation from Bactria), because the coin-portraiture shows that none of the great Bactrian artists ever reached India; those who did go to that country, whether with Demetrius or later, were the second-rate.