The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.134

c10.s2.134

We can now see where we are going and what Demetrius was aiming at. The Mauryan empire proper, north of the line of the Nerbudda and the Vindhya mountains, had pivoted upon three great cities: Pātaliputra the capital and seat of the emperor, Taxila the seat of the viceroy of the North-West, and Ujjain the seat of the viceroy of the West; these two viceroys had usually been princes of the blood, and Asoka himself had been viceroy in Ujjain under his father Bindusāra. Certainly Asoka when king had given the empire a great extension southward;¹ but the new possessions had been lost again after his death, and it must be remembered that Greek ideas of the empire were largely taken from Megasthenes’ account of the empire of Chandragupta, and that to Greeks the Mauryan empire essentially meant Northern India. Now, with Menander at Pātaliputra, Apollodotus at Ujjain, and himself in occupation of Taxila, Demetrius held the three cardinal points of that empire, the three centres of the administration; the occupation of what remained might seem a mere matter of time and detail. One cannot, as will be seen later, call it the ‘conquest’ of the Mauryan empire; rather, Demetrius’ aim was to restore that huge derelict empire, but under Greek rule and with himself on the throne of Asoka. That was his plan, a plan hardly inferior in scope and audacity to Alexander’s plan of conquering the Persian empire. One may suppose that he meant to govern his empire from his new city of Taxila, with Apollodotus and Menander as his viceroys in Ujjain and Pātaliputra, that is, to govern in a direction the reverse of the Mauryas; for from Taxila he could keep in touch with Bactria, which must necessarily have remained the basis of his power.