The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.267

c10.s2.267

³ Because συνθέμενος ἐπιγαμίαν in Strabo xv, 724 is said of Seleucus, not of Chandragupta, which is conclusive. For the rest, Strabo certainly uses ἐπιγαμία elsewhere in both its meanings (xi, 523 matrimonial alliances; v, 231 *jus connubii*); but there was no *jus connubii* in India (next note) and it certainly means here a matrimonial alliance, as Appian understood the same original to mean (*Syr.* 55, Seleucus κῆδος συνθέτετο). The objection that Seleucus’ only recorded daughter Phila II was not yet born is idle; he could have had daughters by Apama or an earlier wife without our fragmentary sources mentioning them; we know very little about the daughters of *any* Seleucid, and this book alone has rescued from oblivion two Seleucid princesses unknown to the literary record (pp. 73, 196). Besides, it might have been a niece; Antiochus Sidetes on his Parthian expedition did take a niece with him, and Phraates II married her after his death. How scholars like Droysen and Beloch (see Stähelin, *Seleukos I* in PW col. 1216) can have persuaded themselves, against Strabo’s text, that it means that Seleucus married a daughter of Chandragupta I cannot guess; when did a conqueror in the East ever give a daughter to the conquered?