The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.46

c10.s2.46

Vishnu was strong there (p. 406); with its famous University, of which the buildings have been excavated,¹ sought by students from many quarters, its merchant guilds who struck their own city coinage,² the Iranian element in its population with their Towers of Silence,³ its balance of religions, its feeling of independence which had led it to withstand Porus and to revolt against the Maurya, it seemed destined to be the capital of the foreign invaders. So Demetrius thought. The city he found is now represented by the latest stratum of ruins on the Bhir mound; he presently built a new city on Sirkap, now buried beneath the remains of the later Parthian city (p. 179). To it he transferred the population of Old Taxila, as Hellenistic kings in the West would transfer the population of some Greek town to one of their new foundations, and the city on Bhir came to an end;⁴ the Taxila henceforth mentioned throughout this book is the city on Sirkap, which will be described later.