The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.76

c10.s2.76

Our two primary Greek sources, taken together, ascribe the conquest of Northern India to three men, Demetrius, Apollodotus, and Menander. At first sight indeed it looks as if Apollodorus ascribed the conquest to Demetrius and Menander,⁷ 'Trogus' source' to Apollodotus and Menander;⁸ but these brief notices in a fragment of Apollodorus and in Trogus’ prologue to a chapter which Justin did not excerpt are inclusive, not exclusive; they mean, not that Apollodorus excluded Apollodotus or ‘Trogus’ source’ Demetrius, but that these were the three men who between them carried the conquest through. As however the secondary sources, Strabo and Trogus, while one selected Demetrius for mention and the other Apollodotus, both name Menander, and as there were certainly two lines of advance, we are justified in taking it to mean that one line of advance was Menander’s and that the other was shared by Demetrius and Apollodotus; it will appear that the evidence agrees with this.