The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.84

c10.s2.84

Demetrius himself can have gone no farther. Like the Antigonids, the Euthydemids were tied to their northern frontier; as Macedonia was the shield of Greece against the barbarism of the Balkans, so Bactria was the shield of Iran against the nomads who, as Euthydemus had told Antiochus III, were perpetually threatening her; and who were one day to overwhelm her; no Bactrian king, for his own safety, dare neglect this responsibility. Demetrius, even though he had left a young son to guard Bactria, had taken some risk in going himself to Sind. He had done what Alexander had done; he must now have handed over the command of the advance southward to Apollodotus and returned to Taxila. Apollodotus, coming from the Arachosian Demetrias, may have joined him on his way down the Indus, or may have been annexing eastern Gedrosia, which was seemingly governed from Sind (p. 94).