The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.172

c10.s3.172

It has been said of Antiochus that he aimed at the impossible.³ But his plan in Asia was possible enough: had he lived two years longer—he was not bound to calculate upon a premature death—and reached Bactria, there would have been no Parthian empire, Eucratides would not have been killed, and the two would have held Asia in their hands. After all, neither Alexander nor Napoleon did all that they meant to do. But Antiochus failed because he died. Certainly one result of the troubles which followed his untimely death was that the Seleucid empire was never the same again; but he can hardly be held responsible for dying. What he *was* responsible for—and it would seem that it must have happened even had he been completely successful—was a great weakening of the Greek position in the Farther East and the failure of a promising experiment in India.