The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.213

c10.s3.213

It was Mithridates’ subsequent attack upon Eucratides’ kingdom of Bactria in 159 which gave Demetrius II his opportunity; like Diodotus II before him, he allied himself with Bactria’s secular enemy, and Mithridates crossed the Arius. It was Mithridates’ attack which recalled Eucratides from India. He may have hurried back with only part of his army;¹ in any case the allies met him and defeated and killed him, and Demetrius II in his hatred refused burial to the corpse. For a little while Mithridates was the real power in Bactria; Justin implies as much, and it has been deduced from some of his coins² that at some period he was in possession of Bactria or anyhow of part of it, and no other time is possible; Justin too calls the Parthians the weaker,¹ which means that it must have been prior to the full establishment of Mithridates’ rule in his empire. Beside the coins, confirmation of Mithridates’ rule in Bactria may perhaps be found in a town ‘Surogana of Phraates’ which Ptolemy gives in Bactria near the Oxus;² there seems no other time when a Bactrian town could have received a Parthian nickname. Doubtless ‘Trogus’ source’ made the whole thing clear.