The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.60

c10.s3.60

After Daphne Antiochus went to Babylon, and a most important dated inscription,⁸ so far unexplained, gives the needed key. It records a gift made to Antiochus by one Philippus, who may or may not be the Philippus who was Antiochus’ minister ‘for affairs’;¹ he calls Antiochus ‘Saviour of Asia’, and the inscription shows that in August-September 166 Antiochus celebrated Charisteria at Babylon. The political connotations of the word Asia have already been discussed (p. 153); at this time it meant the Seleucid empire. The term Charisteria signified a sacrifice of thanksgiving for something which the celebrant considered a deliverance;² usually it seems to have consisted of a single celebration, but two annual Charisteria are known at Athens, a thanksgiving for Marathon³ and another for the deliverance from the Thirty Tyrants through the return of Thrasybulus and the exiles from Phyle in 403 B.C.⁴ The Charisteria of Antiochus, it may be supposed, were a single celebration, and he must have attached great importance to holding them at his destined capital, or he would never have gone to Babylon in the hot weather; they were obviously a thanksgiving for the ‘saving’ of Asia. But, once again, Antiochus personally had done nothing to ‘save’ Asia; the reference is to the victorious war waged by a general which had been celebrated at Daphne shortly before. To ‘save’ a place was well-known Hellenistic terminology for expelling your opponent and bringing the place over to your own side or under your own power. From what opponent then had Asia, that is, the Seleucid empire, been ‘saved’? Not from Parthia; Parthia had not as yet been touched, and the little state hardly seemed a threat to anybody. Not from barbarians; there had been no barbarian invasion. Only one meaning is possible; the reference is to Demetrius, who had annexed the Seleucid East and built up an empire hardly if at all inferior in extent to the Seleucid. Antiochus then had ‘saved’ Asia—the Seleucid empire—from Demetrius; that was his successful war. But the actual overthrow of Demetrius was the work of Eucratides—that is matter of history; Eucratides therefore was Antiochus’ general, the general who had waged the war celebrated at Daphne. The proof seems as complete as may be, though we shall meet another not less cogent. I must now turn to Eucratides, whose career will fill out the details.