The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.108

c10.s4.108

It will have been noticed that for the titles of the Greek officials we have largely to go to inscriptions of the Saca period. The Sacas in fact seem to have been no less imitative than their Parthian kinsfolk; though they came up the Indus instead of down, they followed where the Greeks had led, kept the Greek provinces, the Greek system of officials, the Greek coin-names (p. 85 n. 8), the Macedonian month-names (p. 359), and coined in the Greek mints with Greek moneyers.¹ This is not without its importance. The Saca satraps in Mathurā and Surastrene confirm the fact that Greeks had ruled there before them; and their western Great Satraps who, starting from the coastal provinces, at one time conquered and held Ujjain,² furnish an additional reason for supposing that Apollodotus, after securing the coastal districts, may have occupied that city, if only for a short time. Though the Saca Great Satraps became practically independent, the Saca system in theory was that of a king ruling in the North-West, with his seat apparently at Taxila, and two Great Satraps (viceroys), one in Mathurā for the east and one in Surastrene for the west; the resemblance of this arrangement to Demetrius' scheme of government as deduced in Chapter IV is patent, and I venture to think furnishes valuable confirmation of the correctness of that deduction.