The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.153

c10.s4.153

The next name in Ptolemy’s list to consider is Daidala (Daedala). There was a district named Daedala in the Rhodian Peraea bordering upon Lycia,⁴ and over against it in Lycia a mountain Daedala;⁵ a curious repetition of this is found in the Paropamisadae, for Curtius gives there a district Daedala,⁶ apparently in or near Bajaur, while Justin, probably from the same source, calls it the Daedalian mountains.⁷ Stephanus says the name in Lycia came from Daedalus the Cretan,⁸ and Strabo says that the people of the near-by Caunus believed that they had originally come from Crete;¹ Stephanus too had heard of Menander’s Daedala in India, which he calls an Indo-Cretan city.² Menander’s Daedala then was a military colony of mercenaries;³ and as Stephanus knows of a settlement of Cretan mercenaries in the Paropamisadae⁴ and as the Cretans at this time supplied more mercenaries than any other Greek people,⁵ it is safest to follow Stephanus and to conclude that Daedala was a settlement of Cretan mercenaries, though Lycians are possible. But it must remain uncertain whether these mercenaries came to Menander from Crete, from Lycia, or from no farther afield than the Paropamisadae (if Curtius’ Daedala really existed, which is none too certain); neither can it be said if Daedala had become a *polis*.