The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.227

c10.s4.227

In spite of the Greek satrapal organisation it is not difficult now to see what kind of an empire Menander’s really was. Asoka’s empire, except for his home country of Magadha, had been a loose collection of vassal kings and ‘free’ peoples under his suzerainty, with a few semi-autonomous² cities like Taxila which were strong enough to be able sometimes to take their own line. The empire of the Seleucids was also said to consist of kings, peoples, and dynasts:³ but the Seleucids had worked hard to modify its Oriental aspect by filling it with Greek settlements. Menander’s empire must in reality have been a collection of vassal states and ‘free’ peoples rather similar to that of Asoka, with some attempt, at any rate in the North, to form settlements. We may suppose that each satrapy contained a small nucleus of Greek officials for purposes of administration and revenue, and that the general of the satrapy, if a Greek, would dispose of a few troops, mercenaries or Indians; there were, we have seen, some military colonies, and this or that strong point would be settled and held by native soldiers from some distant province, like the settlement of the Sibi at Madhyamikā, though Madhyamikā itself had probably been given up. The unifying element must have been similar to that in the Seleucid empire—the king, his mixed army, his Greek (or possibly mixed) bureaucracy; but the bands must of necessity have been looser even than they were in the loosely-knit empire of the Seleucids, and there was no possibility of founding Greek cities on any scale as the Seleucids had done; the only poleis actually certain, apart from the two in the Paropamisadae, are Pushkalāvatī (Peucela) in Gandhāra, Bucephala and Iomousa in the Punjab, Demetrias and Theophila in Sind; Nicaea in the Punjab and Dionysopolis in Gandhāra may be possibilities; east of Bucephala there were only some military colonies. Menander’s system then can have borne little resemblance to the Seleucid system of relying on large bodies of Graeco-Macedonian settlers established in cities and military colonies.