The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.97

c10.s4.97

Of the nine province-names east of the Paropamisadae thus recovered, six—Surastrene, Patalene, Prasiane, Souastene, Goruaia (Goryene), and Kulindrene—have names formed in the usual fashion of Seleucid eparchies, as have the four provinces known in the Paropamisadae (pp. 96 *sq.*); and the other three—Abiria, Kaspeiria, Peucelaïtis—have names of types regularly found among the provinces of Seleucid Succession states, probably also, in their time, Seleucid eparchies. That the Indian conquests therefore were organised in imitation of the Seleucid system, more or less, is obvious; but it is also obvious that these great provinces were not eparchies, that is, subdivisions of satrapies, but were full satrapies, with governors responsible only to the king. The Greek kings of Bactria had already turned the eparchies of Bactria-Sogdiana into satrapies of the Bactrian kingdom (p. 113), and to Greeks from Bactria, like the Euthydemids, it would be the natural thing to give eparchy names to the new satrapies they formed, just as was subsequently done by every Succession state; in both respects Bactria provided the model which Parthia and every other Succession state was ultimately to copy. But in one way these Indian satrapies were a new departure. The Achaemenid satrapies had often been too large to be properly controlled from the centre of the kingdom, and there are indications that Alexander had had some idea of breaking them up.² This was not actually done; but the Seleucids had subdivided these satrapies into eparchies, and it was the eparchies, not the satrapies, which speaking generally survived to be the basis of the organisation of Asia when the Seleucid realm broke up. But in India we meet the great satrapies again without the threefold Seleucid subdivision, though the population was probably denser than the Iranian. It looks like a retrograde step; but I do not think that is the explanation. As the organisation of the Seleucid empire was necessarily, from its size, looser than that of Ptolemaic Egypt, so the Greek organisation of India was looser again than that of the Seleucids; and the reason, apart from the lack of sufficient Greeks, must be sought in the retention in large measure of the existing native organisations (p. 259). In both empires the satrapies increased in size as the distance from the centre increased; a Seleucid satrapy in western Asia Minor was a more compact affair than Media or Bactria-Sogdiana, and the Greek satrapies in Gandhāra were of more manageable size than Surastrene. A modern parallel can be seen in the great size of the Highland counties of Scotland as compared to the Lowland.