The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.120

c10.s5.120

Next to be considered are the Sacarauli or Saraucae, names which undoubtedly represent the Sacaraucae (Saka Rawaka). These were the Sacas para Sugdam (‘beyond Sogd’) of the trilingual gold tablet of Darius I,¹ that is, the Sacas with pointed caps and the Amyrgian Sacas (if they were not identical) of the Naks-i-Rustam list (see on this App. 10); indeed the names Saka Rawaka and Saka Haumavarga have been connected.² In Darius’ day these Sacas, who were his subjects, lived ‘beyond Sogd’ (southern Sogdiana) in the country to the south of and along the Jaxartes, whatever its extent; Ptolemy correctly gives the original seat of the Sacaraucae as south of the Jaxartes,³ but in the second century B.C. they may have been a confederacy of the steppe peoples westward of Chodjend. The Sacaraucae had long been known to the Greek world. They had furnished 1000 mailed horsemen to the army of Darius III at Gaugamela,⁴ and Alexander had recruited some of them, as he did Bactrians and Sogdians, to fill up his depleted cavalry prior to his invasion of India.⁵ Two modern views, one that they were the Sai-wang⁶ of the Chinese, the other that they were the K’ang-kiu,⁷ have found much acceptance, and both views contain elements of truth, though not in that absolute form (pp. 278, 307); but for the moment the Sacaraucae must be treated by themselves. As the Yueh-chi crossed the Jaxartes westward of Ferghana they must have fallen on them; the Sacaraucae went, or were driven, southward to Bokhara; the Yueh-chi took the direct way towards Bactria by Samarcand; and the K’ang-kiu of Tashkent, crossing or driven across the river (as we have seen), occupied the grazing grounds of the Sacaraucae, the Yueh-chi having passed on. The natural road across the Oxus from Bokhara has at all times led to Merv,⁸ and while the Yueh-chi conquered Bactria the Sacaraucae must have taken Merv.⁹ Bokhara and Merv were their share of the conquest of the Bactrian kingdom, and from Merv they played their part in the great invasion of Parthia in 129 (in which they and the Massagetae were undoubtedly the chief actors), following the road Merv-Herat-Seistan.¹ It has already been seen (p. 278) that they had absorbed a Sai-wang element; but at this time they were a separate horde from the K'ang-kiu,² who were to absorb some of them later (p. 307).