The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.137

c10.s5.137

As a place has to be found for the Parsii in the Bactrian kingdom, and as the Yueh-chi and the Sacaraucae between them account for Bactria proper, southern Sogdiana, and Merv, the only possible locality for the Parsii is farther to the west; their first conquest must have been the one-time Bactrian satrapies west of the Arius, Tapuria and Traxiane,¹ that is, a large part of what had once been the kingdom of Antimachus, assuming that Merv, from its geographical position, must have fallen to the Sacaraucae from Bokhara. This would explain why Apollodorus named the Parsii among the conquerors of the Bactrian kingdom while ‘Trogus’ source’ seemingly did not; Tapuria and Traxiane had long been Bactrian but were no longer so at the date of the Yueh-chi conquest, having been taken from Eucratides by Mithridates I (p. 219), and so it was possible for two well-informed writers to take different views about them; ‘Trogus’ source’ must have reckoned the Parsii among the invaders of Parthia.