The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.15

c10.s5.15

As Menander’s death occurred between 150 and 145, Heliocles’ war with Strato probably takes us a good deal of the way to 141, when for the last time the Bactrian kingdom is mentioned in literature. While Heliocles was waging civil war, Mithridates I of Parthia had acquired and was consolidating a very considerable empire, embracing most of Iran (except Bactria) from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. Late in 142 he made himself master of Babylonia,¹ and in 141 the Seleucid Demetrius II attempted to form a coalition against Parthia to recover that country, his principal ally being ‘the Bactrians’, which presumably means Heliocles.² It is possible that Demetrius II of Syria still claimed to be Heliocles’ overlord (p. 206); but if he did it was a claim which had long ceased to have any meaning, like *Fid. Def.* on the British coinage. What he and Heliocles were really attempting was to carry out the plan of Antiochus IV and Eucratides and crush Parthia by a combined attack on two fronts; but what might once have been a simple matter had become impossible, for Parthia was now far too strong and vital to be overthrown by kingdoms past their prime. Mithridates allowed Demetrius II to defeat his generals and recover Babylonia while he himself met Heliocles’ invasion of Parthia proper; he was in ‘Hyrcania’ in December 141 and mastered the situation there quickly enough to allow him to return to Babylonia and defeat and capture Demetrius late in 140 or early in 139. How serious Heliocles’ defeat may have been cannot be said, but it may be assumed that it did not do Bactria any good.