The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.21

c10.s5.21

In 141 the curtain falls on Greek Bactria, to rise again in 128 upon new peoples and new names; somewhere between these two dates lies the end of the Greek kingdom. The latter date² is the year in which the Chinese Chang-k’ien, general and diplomat, was in Bactria, and it is his Report to his emperor which supplies such knowledge as we have of the country immediately after the conquest. It is our misfortune that that acute observer could not have visited Bactria fifty years earlier; in a small way he resembles Strabo, who also deals with a world—the world of the Hellenistic kingdoms—which had just passed away, but he had not Strabo’s resource of drawing copiously upon his predecessors, for he had none; to China he was the discoverer of a new world. Though this book is meant to be Greek history, it is pertinent to give a few pages to the conquest and the conquerors of Greek Bactria;³ the Greek evidence should help to straighten out the story.