The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.46

c10.s5.46

The flight of the Sai-wang southward (which probably from the lie of the land means south-westward) would take them across the Jaxartes, to Ferghana or Chodjend. But there was no vacant country south of that river for them to occupy; and as I understand that they are never again mentioned by name in Chinese literature³ they must have ceased to exist as a separate horde. Some might have joined a horde called K’ang-kiu, whose grazing grounds were the Tashkent plain;⁴ but those who subsequently went to Ki-pin must have joined the Sacaraucae⁵ (p. 291), who occupied the country about Chodjend and the steppes to the west of it, for it does not appear how otherwise they could have reached India. A horde (or a fraction of a horde) which joined another may sometimes have preserved its separate identity for a considerable time; this supposition is necessitated by (for example) the two components of the Yueh-chi horde (p. 286) and by Ammianus sometimes calling the Alans Massagetae after they had, at two removes, absorbed part of the latter people (p. 307).