The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.50

c10.s5.50

The remainder of the Sai-wang horde apparently seized the Greek province of Ferghana (p. 83 and App. 10), their name to Chinese writers becoming merged in that of the province, Ta-yuan. There they set up the Saca, or rather nomad, government which Chang-k’ien found in 128 (see p. 308); they are represented as distinct from the K’ang-kiu but on good terms with them.¹ It was easy at this time to occupy Ferghana: Eucratides had just overthrown the Euthydemid dynasty, he himself with his army was in India, and in 159 he met his death; the government in Bactria, whatever it was—possibly for a time Mithridates—can in the years after 160 have had no troops to spare for the north; in or just after 159 the Sai-wang could have set up their rule in Ferghana with impunity, and Heliocles, preoccupied first with the recovery of Bactria and then with the invasion of India, must have let this outlying province go. It is of course possible that Saca rule in Ferghana was not set up till c. 130; but it is impossible to see what body of Sacas could then have occupied it, while c. 159 it is easy. There may have been Sacas in Ferghana since Darius’ day (p. 475); but if so they had seemingly long ceased to be nomads, and what Chang-k’ien describes is a ruling stratum of nomads imposed upon an agricultural population.²