The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.80

c10.s5.80

It has, however, not been noticed that the Hellenistic world knew a people called Arsi, even if Central Asia did not. The name occurs in a very curious list of peoples in Pliny. In chapter 16 (18) of book VI (46 sqq.) Pliny describes the lands from Hyrcania to Bactria; he gives first Hyrcania, then Margiane, then ‘Caucasus’, which he describes as extending from Margiane to Bactria, inhabited by the Mardi (of the Elburz) and some unknown peoples; beyond (ultra) comes the list in question (48); then a city in Aria; then the Derbices (a Massagetae clan) on the Oxus, and some unknown names; finally Bactria. His own ideas of this part of the world were therefore very hazy; but he thought that he was going eastward, and by ultra he meant east of Margiane and ‘Caucasus’, though we should really have to translate it ‘somewhere in the East’. For the list which is ultra is not one of his usual strings of unknown names, but is a refuge for a number of well-known peoples from all over Asia whose names were in his note-books but whom he did not know where to place—the Matiani from Armenia, the Cadusii from Gilan, the Chorasmii from the Aral,¹ the Gandari from India (Gandhāra), the Sarangae from Seistan,² the Paricani from Ferghana or Gedrosia,³ and the Arsi from—where? The name proves nothing; but it suggests that he had got the native name of the Asii, and, not knowing where to place them, put them in his ‘refuge’ list, just as Ptolemy got the name Tochari in connection with Bactria and, not knowing what to do with them, made them a Bactrian tribe.⁴