The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.225

c10.s6.225

whatever of the Paropamisadae the Parsii of Kabul ruled; consequently his general description in the Ch'ien-han-shu of Ki-pin as the Saca realm refers to a time later than 49 B.C., and as his history ends with A.D. 24 the time referred to is that of the Azes dynasty; Maues is too early. But side by side with Ki-pin Pan-ku describes another kingdom, O-ik-san-li¹ (pp. 14, 204 n. 1), which was bounded on the east by (the Saca kingdom of) Ki-pin, on the north by (the Kushan realm of) Bactria, and on the west by Li-kan (Media) and Tao-ki (Babylonia), and was therefore the Suren's kingdom of Seistan, whatever it exactly comprised besides Seistan proper. It was suggested long ago that O-ik-san-li was Alexandria,² and that seems now certain;³ but it has not been asked where an Alexandria could be found in Seistan. One can now see that it was the official name of Prophthasia, Alexander's capital of Seistan (pp. 14, 49), which has perished in the Greek tradition;⁴ the Chinese named the country from its capital. The point is that Pan-ku knew that under the Azes dynasty the Saca realm (Ki-pin) was independent of the Parthian Suren in Seistan (O-ik-san-li), just as I have worked it out for Vonones' successor; this independence ended in A.D. 19, when the Suren Gondophares again brought Ki-pin under Parthian rule.