The Greeks in Bactria and India c11.13

c11.13

Unfortunate as were the results of Antiochus’ attack for the future of Greek civilisation in the East, one must in fairness admit that he had plenty of provocation. It may speak well for the Greeks of the Farther East that, both in Bactria and in India, they were never, except in the extreme east of their Indian realm, ousted by the peoples they ruled; but nothing ever prevented Greeks themselves from tearing each other to pieces so long as they had the power, and, as in the West, so in the East, they had fallen victims to themselves before they fell victims to the foreign conqueror. The weakened march state of Bactria itself was destroyed by a sudden blow. But its defence against its own domestic barbarians, the peoples it knew, always held good, like that of Macedonia. The Macedonian defence was broken once for a moment, but by a strange race from the distant North Sea; and when the Bactrian defence failed at the end it was broken by an unknown people from the borders of China, who not only possessed irresistible numbers but had perhaps been rendered desperate by their long failure to find any land where they could settle in peace. Had Fortune allowed Demetrius to consolidate Bactria and Northern India into one empire, it should have been strong enough to withstand even the Yueh-chi; but the lot fell otherwise.