The Greeks in Bactria and India c11.8

c11.8

But the successes of Euthydemus and his son were bought at a price. Naturally we do not know exactly what the co-operation of Greek and Asiatic meant in their hands, or how far, if at all, they limited their own autocracy by rights conferred upon their native subjects. But dim as is our sight in the historical twilight which is all that has been vouchsafed to us, two things stand out sharply enough: that some Indians saw in Demetrius something resembling the ideal King of Justice of their own traditions, and that many of Demetrius’ Greek subjects were not in sympathy with his policy, just as many of Alexander’s Macedonians had disliked his policy with regard to Persia. The result was seen when Antiochus IV sent his cousin Eucratides to attack Demetrius. Apart from their traditional feeling of loyalty toward the Seleucid, many of the Greeks of Bactria undoubtedly preferred the simple nationalist policy of the hellenising Antiochus to what they must have considered the pro-native policy of Demetrius; Demetrius is not the only king in history who has fallen because his ideas were too advanced for the majority of his subjects to follow them. The most important fact in the history of the Greek East is that something not very unlike the modern struggle between nationalism and co-operation was fought out two thousand years ago under the shadow of the Hindu Kush.