The Greeks in Bactria and India c14.2

c14.2

The form of name ending in -*ηνη* (or -*ιανη*) which is proper to the Seleucid eparchies has been considered in Chapter 1. But as in Chapter VI I have made use of this form as a test with regard to certain passages in Ptolemy’s account of India, it is necessary to consider the converse question: granted that the -*ηνη* form is the most characteristic form for the names of the Seleucid eparchies and for the satrapies of Seleucid Succession states or of states which were influenced by and copied the Seleucid (or, what comes to the same thing, the Parthian) organisation, do we find, eastward of the Euphrates, -*ηνη* (or -*ιανη*) forms which mean something other than such eparchies or satrapies; or, to apply it to the particular case in question, when we meet Greek -*ηνη* forms in Ptolemy’s (or anyone else’s) description of India, a country which at the period in question (second century B.C.) had never been under Seleucid or Parthian influence, are we justified in treating these names as the names of the provinces of a Greek kingdom? I have tried to collect any seeming exceptions I can find in the relevant Greek literature and must now go through them; I am not of course noticing the mass of such forms in Strabo, Ptolemy, and elsewhere which are obviously either eparchies of a known satrapy or satrapal provinces of a known kingdom. To avoid misconception, I must emphasise once more that I am only here dealing with Asia east of the Euphrates, the new world which the Greeks settled and which never became Roman, though in fact Pontus, Cappadocia, and Armenia Minor exhibit the same phenomena. I am not considering Syria, which is a world by itself,¹ and in particular I am not considering Asia Minor west of the Halys. I do not know what its organisation in this respect was, and no one has worked it out; when Strabo talks of Cyzicene or Amisene I do not know if he means eparchy or city territory; the names might, for all that is yet known, be related to the old Greek city-names in -*ηνη* like Mytilene, Priene, Cebrene. All this has nothing to do with the matter in hand, which is Ptolemy upon India.