The Greeks in Bactria and India c21.28

c21.28

Ki-pin was originally Kophen-Kabul.³ The name Ki-pin is unknown to Chang-k’ien and also to Ssu-ma Ch’ien, who is supposed to have finished the Shi-ki about 99 B.C. or somewhat later⁴ (Chap. CXXIII, which alone concerns us, contains information of the year 101); the name had therefore not reached China by *c.* 100 B.C. It first occurs in the Ch’ien-han-shu, written by Pan-ku late in the first century A.D. That work states that the first relations of China with Ki-pin (i.e. China’s first attempt to reach any land south of the Hindu Kush) began in the reign of the Emperor Wu-ti,⁵ who died in 87 B.C.; Kabul therefore was in Saca hands before that date, and the natural supposition is that the Sacas took it when the kingdom of Antialcidas, who must have been a king of some power, broke up on his death (p. 315); incidentally this furnishes another reason for supposing that he was not alive