The Greeks in Bactria and India c23.20

c23.20

We now have to ask why the Chorasmii migrated from south to north against the general direction of all known Iranian migrations, and why they, a people living in northern Iran, had a king with a Persian (south Iranian) name. The hypothesis put forward in Chapter VII pp. 292 *sqq.* (to which I must refer) regarding the Pasiani-Parsii of Apollodorus will answer these questions: the Parsii (Parsua) were Persians who had stayed behind in Kwarizm when the rest of the Parsua-Persians went south, and the Chorasmii must have been a section or tribe of the Parsii. That is why the Chorasmii went *north* to Kwarizm; they had once migrated from it to the south and were now returning to their own people. That is why their chief had a Persian name; like the Parsii, they must have spoken some form of Persian. That is why they were in the Massagetae confederacy; the Parsii were members (p. 469). That is why their name died out in Greek writers; they were included in the Parsii. Though the Greeks had never had a name for the country of the Chorasmii, the Persians had; and that name, as the Mihr Yast shows, followed the Chorasmii to Kwarizm. I believe that my hypothesis covers all the facts at present known.