The Greeks in Bactria and India c28.47

c28.47

We are therefore compelled—there seems no alternative—to seek an occasion in the reign of Mithridates I which some Sacas, who must be connected with the Saca invaders of India, could have found opportune for establishing an Era. I have given elsewhere (p. 223) the reasons which seem to necessitate a supposition that Mithridates I settled some Saca allies or mercenaries in Sacastene, or that they settled themselves; the process must have been similar to the ‘settlement’ of the Galatae in northern Phrygia by Nicomedes of Bithynia and Mithridates of Pontus,¹ and Mithridates of Parthia may have had as little option in the matter as had his namesake; if there were already some Sacas in Seistan² (on which I express no opinion) that would help to explain their choice of that district. The newcomers need not have been very numerous; Isidore’s Sacastene is not a large province, and the Galatae held up Asia Minor for years with only 20,000 men. The settlement can be roughly dated, by means of the date of Eucratides’ death in 159, to *c.* 155 (p. 223)—a couple of years margin either way. Then the question arises, did these Sacas assert a *de facto* independence from the start, as did the Galatae, or not until Mithridates I died, leaving a minor to succeed him: that is, does the Era date from *c.* 155 or from 138-7? The former date would put the Moga inscription *c.* 77 B.C., the latter would date it 60-59. This latter date might perhaps be fitted in with Telephus; but, though no chronological argument can be drawn (as has sometimes been done) from Maues’ title Great King of Kings, the earlier date is almost certainly correct. For there was one important difference between the settlement of the Galatae and that of Mithridates’ Sacas. The Galatae only got, in Galatia, a poor country; but the Sacas got one of the richest, and safest, districts in Mithridates’ empire. This proves that they virtually settled themselves; had he been able to settle them as subjects, he would have followed the usual course of settling them on a frontier to guard it. They can only therefore have dated their Era from their acquisition of a good new country; they were doubtless independent, or virtually so, till the Suren conquered them for Mithridates II. This does not necessarily mean that they *instituted* their Era *c.* 155; they may have done that much later, just as nobody knows when either the Seleucid or the Arsacid Era was actually instituted.