The Greeks in Bactria and India c33.29

c33.29

But there are further considerations. One is the persistent γ in the Tochari name; I have found no suggestion anywhere that γ ever interchanges with χ. Another is the fact that an aspirate may just be introduced where no aspirate is; Attic has a tendency to turn unaspirated tenues into the aspirated form,⁵ and the Koine in turn aspirates a good many words which are not aspirated in Attic.⁶ I have come across two cases,⁷ not in Egypt or Asia Minor and too recent to be cited in any grammar, where a certain κ has just been turned into χ; and there is the well-known instance of the Indian Pātaliputra becoming Παλίβοθρα in all Greek writers.⁸ This is not the only case where the Greeks of the Farther East just inserted an aspirate; the *Sp* in the Iranian name Spalirises (Chap. VIII) is certain from all the Kharoshthi and most of the Greek legends on his coins, but there are coins (see App. 18) on which the Greek legend is spelt Shpalirises (*p* for Sigma). Indeed it must be remembered that in common speech in many languages (and some of the Tochari-forms must come from unlearned traders) the aspirate is an unstable thing; Catullus’ Arrius is own brother to John Leech’s ’Arry. As regards the Greek evidence, then, this cursory examination may suggest that it is difficult to say offhand whether in the second century B.C. there *was* an aspirate in the Tochari name or not; and even if it be supposed that θ or χ or both really belong to the original name, we are faced with a further question: in the period under consideration (second century B.C. to second century A.D.) is it certain that θ φ χ in Greek were aspirated forms at all? The latest authority has pronounced the evidence on this point to be quite indeterminate.¹