The Greeks in Bactria and India c8.7

c8.7

It is unfortunate that in Britain, and I think everywhere, the story of the Greeks in India has been treated as part of the history of India alone. For in the history of India the episode of Greek rule has no meaning; it is really part of the history of Hellenism, and that is where its meaning resides. It is one of the misfortunes of ancient history that we become hypnotised into writing as though the importance of a thing were somehow proportionate to the amount of information about it which has survived; the papyri, for instance, tend to make the Ptolemies seem more important than the Seleucids. If we can manage to avoid this perversion of thinking, we shall recognise that any history of the Hellenistic states with the Farther East omitted is a sadly mutilated history; for there were not four Hellenistic dynasties—Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids, Attalids—but five, and on any showing the Euthydemids, both in the extent of their rule and in what they tried to do, were vastly more important than the Attalids, the protégés successively of Egypt and of Rome. The Greek empire of Bactria and India was a Hellenistic state, with many of the usual characteristics of such states but with one very important one of its own, and its history was a branch of Seleucid history, just as the Euthydemid dynasty was on the distaff side a branch of the Seleucid line; as a Hellenistic state it must be treated, and I hope that this book may do something towards bringing it back into the sphere to which it belongs.