The Greeks in Bactria and India c9.s1.131

c9.s1.131

Besides cities definitely founded as *poleis*, and military colonies located at some village, there was a third type of settlement, apparently employed where a large Oriental town was to be hellenised. An inscription shows that about the Christian Era there were Greek cleruchs at Susa,¹ though the town was a Greek *polis*. What must have happened, therefore, was that a Greek military colony had been planted in Susa, with control of the citadel; ultimately the colony grew, or was enlarged by some king, sufficiently for Susa to be turned into a Greek *polis*, but the cleruchies remained, the point being that the cleruchs, though now citizens of a *polis*, would still be liable to be called up for military service.² The rule then was, once a cleruch always a cleruch, or better perhaps, once a *cleros* always a *cleros*, the obligation to serve running with the land;³ and that meant that in every city which had grown out of a military colony—and they were certainly the majority—there was a body of men who had to serve in the army when required. This will partly answer the question whether a Seleucid king could call out the citizens of the new cities. It has sometimes been assumed that he could, but there is no direct evidence either way;⁴ it can now be seen that he could at any rate call out *some* men in the *majority* of the cities, the men who represented the original cleruchs and were in possession of their allotments. It throws no light on the general question whether the king could call out the citizens of any new city; it is hard to believe that at cities like Seleuceia or Antioch the capital he could do so without the city's consent.⁵ But it will explain both the new cities and the enlarged phalanx of Antiochus IV (pp. 186 sq.).