The Greeks in Bactria and India c9.s1.81

c9.s1.81

¹ By Herzfeld: *Arch. Mitt. aus Iran* I pp. 109-10; *Sakastan* pp. 38, 62. Sarakhs is far away on the lower Arius and not in the Parthian satrapy of Hyrcania at all; it was the chief town of Sirakene, Ptol. VI, 9, one of those Parthian satrapies which do not come in Isidore because the main road did not pass through them. The old name of Sarakhs may have been Sirax or Sirak, but it is not Isidore’s Sirok, which was in Parthyene; the same name in two or more places is common enough, and all these names, like the better-known Sirakene in Armenia, must be due to an invasion and settlement of Siracians (on whom see Rostovtzeff, *CAH* XI p. 94), whether before the Greek period or as part of the Saca invasion of 129 B.C. If the Greek spelling of Syrinx as Sirynx be due to the place having been another Siracian settlement, then their invasion (or infiltration) had taken place long before the Saca invasion of 129; P. Kretschmer, *Sirakes* in PW, makes it part of the great invasion of the seventh century B.C.