Greco-Bactrian Kingdom: Encyclopedia - Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrians were a dynasty of Greek kings who controlled Bactria and Sogdiana, an area comprising today's northern Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, the easternmost area of the Hellenistic world, from 250 to 125 BCE. Their expansion into northern India established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 CE.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Independence from the Seleucid Empire 250 BCE

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was founded by the Seleucid military governor of Bactria Diodotus around 250 BCE when he wrestled independence for his territory from the Seleucid Empire.

At about the same time in the West, the Parthian Arsacid Dynasty was rising, therefore cutting the Greco-Bactrians from direct contacts with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a reduced rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed.

Diodotus was succeeded by his son Diodotus II, who allied himself with the Parthian Tiridates in his fight against Seleucus II (Justin l.c.).

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - The Euthydemid dynasty 230 BCE

Euthydemus overthrew Diodotus II around 230 BCE and started his dynasty. Euthydemus's control extended to Sogdiana, reaching and going beyond the city of Alexandria Eschate founded by Alexander the Great in Ferghana.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Conflict with the Seleucid empire and Parthia

Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BCE. Although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius ^[3] and had to retreat. He then succesfully resisted a two-year siege in the fortified city of Bactra, before Antiochus finally decided to recognize the new ruler, and to offer one of his daughters to Euthydemus's son Demetrius around 206 BCE ^[4]. Classical accounts also relate that Euthydemus negotiated peace with Antiochus III by suggesting that he deserved credit for overthrowing the original rebel Diodotus, and that he was protecting Central Asia from nomadic invasions thanks to his defensive efforts:

Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded. In the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria and Traxiane.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Greek culture in Bactria

The Greco-Bactrians were known for their high level of Hellenistic sophistication, and kept regular contact with both the Mediterranean and neighbouring India. They were on friendly terms with India and exchanged ambassadors.

Their cities, such as Ai-Khanoum in northeastern Afghanistan (probably Alexandria on the Oxus) demonstrate a sophisticated Hellenistic urban culture. This site gives a snapshot of Greco-Bactrian culture around 145 BCE, as the city was burnt to the ground around that date during nomadic invasions and never re-settled. Ai-Khanoum "has all the hallmarks of a Hellenistic city, with a Greek theater, gymnasium and some Greek houses with colonnated courtyards" (Boardman). Remains of Classical Corinthian columns were found in excavations of the site, as well as various sculptural fragments. In particular a huge foot fragment in excellent Hellenistic style was recovered, which is estimated to have belonged to a 5–6 meters tall statue.

One of the inscriptions in Greek found at Ai-Khanoum, the Herôon of Kineas, has been dated to 300–250 BC, and describes Delphic precepts:

Some of the Greco-Bactrian coins, and those of their successors the Indo-Greeks, are considered the finest examples of Greek numismatic art with "a nice blend of realism and idealization", including the largest coins to be minted in the Hellenistic world: the largest gold coin was minted by Eucratides (reigned 171–145 BCE), the largest silver coin by the Indo-Greek king Amyntas (reigned c. 95–90 BCE). The portraits "show a degree of individuality never matched by the often bland depictions of their royal contemporaries further West" (Roger Ling, "Greece and the Hellenistic World").

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Geographic expansion

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Contacts with Eastern Central Asia and China

To the north, Euthydemus also ruled Sogdiana and Ferghana, and there are indications that from Alexandria Eschate the Greco-Bactrians may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar and Urumqi in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 220 BCE. The Greek historian Strabo too writes that:

Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been found north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China, and are today on display in the Xinjiang museum at Urumqi (Boardman).

Greek influences on Han art have often been suggested (Hirth, Rostovtzeff). Designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han bronze mirrors, dated between 300-200 BCE ^[5]. There is a possibility that the 210 BCE Terracotta Army of the first great Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, with its colored life-size realism and technical virtuosity, may have been inspired by Greek statuary, as there is no prior evidence of any Chinese realistic life-sized human statues before the reign of Qin. The introduction of China's first round coinage, the banliang, was also ordered by the same emperor. Before uniting China, the Qin were the westernmost people of China, located in Gansu, and were the most likely to receive such influence.

Numismatics also suggest that some technology exchanges may have occurred on these occasions: the Greco-Bactrians were the first in the world to issue cupro-nickel (75/25 ratio) coins ^[6], an alloy technology only known by the Chinese at the time under the name "White copper" (some weapons from the Warring States Period were in copper-nickel alloy ^[7]). The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in particular iron, for trade is attested around that period. Kings Agathocles and Pantaleon made these coin issues around 170 BCE. Copper-nickel would not be used again in coinage until the 19th century.

The presence of Chinese people in India from ancient times is also suggested by the accounts of the "Ciñas" in the Mahabharata and the Manu Smriti.

The Han Dynasty explorer and ambassador Zhang Qian visited Bactria in 126 BCE, and reported the presence of Chinese products in the Bactrian markets:

Upon his return, Zhang Qian informed the Chinese emperor Wu-Ti of the level of sophistication of the urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia, who became interested in developing commercial relationship them:

Numerous Chinese missions were then sent to Central Asia, triggering the development of the Silk Road from the end of the 2nd century BCE.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Contacts with India 250–180

The Indian emperor Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan dynasty, had re-conquered nortwestern India from Alexander the Great around 322 BCE. However, contacts were kept with his Greek neighbours in the Seleucid Empire, Chandragupta received the daughter of the Seleucid king Seleucus I after a peace treaty, therefore probably creating a dynastic alliance, and several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes, resided at the Mauryan court. Subsequently, each Mauryan king had a Greek ambassador at his court.

Chandragupta's grandson Asoka converted to the Buddhist faith and became a great proselytizer in the line of the traditional Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, directing his efforts towards the Indian and the Hellenistic worlds from around 250 BCE. According to the Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, some of them written in Greek, he sent Buddhist emissaries to the Greek lands in Asia and as far as the Mediterranean. The edicts name each of the rulers of the Hellenic world at the time.

Some of the Greek populations that had remained in northwestern India apparently converted to Buddhism:

Furthermore, according to Pali sources, some of Ashoka's emissaries were Greek Buddhist monks, indicating close religious exchanges between the two cultures:

Greco-Bactrians probably received these Buddhist emissaries and somehow tolerated the Buddhist faith, although little proof remains. In the 2nd century CE, the Christian dogmatist Clement of Alexandria recognized the existence of Buddhist Sramanas among the Bactrians ("Bactrians" meaning "Oriental Greeks" in that period), and even their influence on Greek thought:

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Expansion into India after 180 BCE

Main article: Indo-Greek Kingdom

Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, started an invasion of India from 180 BCE, a few years after the Mauryan empire had been overthrown by the Sunga dynasty, under which Buddhism was persecuted. It has been suggested that the invasion of India was intended to show their support for the Mauryan empire, and to protect the Buddhist faith from the religious persecutions of the Sungas.

Demetrius seems to have been as far as the imperial capital Pataliputra in eastern India (today Patna). The invasion was completed by 175 BCE. This established in northern India what is called the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which lasted for almost two centuries until around 10 CE. The Buddhist faith flourished under the Indo-Greek kings, foremost among them Menander I.

It was also a period of great cultural syncretism, exemplified by the development of Greco-Buddhism.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Usurpation of Eucratides

Back in Bactria, Eucratides, either a general of Demetrius or an ally of the Seleucids, managed to overthrow the Euthydemid dynasty and establish his own rule around 170 BCE, probably dethroning Antimachus I and Antimachus II. The Indian branch of the Euthydemids tried to strike back. An Indian king called Demetrius (very likely Demetrius II) is said to have returned to Bactria with 60,000 men to oust the usurper (Justin XLI,6,4), but he apparently was defeated and killed in the encounter.

Eucratides campaigned extensively in northwestern India, possibly as far as the Jhelum River in Punjab, but his dynasty was ultimately repulsed by Menander I, who managed to create a huge unified territory.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Defeat against Parthia

Concurrently, and possibly during one of his Indian campaigns, Eucratides' Bactria was attacked and defeated by the Parthian king Mithridates I, possibly in alliance with partisans of the Euthydemids (Justin, XLI,6,3). In a confused account Justin explains that Eucratides was killed on the field by "his son and joint king", who would be his own son, either Eucratides II or Heliocles I (although there are speculations that it could be his enemy's son Demetrius II). The son drove over Eucratides' bloodied body with his chariot and left him dismembered without a sepulture: "Per sanguinem ejus currum egit et corpus abici insepultum jussit" (Justin XLI,6,5).

Following his victory, Mithridates I gained Bactria's territory west of the Arius, the regions of Tapuria and Traxane. Heliocles I ended up ruling in what territory remained. The defeat, both in the west and the east, may have left Bactria very weakened and open to the nomadic invasions from the north that would spell its end.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Nomadic invasions

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - First Yueh-Chih expansion c. 162 BCE

According to the Han Chronicles, following a crushing defeat in 162 BCE by the Xiongnu (Huns), the nomadic tribes of the Yueh-Chih fled from the Tarim Basin towards the west, crossed the neighbouring urban civilization of the "Ta-Yuan" (probably the Greek possessions in Ferghana), and re-settled north of the Oxus in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in the middle of Greco-Bactrian territory. The Ta-Yuan remained a healthy and powerful urban civilization which had numerous contacts and exchanges with China from 130 BCE.

It is not clear whether the incursion of the Yueh-Chih consisted in an invasion of the Greco-Bactrian territory, or possibly a resettlement in front of the Xiongnu attacks from the north, reminescent of the Roman practice of the foederati. They apparently occupied the Greco-Bactrian territory north of the Oxus during the reign of Eucratides, who was busy fighting in India against the Indo-Greeks. Later events seem to indicate a rather forcible occupation: the great Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum was burnt to the ground around 140 BCE, never to be rebuilt again (although this may have been the feat of Scythians fleeing ahead of the Yueh-Chih), and when Zhang Qian visited the Yueh-Chih in 126 BCE, trying to obtain their alliance to fight the Xiong-Nu, he explained that the Yuezhi were settled north of the Oxus but also held under their sway the territory south of Oxus, which makes up the remaining of Bactria.

According to Zhang Qian, the Yueh-Chih represented a considerable force of between 100,000 and 200,000 mounted archer warriors ^[9], with customs identical to those of the Xiongnu, which would probably have easily defeated Greco-Bactrian forces (in 208 BCE when the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I confronted the invasion of the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great, he commanded 10,000 horsemen ^[10]). Zhang Qian actually visited Bactria (named Daxia in Chinese) in 126 BCE, and portrays a country which was totally demoralized and whose political system had vanished, although its urban infrastructure remained:

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Second Yueh-Chih expansion c. 120 BCE

The Yueh-Chih further expanded southward into Bactria around 120 BCE, apparently further pushed out by invasions from the northern Wu-Sun. It seems they also pushed Scythian tribes before them, which continued to India, where they came to be identified as Indo-Scythians.

The invasion is also described in western Classical sources from the 1st century BCE, with different names than those used by the Chinese:

Around that time the king Heliocles abandoned Bactria and moved his capital to the Kabul valley, from where he ruled his Indian holdings. He is technically the last Greco-Bactrian king, although several of his descendants, moving beyond the Hindu Kush, would form the western part of the Indo-Greek kingdom. The last of these kings, Hermaeus, would rule until around 70 BCE, when the Yuezhi again invaded his territory in the Paropamisadae.

Overall, the Yuezhi remained in Bactria for more than a century. They became Hellenized to some degree, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek alphabet to write their Iranian language, and by numerous remaining coins, minted in the style of the Greco-Bactrian kings, with the text in Greek.

Around 12 BCE the Yuezhi were then to move futher to northern India where they established the Kushan Empire.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Main Greco-Bactrian kings and territories

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - House of Diodotus

Territories of Bactria, Sogdiana, Ferghana, Arachosia:

• Diodotos I (reigned c. 250-240 BCE) Coins
• Diodotus II (reigned c. 240-230 BCE) Son of Diodotus I Coins

Many of the dates, territories, and relationships between Greco-Bactrian kings are tentative and essentially based on numismatic analysis and a few Classical sources. The following list of kings, dates and territories after the reign of Demetrius is derived from the latest and most extensive analysis on the subject, by Osmund Bopearachchi ("Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné", 1991).

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - House of Euthydemus

Territories of Bactria, Sogdiana, Ferghana, Arachosia:

• Euthydemus I (reigned c. 223- c.200 BCE) Overthrew Diodotus II. Coins

The descendants of the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus invaded northern India around 190 BCE. Their dynasty was probably thrown out of Bactria after 170 BC by the new king Eucratides, but remained in the Indian domains of the empire at least until the 150s BCE.

• Demetrius I (reigned c. 200–180 BCE) Son of Euthydemus I. Greco-Bactrian king, and conqueror of India. Coins

The territory won by Demetrius was separated between western and eastern parts, ruled by several sub-kings and successor kings:

Territory of Bactria

• Euthydemus II (c 180 BCE), probably a son of Demetrius. Coins
• Antimachus I (possibly 180-165 BCE), brother of Demetrius. Defeated by usurper Eucratides. Coins

Territories of Paropamisadae, Arachosia, Gandhara, Punjab

• Pantaleon (190s or 180s BCE) Possibly another brother and co-ruler of Demetrius I.
• Agathocles (c180-170 BCE) Yet another brother? Coins
• Apollodotus I (reigned c. 175–160 BCE) A fourth brother?
• Antimachus II Nikephoros (160-155 BCE)
• Demetrius II (155-150 BCE) Coins
• Menander (reigned c. 150–135 BCE). Legendary for the size of his Kingdom, and his support of the Buddhist faith. It is unclear whether he was related to the other kings, and thus if the dynasty survived further.Coins
• Followed by Indo-Greek kings in northern India.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - House of Eucratides

Territory of Bactria and Sogdiana

• Eucratides I 170-c.145 BCE Coins
• Plato co-regent c.166 BCE
• Eucratides II 145-140 BCE Coins
• Heliocles (r.c. 145-130 BCE).

Heliocles, the last Greek king of Bactria, was invaded by the nomadic tribes of the Yueh-Chih from the North. Descendants of Eucratides may have ruled on in the Indo-Greek kingdom.

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - Notes

1. ^  "A bronze figurine of a kneeling warrior, not Greek work, but wearing a version of the Greek Phrygian helmet.. From a burial, said to be of the 4th century BCE, just north of the Tien Shan range". Ürümqi Xinjiang Museum. (Boardman "The diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity")
2. ^ "Red earthenware bowl, decorated with a slip and inlaid with glass paste. Eastern Zhou period, 4th-3rd century BC. This bowl was probably intended to copy a more precious and possibly foreign vessel in bronze or even silver. Glass was little used in China. Its popularity at the end of the Eastern Zhou period was probably due to foreign influence." British Museum notice to the bowl (2005)
3. ^  Polybius 10.49, Battle of the Arius
4. ^  Polybius 11.34 Siege of Bactra
5. ^  "The things which China received from the Graeco-Iranian world- the pomegranate and other "Chang-Kien" plants, the heavy equipment of the cataphract, the traces of Greeks influence on Han art (such as) the famous white bronze mirror of the Han period with Graeco-Bactrian designs (...) in the Victoria and Albert Museum" (Tarn, "The Greeks in Bactria and India", p363-364)
6. ^  Copper-Nickel coinage in Greco-Bactria.
7. ^  Ancient Chinese weapons A halberd of copper-nickel alloy, from the Warring States Period.
8. ^  Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies" Book I, Chapter XV
9. ^  "They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu. They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors... The Yuezhi originally lived in the area between the Qilian or Heavenly mountains and Dunhuang, but after they were defeated by the Xiongnu they moved far away to the west, beyond Dayuan, where they attacked and conquered the people of Daxia (Bactria) and set up the court of their king on the northern bank of the Gui (Oxus) river" ("Records of the Great Historian", Sima Qian, trans. Burton Watson, p234)
10. ^  Polybius 10.49, Battle of the Arius
11. ^  Strabo 11-8-1 on the nomadic invasions of Bactria

See also

• Greco-Buddhism
• Seleucid Empire
• Indo-Greek Kingdom
• Yuezhi
• Indo-Scythians
• Indo-Parthian Kingdom

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Greco-Bactrian Kingdom", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki