Into the Land of Bones by Holt Frank L.; Green Peter;

Author:Holt, Frank L.; Green, Peter;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2005-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Legacy

LOST AND FOUND

In the historical rather than hypothetical year 287 B.C.E., Alexander the Great was thirty-six years gone and a new generation stood ready to rule the various fragments of his empire. In Bactria, Antiochus, the son of Seleucus and Apama, served his parents’ interests by rebuilding and resettling the region as viceroy, from about 295 to 281.1 The death of Seleucus then inaugurated a twenty-year reign, during which King Antiochus I never returned to his mother’s Afghan homeland. Nor apparently did his successor, King Antiochus II (261–246), his son King Seleucus II (246–225), or his son King Seleucus III (225–223). These monarchs governed the so-called Seleucid realm from their base in Syria, relying heavily upon outlying satraps as the Achaemenids and Alexander had done. We know that the Seleucids kept a satrap on station in Bactria, because a Babylonian clay tablet refers to such an official (though, unfortunately, not by name) in about 275 B.C.E.2 Otherwise, the same spotlight that followed Alexander also focused on his royal successors, leaving us once more in the dark about people, places, and events elsewhere. Bactria therefore slipped back into the shadows at the edge of the ancient Greek world, waiting more than half a century for the spotlight of history to swing that way again. When it did, a fresh band of rebels found themselves face to face with another great king.

Not until the reign of Antiochus (III) the Great (223–187 B.C.E.) did a Seleucid ruler return in force to the region. A lot had apparently changed in the East, because Antiochus III invaded Bactria in order to reclaim it from renegades. Between 212 and 205, a century after Seleucus’s initial conquests there, Antiochus III fought a famous campaign chronicled by the historian Polybius.3 The troublemakers were Greek settlers who had thrown off their allegiance to the Seleucid dynasty and created local kings of their own. Reprising the familiar roles of Bessus, Athenodorus, Biton, and Philon, a satrap named Diodotus and his son, Diodotus II, seized power in Bactria between 250 and 225, only to be overthrown in turn by another Greek settler, named Euthydemus. It was against this “King Euthydemus I” that Antiochus marched with his mighty army, intending to punish this latest warlord in the land of Afghanistan.

We know almost nothing about the rebel Euthydemus except that his family had originally come from Asia Minor (modern Turkey). What qualified him to usurp power in Bactria, besides the killing of Diodotus’s family, we cannot say. No doubt the bottom line was his ability to command, coupled with a fierce, independent, fighting spirit among his followers. Like Bessus and others, Euthydemus had little chance of defeating the massive army coming after him, but he could count on his cavalry to do some damage while he waited out the worst of the invasion. Time always took the side of the Bactrian insurgents, even now that the battle pitted Greek against Greek.

Learning of Antiochus’s approach, Euthydemus defended the western frontiers of Bactria

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