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256-142 BC - Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

Diodotos I	256 BC	230 BC
Diodotos II	250 BC	230 BC
Euthydemos I	230 BC	200 BC
Demetrios I	200 BC	190 BC
Euthydemos II	190 BC	185 BC
Agathokles	190 BC	180 BC
Pantaleon	190 BC	185 BC
Apollodotos	180 BC	165 BC
Western Bactria
Eukratides I	170 BC	145 BC
Eukratides II	145 BC	140 BC
Heliokles I	145 BC	130 BC
Antialcidas	130 BC	120 BC
Lysias	130 BC	120 BC
Heliokles II	110 BC	100 BC
Philoxenos	100 BC	95 BC
Amyntas	95 BC	90 BC
Diomedes	95 BC	90 BC
Nikias	90 BC	85 BC
Theophilos	90 BC
Peukolas	90 BC
Archebios	90 BC
Hermaeus	90 BC	70 BC

Bactria was, and indeed still is, a province of great natural wealth, once fertile in all the produce, except olives, valued by civilised men—cattle, corn, and wine, and, moreover, the natural centre-point in which the caravans from China and from India met on their way by the Caspian and Caucasus into Europe. When Darius was defeated, it was the satrap of this province, then Spitamenes of Sogdiana, who took the lead, and the country possessed a wealthy aristocracy dwelling in strong castles, and going out to war with their retainers—an aristocracy proud enough to furnish a suitable queen to the great conqueror himself.

From the time of Alexander the history of Bactria becomes clearer and may be followed with more detail. When he conquered the rest of Iran, Bactria likewise fell before his power, and he made Roxana, daughter of the Bactrian ruler Oxyartes, his wife, 327 BC. On leaving Persia he assigned a strong force of Greeks to occupy Bactria, and it thus became part of the kingdom of the Seleucidai. In the year 323 BC, the great Grecian conqueror died, and then his vast monarchy was divided among his chief military leaders. On the death of Alexander the Great, the vast Macedonian monarchy fell as a spoil to the several army-leaders.

Civil war ensued, and the ever-changing States formed thereby constantly altered their frontiers according to the side on which victory for the time might lie. Alexander's successor in Asia, Seleukos Nikanor, abandoned Alexander's projects respecting Babylon, and built a new capital, which he named Seleukeia. In the course of time, Seleukos ceded the most eastern part of his empire to Candragupta, and a friendly intercourse ensued between the Seleukides and the Indian kings.

At the time when Seleucus Nikanor became supreme, the two Indian sovereigns, Porus and Taxilla, recognised his suzerainty, but after they pased away, chaos reigned in India until one Sandrakott, a simple soldier, but a man of talent, built upon the ruins of the dominions of Porus and of Taxilla a powerful state, with a military organization modelled after the Greek. He too, recognised Seleucus as his suzerain, but Selcucus was slain in the year 281 BC.

About 256 BC, with the revolt of the satrap Diodotus I, a new GraecoBactrian kingdom was established, whose power ultimately extended as far as northern India, although in Iran it had to give place to the Parthian sway. Independently of the Seleukidian power, Grecian influence was growing, for Diodotos, Satrap of Bactria, declared himself in 250 BC independent, and established the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. His example was followed by the satrap of Areia, the next province to the south, and indeed by other satraps, whose exact dominions within Bactria, Sogdiana, and Areia cannot be distinguished. Theodotus I, who ruled also over Sogdiana, shook off the sway of Antiochus II in 254 BC. In 243, his son and successor, Theodotus II, made a treaty of peace and alliance with the Parthian king Arsaces-II, but lost his throne to Euthydemus of Magnesia.

The Selucid king Antiochus III (the Great), who reigned from 224 to 187 BC, wishing to restore the size of Alexander's monarchy, undertook a series of wars, during which he re-conqnered the Greco Bactrian kingdom, and then crossed the Hindu-Kush with the object of invading India. In 221 Antiochus the Great attacked Euthydemus after the Parthian war was ended; but made peace with him, on the Bactrian king's reducing his military establishment by giving up his elephants. A marriage, too, between his son Demetrius and the daughter of Antiochus was agreed upon. Demetrius was king of a part of India, but it is not certain if of Bactria also. Menander succeeded him, and extended his conquests to Serica; but over these territories his sway was transient.

The history of this later GrecoBactrian kingdom has been cleared up in large measure by means of the coins and other antiquities which have been discovered in recent times, especially in Afghanistan. The Greek and later the Prakit devices and inscriptions on these coins give a series of royal names whose succession has been fixed with comparative accuracy. History has left very little information concerning this once powerful kingdom; and it is only by the help of a few coins, laboriously compared with some scant and scattered notices in Oriental literature, that an idea can be formed of it.

This state was ruled by Greeks, with whom the wise foresight of Alexander colonized it, settling them in the cities which he built here to secure the trade of the northern and eastern Oriental world. At its greatest extent, say in 210 BC — it was bounded on the south-east by the most easterly of the five rivers that form the Indus; on the east by Mount Imaus, separating it from Khotan; north by the Jaxartes and Aral; west by Parthia, then a small kingdom on the south-east corner of the Caspian; south and south-east by a curved line from the corner of this kingdom to the junction of the five rivers to form the Indus, separating it from the Seleucide empire.

The continued close connection which has existed between the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, the valley of the Kabul river, and the valley of the Indus, shows that the Hindu-Kush range has not proved a special barrier, nor does this range even now hinder constant communication between Kabul and Afghan-Turkistan.

Demetrius was king of a part of India, but it is not certain if of Bactria also. Demetrius, who was the son of the Greco-Bactrian King Efidemus, made vast conquests in India, of which Strabo speaks. Justinian, too, makes mention of him as "an Indian sovereign." He conquered the country along the lower course of the Indus about the year 195 BC. Eucratidas succeeded in 181; under him, Bactria is said to have acquired its greatest extent. Eucratides, a Greco-Bactrian king, who, according to Justinian, though much harassed by his neighbors, carried out vast conquests in India, for Strabo also speaks of Eucratidas [not Menander] as "the lord of a thousand cities of India" (Book XV., Chap. I § 3.) He penetrated into India as far as the river Jhelum, and on his return from his Indian campaign, he was killed by one of his sons, probably Eucratidas: this person, having obtained the throne, instigated Demetrius II, king of Syria, to attack, in conjunction with himself, the Parthian kingdom, under Arsaces VI. But Arsaces resisted victoriously, and obtained the chief part, of the Bactrian territory. Sogdiana, or Transoxiana, became a part of the Greek state of Bactria, when the rest of that kingdom submitted to Parthia, 142 BC.

Upon this the Bactrian kingdom became, as such, extinct, and Bactria itself, with the other countries on this side the Oxus, became a part of the Parthian empire. The Greco-Bactrian kingdom did not last long. Its influence survived, by introducing Greek thought and Greek civilization, to which the Hindus through the temporary preponderance of Buddhistic doctrines proved themselves rather susceptible. The nicknames Yavanamunda and Kambojamunda, baldheaded Greek and baldheaded Kamboja are explained from the fact that those nations patronised Buddhism and that Buddhist mendicants had their orowns shaven.