SCYTHIAN CONQUEST OF BACTRIA

[1Sidenote: [177-130 B.C.]]

2The complete annihilation of the Macedonian Empire in Iran was closely followed by the destruction of Greek independence in eastern Iran. The last mention of independent Bactria is in 140 B.C.; no king of Bactria and Sogdiana is known from coins after the parricide Heliocles. Classical writers give only two laconic accounts of the catastrophe. Strabo says that the nomadic peoples of the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacaraucæ, dwellers in the land of the Sacæ, beyond the Jaxartes, opposite to the Sacæ and Sogdians, came and took Bactria from the Greeks. Trogus names the Scythian peoples Saraucæ and Asiani. Fortunately the lively interest taken by the Chinese in the movements of the nomads of central Asia enables us to fill up this meagre notice from the report of the Chinese agent in Bactria in 128 B.C., as recorded a little later by the oldest Chinese historian, and from other notices collected by the Chinese after the opening of the regular caravan route with the West, about 115 B.C., and embodied in their second oldest history.

3According to these sources the Yue-chi, a nomad people akin to the Tibetans, lived aforetime between Tun-hoang (Sha-cheu) and the Kilien-shan Mountains, and about 177 B.C. were subjugated, like all their neighbours, by the Turkish Hiung-nu. Between 167 and 161 B.C. they renewed the struggle without success; Lao-shang, the great khan of the Hiung-nu, slew their king Chang-lun, and made a drinking-cup of his skull, and the great mass of the vanquished people (the great Yue-chi) left their homes and moved westward, and occupied the land on Lake Issyk-kul, driving before them another nomad race, the Sse. The Sse took the road by Utch and Kashgar, ultimately reaching and subduing the kingdom of Kipin (the Kabul valley), while their old seats were occupied by the great Yue-chi, till they in turn were soon attacked by the Usun, who lived west of the Hiung-nu, and forced to move further west (160 or 159 B.C.). In 159 B.C. they moved straight on Sogdiana, reaching that land just at the time when internal wars were undermining the might of Eucratides. The conquest, however, may have been gradual, since Bactria is still named as independent in 140 B.C.

4[Sidenote: [130-128 B.C.]]

5Phraates II, who succeeded his father in 138 B.C. and continued his work, wresting Margiana from the Scythians of Bactria in an expedition commemorated on extant coins, had also to meet the last and most formidable attempt to restore the sovereignty of the Seleucids. Antiochus VII, one of the ablest kings of his race, marched eastward at the head of a force of eighty thousand combatants, swollen by camp-followers to a total of three hundred thousand.

6Many of the small princes, on whom the hand of Parthia lay heavy, joined him as they had joined his brother; the enemy was smitten on the great Zab, and in two other battles; Babylon and then Ecbatana opened their gates to the conqueror; and the subject nations rose against the Parthians, who, when Antiochus took up his winter quarters in Media, were again confined to their ancient limits. When the snows began to melt, an embassy from Phraates appeared to ask for peace; but the terms demanded by Antiochus (the liberation of Demetrius, the surrender of all conquests, and the payment of tribute for the old Parthian country) were such as could not be accepted without another appeal to the fortunes of war.

7Antiochus was met by the Parthian with a superior force of 120,000 men; he refused the advice of his officers to fall back to the neighbouring mountains, and accepted battle on a field too narrow for the evolution of his troops. The Syriac soldiers, enervated by luxury, were readier to imitate the flight of Athenæus than the valour of his master; the whole host was involved in the rout and annihilated. Antiochus himself escaped wounded from the fray, and cast himself from a rock that he might not be taken alive. This catastrophe (February, 129 B.C.) freed the Parthians forever from danger from Syria.