CHAPTER TWO: EARLY MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

Having laid out the parameters of our subject area, in this case the Greco-Bactrian

kingdom and its geographic and ethnographic boundaries, one can now turn to its

analysis and treatment by modern authors. Modern histories intimate that the history of

Greco-Bactria truly began with Tarn, but such claims oftentimes ignore the great works

of the preceding centuries. Prior to W. W. Tarn and his work The Greeks in Bactria and

India, one can loosely divide the corpus of scholarly works into two broad categories.

On the one hand, there are the scholars who have privileged the numismatic evidence,

preferring to focus upon the many coins minted by the Greco-Bactrian kings. Meanwhile,

the fact that much of the archaeological evidence, with the noticeable exception of the

“Indo-Greek” levels of Taxila,1 used by later scholars was not uncovered until the early

twentieth century, led to what might be considered a more literature-based approach by

historians prior to Tarn. For the sake of brevity, while highlighting the major scholars

whose works gave birth to each field, this paper will focus upon two major works of the

nineteenth century. In the case of numismatics such a canonical text can be found in the

work of Christian Lassen of Bonn, written in 1838.2 In the case of histories based largely

upon literature, we shall focus upon the work of H. G. Rawlinson already mentioned to

1
Taxila, from the Sanskrit term Takśaşila, is an archaeological site in the Punjab
province of modern Pakistan. While Tarn argues that Taxila was the capital of Demetrius
I (c. 200-180 BCE) in his imaginative rendering of the later Euthydemid dynasty (Tarn
1938: 134), it is more likely that the Indo-Greek occupation dates to around the turn of
the first century BCE.
2
In the case of this paper, his text, Points in the History of the Greek, and Indo-Scythian
Kings in Bactria, Cabul, and India, as illustrated by deciphering the ancient legends on
their Coins, Bonn (1838) is cited as found in the excellent translation provided by
Edward Roeer (Roeer 1972).

1
some extent in the introduction.3 These works, while separated by a gulf both

chronologically and perceptively, demonstrate the commonly held beliefs concerning

Greeks in Bactria, ranging from their natural superiority to their inevitable decline, which

would shape the debate among modern scholars for centuries to come.

It would be remiss to suggest that following the works of the geographers and

historians of the late Roman period, Greco-Bactria and its history fell into complete

obscurity. Memories of the Yavanas remained through Sanskrit works maintained and

disseminated long after the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdom had disappeared,

including the Milinda Panha, a Buddhist dialogue whose earliest surviving copy dates to

1453.4 Furthermore, the memory of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the Western world,

at least as it literally remained from the works of Justin, was strong enough that

Boccaccio used the desecration of the body of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides in his

De Casibus Illustrium Virorum.5 However, these kings were little more than legends

until Theophilus Bayer, a professor at the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, thanks to

the discovery of a silver tetradrachm bearing the name of King Eucratides by a certain

Count Jacob Bruce,6 published in 1735 his Historia Regni Graecorum Bactriani.7 While

the text is notable for being the first numismatic text to definitively attach one of the

kings mentioned in the classical sources to material evidence, his text was also of central

importance in laying out the preliminary genealogy of Greco-Bactrian kings which would

inform those who followed in Bayer’s footsteps. For the remainder of the century several

3
Rawlinson 1912.
4
Horner 1964: i.
5
Bivar 1950: 7.
6
Holt 2005: 129.
7
Bayer 1738: intro.

2
minor finds expanded the numismatic evidence, but with the coming of the nineteenth

century much changed. The century brought with it the “Great Game” between Russia

and Britain for control of the territories of central Asia which stood between their

imperialist holdings. As is so often the case, the military of a nation was followed by

those with scholarly interests, and, as Frank Holt describes in Into the Land of Bones:

Alexander the Great in Afghanistan, the list of seven Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek

kings who could be identified by the classical sources expanded to exceed forty-five.8

But the proliferation of numismatic works cannot simply be attributed to the new wealth

of information; for indeed it is of little wonder that those scholars of the imperialistic

West would find a certain attraction in what could be seen as a Hellenic colonial

experiment.

It is within this context that one can understand Christian Lassen’s work. While

his work mainly concerns itself with the translation and attribution of the many Greek

and Indo-Scythian coins, both his introduction and appendixes are telling of the

assumptions which would come to typify modern Greco-Bactrian scholarship. On the

one hand, there is the assumption of Greco-Macedonian superiority, in that the Bactrian

“oriental” had no part to play in the kingdom established by Diodotus. Throughout the

work, concepts such as “Greek spirit” and “Greek character”9 are juxtaposed with the

Oriental and all the unsaid implications relating to such a term. Indeed, while Lassen

may grant due respect to the Indus cultures, when considering the Greco-Bactrian

kingdom mentions of the native inhabitants are few and far between. In his introduction,

he allows for the briefest of descriptions, writing, “the Bactrian was, as an inhabitant of

8
Holt 2005: 138.
9
Roeer 1972: 2.

3
the highland of Iran, far other than the Oriental of Syria, Egypt, or Asia Minor, and he

was, even among the tribes of Iran, of a peculiar stamp.”10 And indeed, the extent of this

peculiarity is simply the relative purity of Zoroaster’s doctrine in the land surrounding

Bactra. The strong presence of the Bactrian elite in both noble and military circles during

the Greco-Bactrian period is apparent from even the most general of readings as

evidenced in the introduction. Neither does Lassen concern himself with Spitamenes’

revolt, nor does he even once consider the influence of the Bactrian peoples upon their

foreign occupiers. However, while the Greco-Macedonian elite might have been the sole

power in their realm, within the introduction to his work one encounters perhaps one of

the most enduring perceptions in Bactrian scholarship. Lassen constructs a narrative of

the Greco-Bactrian kingdom being a doomed experiment, “for, as the Greek character, at

such a distance from the reviving influence of its home, could not manifest itself in these

remotest regions with the same degree of vigor as in the more western spheres of its

activity, so it was her more early overthrown.”11 This assertion, briefly disputed by Tarn

before his own theories were lampooned by scholars, has continued to be influential in

contemporary works whereas the racial assumptions have largely been abandoned. The

central logic of this assertion is that, (a) Bactria was largely isolated, either by sheer

distance or Parthian imposition, from the Mediterranean world, and because of this (b)

the “pure” Greek nature of the ruling class slowly became diluted with Oriental

influences, leading to (c) the natural conquest of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom by barbaric

peoples. While these two theories would become more fully expressed in the works of

10
Ibid.
11
Ibid: 3.

4
later authors, already in 1835 the preconceptions which this paper will attempt to dispute

had come into form.

While Lassen’s assertions appeared to bear a great influence upon later authors, it

is interesting to study in detail one of his hypothesis which was not nearly as lasting, but

is indeed more telling of how the two previously mentioned theories could reinforce one

another. Lassen places the conquest of Bactria during the reign of Mithridates II of

Parthia (123-88 BCE), going directly against the classical sources12 by claiming that it

was the Parthians, rather than any Sacae tribe, who conquered the Greco-Bactrian

kingdom. When speaking of later events, Lassen writes how, “it is certain, that

Mithridates the Great, had before taken possession of the Bactrian empire and governed it

till his death.”13 He defends this hypothesis by pointing to how ancient commentators

claim that Parthia was initially weaker than the Greeks in Bactria, but over the course of

time the Greco-Bactrian kingdom became weaker upon its own accord. It was this

natural decay which, to Lassen, allowed for Bactria’s conquest by Mithridates. This

assertion is further developed according to what appears to be a valuation of the Parthian

over the Scythian. Whereas the Bactrians and Parthians were inferior, these, “Scythians

could not conquer it [Bactria] during the reign of Mithridates, and when they took

possession of Bactria, the country was no longer under the dominion of the Greeks.”14 It

would appear then that even with the natural decay of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom,

Lassen believed it was only the noble Parthian, rather than the barbaric Sacae, who could

deal the kingdom its deathblow. While this theory did not get taken up by later scholars,

12
Strabo, 11.8.1.
13
Roeer 1972: 158.
14
Ibid: 162.

5
it is still a telling reminder of the subtle influences which racial biases can have upon a

scholarly work.

Having examined a text from what could be considered the numismatic canon;

one must now consider if such assumptions as described above found their way into the

literature-oriented history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest

attempts by modern authors to elucidate the history of Greco-Bactria can be recognized

in the text published by Thomas Maurice in 1802 entitled The Modern History of

Hindoostan, comprehending that of the Greek Empire of Bactria, and other Great Asiatic

Kingdoms bordering on its Western Frontier. His seminal work, which followed only

four years after the initial work by Bayer, is notable for its place as the first of such texts,

but has been largely by later authors.15 Over the following century, authors such as

Horace Hayman Wilson puzzled over the evidence provided by the limited resources

already described in the ancient literary sources. Without the benefit of modern

archaeological finds, innovations and new hypotheses were limited to the “discovery” of

a new Indian or Chinese source, or the utilizing of the conclusions made by scholars of

Numismatics.

Perhaps because of the familiarity of scholars with the available corpus of

information, one finds in H. G. Rawlinson’s Bactria: The History of a Forgotten Empire

a far greater willingness to insert personal opinion throughout the entire text whereas in

Lassen’s work much of the hypothesizing and characterization was limited to the

introduction and appendix. It is in the Rawlinson’s work that one encounters the idea of

15
Rawlinson, in the introduction to the work treated in this paper (Rawlinson 1912: xx),
contrasts Maurice’s work with the, “first really scientific contribution to the history of
this part of the world” which would follow in the following decades of the nineteenth
century.

6
Indo-Iranian superiority previously discussed in this paper. Whereas in the discussion of

the nature of the Bactrian ethnic group in this paper’s introduction looked to the passages

of Herodotus as an indicator of some form of stratification in the Bactrian-Sogdinian

population, Rawlinson takes the same passage to indicate two separate ethnic groups, one

being the ruler of the other. In particular, he hypothesizes that the mass of the peasantry

were in fact Scythian, and, “we find confirmation for this theory in what is told us about

the rude Bactrian infantry [in Herodotus], armed with ‘Medic turbans, bows of Bactrian

cane, and short spears’…these are obviously not the picked regiments left behind with

Mardonius on account of their efficiency.”16 The picked regiments here are the cavalry,

which to Rawlinson composed an imperialistic elite of Indo-Iranians who were naturally

superior because of their Aryan bloodline which in turn associated them with the superior

Indo-European peoples of the West. To this Scythian population Rawlinson in turn

associates all the “disagreeable” qualities encountered by Alexander III in his conquest of

Bactria, such as the practice of allowing dogs to devourer those already dead and the

alive yet feeble.17 In order for what has been said not to be considered a manipulation of

quotes or unfair treatment of Rawlinson’s work, it would be best to allow the scholar’s

own words to summarize the Indo-Iranian racial theory. He says of the Iranians of

Bactria,

“There dwelt, a proud and powerful aristocracy, mostly in their acropolis-like strongholds,
to which they retired when hard pressed, and from which their chivalry descended to
chastise the marauders. We may imagine that they ruled in a similar style to the Norman
barons in England, keeping in subjection a numerous helot population by virtue of their

16
Rawlinson 1912: 14.
17
Strabo, 11.11.3. For an alternate theory attributing the devouring of the dead by dogs
to all inhabitants of Bactria because of the tenants of Zoroastrianism, Frank Holt’s
Thundering Zeus provides a lengthy and sufficient explanation.

7
 superior organization and intelligence; such, indeed, was the state of most countries in the
18
early days of their invasion by the Aryan-speaking peoples.”

While there was doubtlessly some form of a predominantly Iranian aristocracy as

evidenced by the names and practices as described by the ancient sources, it is quite

difficult to imagine the scenario he presents. Indeed, the comparison to the structure of

Norman-Saxon culture appears to be an inception entirely on the part of the author.

However, while Rawlinson goes to great lengths to romanticize the Indo-Iranian

aristocracy, just as in the case of Lassen the native inhabitants are subordinated to the

superiority of the Greco-Macedonian invaders. This ranking is explained by a common

nineteenth century preconception, that, “the hardy Persian mountaineers of two centuries

before had become as luxurious and enervated as the alien nations they had displaced.”19

While the Bactrian Iranians, according to Rawlinson, did not become as weak due to the

constant warfare necessary of the region, they seemed to be just as susceptible to the

effects of sedentary life first theorized by Ibn Khaldun and incorporated into the

sociological theories of the West.20 This natural superiority of the Greeks is confirmed

not only through the weakening of the native aristocracy but also through the elevation of

the Greco-Macedonian conquerors, as Rawlinson notes how, “the magnificent coinage of

the Bactrian Empire shows that the Greek conquerors must have been a people of high

culture, and not the small settlement of semi-civilized veterans they are sometimes

18
Rawlinson 1912: 25.
19
Ibid: 34.
20
Ibn Khaldun developed the dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as
the concept of a "generation," and the inevitable loss of power that occurs when nomadic
warriors conquer a city-based culture. This concept became conical in the early stages of
modern sociological theory (Rosenthal 1958).

8
represented as being.”21 Beyond revealing a certain current of contempt for the

Macedonian regulars and Greek mercenaries, this passage demonstrates a similar belief in

the superiority of Greek culture in line with that seen in the numismatic texts.

That is not to say that Rawlinson’s text should be discarded as the ramblings of a

Phil-Hellenic bigot. In many cases, the ideas which he conveys have informed modern

scholarship in a largely beneficial manner. Whereas Lassen barely registered the role of

the native inhabitants in the success of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, even in his racially

underscored analysis Rawlinson has laid the foundation for theories interpreting a greater

role of the Bactrian people in the affairs of their own kingdom. As an example one may

look to how he describes, after the revolts of the garrisons following Alexander III’s

death, “the remaining Greeks appeared to have intermarried with the Iranian populace,

and to have settled down peacefully under the rule of the Greek satrap.”22 Just as

discussed in the introduction, this is interpreted as a stabilizing force, without any

immediate concern of the diluting of the Greco- Macedonian aristocracy. That said, this

openness has its limits. Rawlinson does not appear to be coy or mince his words when,

in reference to Parthia, he says, “the title ‘Phil-Hellen’ assumed by the later Parthian

kings is merely an attempt to repel the taunt of ‘barbarianism’ leveled at the race by its

more cultured neighbors.”23 All of this racial hierarchy imposed upon the subject cannot

simply be described away as remnants of the racial mind-set of the classical authors.

Rather, if one looks one can see the ranking of the Westerner and Oriental so

21
Rawlinson 1912: xxi.
22
Ibid: 54.
23
Ibid: 57.

9
characteristic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century informing the

interpretation of Greco-Bactria.

It is surprising with all of these exhortations of Greek cultural superiority that

Rawlinson’s work would subscribe to a theory of a slow and inevitable decline in respect

to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. As his eloquence and eye for romantic language has

already been duly noted, let us see his acceptance in his own words of the ‘doomed

experiment’ narrative, specifically in the surprise he shows concerning the set of pedigree

coins minted by Agathocles,

“With Agathocles we get numismatic evidence of a rather startling quality, in the shape of a
magnificent series of medals which that monarch struck, apparently on his accession. Northing is
more remarkable than the manner in which the Greek spirit flashes out in all sorts of unexpected
ways in sculptures and coins of these scanty remnants of the great invasion…A petty Yavana Raja,
with little, probably, of the Greek blood he boasted in his veins, and perhaps but little
acquaintance with the tongue of which he is so proud, can strike medals which have a Hellenic
grace which would not shame the best traditions of Greek art, and which, with a curious pride of
race, assert the striker’s kinship with the heroic founders of the Bactrian Kingdom, and the
24
Seleucid monarch who was glad to be their friend and ally.”

Agathocles, who ruled c. 185 BCE, and who was eventually overthrown by Eucratides,

was to Rawlinson already a, “petty Yavana Raja,” and his ability to create something of

high aesthetic quality in a Greek style is seen as an exception. The kingdom of Greco-

Bactria had not fallen yet, and indeed other authors25 have argued that in the kingdom,

while wracked by a civil war, the Greco-Macedonian aristocracy still inhabited Bactria in

force; their sizable population reflected in the coin’s apparent Hellenic target audience.

Regardless of the legitimacy of Rawlinson’s contention, the fact remains that his work

continued the tradition constructing a tragic narrative for Greco-Bactria as a doomed

experiment.

24
Ibid: 97-98.
25
Tarn goes into great detail concerning the conflict between Agathocles and Eucratides,
and, unlike his other theories of dynastic succession, this particular theory has been
supported by authors such as Andrea Stewart (Stewart 1994: 326.)

10
 Before moving onto the next major period of scholarship characterized by W. W.

Tarn and the utopia which he saw expressed in Greco-Bactria, it would be appropriate to

consider how more recent scholarship has addressed, and largely dismissed the racial-bias

inherent in the earlier works of Greco-Bactrian scholarship. Perhaps one of the most

convincing ways in which this preconception towards Hellenic superiority has been

isolated from the primary sources is in recent analyses which suggest that the Greeks

themselves did not necessarily consider themselves to be inherently superior to the

peoples who were conquered in the campaigns of Alexander III. Isocrates, who was

famous for his advocacy of a Pan-Hellenic movement against the Persians, is often

considered to be an example of the ‘typical’ view of Hellenic racial superiority. And yet,

recent scholarship, as embodied by Michael Flower, instead argue that, “Isocrates, for his

part, believed that Greeks were culturally superior to non-Greeks, but he based that

superiority not on nature but on education and form of government.”26 Hence, even the

most vociferous of classical Phil-Hellenists appeared to have little notion for any inherent

superiority derived from a racial basis. Additionally, in apposition to how Alexander

III’s actions of political interaction may be considered to be unique, Flower points to how

Alexander’s actions were, “precisely the policy of Agesilaus [the Spartan King]27, who

not only tried to make an alliance with Pharnabazus, but even offered to increase the

number of his subjects.”28 In this example one can discern that Alexander’s marriage to a

native princess and support of native satraps followed an earlier model. Regardless of

26
Flower 1992: 124.
27
Agesilaus II was a king of Sparta, of the Eurypontid dynasty, who ruled from c. 400
BCE to 360 BCE. In 396 BCE he crossed into Asia and spent until 394 BCE ravaging
the satrapies of Lydia and Phrygia. This campaign was filled with numerous negotiations
and treaties between the Greek king and local satrapies.
28
Flower 1992: 122.

11
what Rawlinson may have believed, Alexander’s victory was based largely upon close

interaction with the native populace rather than a result of Hellenic superiority; and was

likely recognized as such in his own time. These points made, it is important not to

suggest that there was not a strong belief in Hellenic superiority in classical times.29

However, there is still clear evidence that much of the beliefs of Hellenic racial-

superiority were imposed, or at the very least magnified, by early modern scholarship.

Beyond this point, one would be little surprised to discover that recent scholarship

has largely dismissed the conclusions made by scholars such as Rawlinson based upon

the racial bias. Perhaps one of the contentions which has been argued against most

effectively is the racial categorization of the various peoples who inhabited Bactria

during the period of Greek rule. Whereas Rawlinson is quite willing to see a polar

opposition between the rude nomadic peoples and the sedentary peoples of Bactria,

Sherwin-White, citing the works of Lattimore, typifies the modern perspective in saying

that, “it must be remembered that the line between nomads and sedentary peoples is not a

socio-cultural caesura.”30 While peoples may indeed be categorized along ethnic lines to

a certain degree, it is a gross generalization to suggest that all the Sacae must have been

nomadic, or that the ‘Indo-Iranian’ Bactrians composed only an elite which retained a

superior position in a manner similar to a caste system prior to the arrival of the Greco-

Macedonians. Considering these Greco-Macedonians, one must note that not all of more

recent scholarship has seen the relationship of Greek and native as a symbiotic rather than

colonial relationship. Indeed, C.B. Welles, writing much later in 1950, directly makes

29
Aristotle’s assertion in Book I of the Poetics that barbarians should be considered
“naturally slaves” comes to mind.
30
Sherwin-White 1993: 103.

12
the comparison, asking, “what right have we to assume that the Greeks in Bactria were

anything more than a very small group ruling by force of tradition and their own abilities

among Iranian barons and native peasantry, comparable to some modern English

rajahs…”31 Beyond retaining a perception of a tripartite division between Greco-

Macedonian ruler, Iranian aristocracy, and a separate native population, this assertion is

troubling in sustaining the claim that, as in other colonial empires, the ruling class was

almost segregated and yet manage to maintain its rule. If one refers back to the

introduction, it is clear that this paper argues against such an assertion, as the evidence

suggests that instead the Bactrian and Sacae components of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom

established a symbiotic relationship with the ruling Greco-Macedonians. Considering

again the recent work From Sardis to Samarkhand, by Sherwin-White, as in the

introduction, the racial bias and, “the idea of the segregation of colonial Greeks, on the

model of the British empire, can be seen to be in part myth.”32 As a token of proof,

Sherwin-White goes further in the analysis of the use of native troops by the Greco-

Bactrian kings than was initially done earlier in this paper. While simply their willing

service to the Greco-Macedonian elite was highlighted, she goes one step further, taking

the use of native troops to suggest that, “in Bactria, as elsewhere in the Seleucid empire,

space was also found for the land-holdings and oikoi of the [native] cavalry.”33 Hence, it

would appear that in apposition to the colonialist perspective, more recent scholarship

sees within the primary evidence a far greater role of the native population in the upper

echelons of Greco-Bactrian society.

31
Welles 1950.
32
Sherwin-White 1993: 91.
33
Ibid: 112.

13
 As a final note before moving onto the next section, it is quite important to see

that the evidence provided by the excavations at Ai Khanoum also questions the cultural

superiority of the Greeks. Architectural remains from the temples and colonnades found

at this Greco-Bactrian site suggest that native styles influenced the Greco-Macedonian

colonists just as much as Greek style influenced the native populace. 34 Achaemenid

styles can be found upon columns that are yet mounted with Corinthian capitals. These

all occur at a date well before the “corruption” of the Greeks claimed by Rawlinson,

meaning that even his much coveted Hellenes found a great deal worthwhile in the

culture of the conquered population. While certain authors may have retained a slight

degree of the theories influenced by the racial-bias of the early modern scholars, more

recent interpretations of the classical authors and new-found evidence has allowed

scholars to consider the topic of Greco-Bactria without any assumptions of racial

hierarchies or cultural elitism so common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

34
Bernard 1973: 280-308.

14
 CHAPTER THREE: W. W. TARN

The period of early modern scholarship characterized by numismatics and

literature-oriented histories and the later period of the twentieth century spurred by a

wealth of archaeological discoveries was bridged by perhaps one of the most influential

and contentious scholars on Greco-Bactria: W. W. Tarn. Publications on Hellenistic

Bactria are infrequent, to the extent that when reviewing Holt’s Thundering Zeus in 2000,

the writer claimed that Holt’s study, “will join a select group, in which W. W. Tarn’s

monumental The Greeks in Bactria and India is still the only comprehensive synthesis.”35

Specializing in topics ranging from Hellenistic warfare to the life of Alexander the Great,

Tarn’s The Greeks in Bactria and India combined aspects of numismatic research and

innovative readings of the classical literature in order to present a view of a strong Greco-

Bactrian kingdom based upon the Hellenistic ideals set in motion during the life of

Alexander. Unfortunately, much of these innovative readings have been called into

question by later scholarship characterizing Tarn as an idealist, meaning that many of his

theories which remain true to this day have been dismissed along with those that have not.

The expansiveness of Tarn’s approach means that in nearly every aspect of Greco-

Bactrian history scholars must address Tarn’s claims, as one scholar write, “It seems very

doubtful too, that the native aristocracy had any high administrative positions under the

Greeks; two onomastic instances adduced by W. W. Tarn in supporting his theory have

no strong proof.”36Regardless of this critical approach to Tarn’s work, the respect for his

work in Greco-Bactrian scholarship can be seen when Sherwin-White goes to the length

35
Kalita 2000: 511.
36
Nikonorov 1997: 40.

15
of quoting Tarn at the conclusion of her introduction, characterizing The Greeks in

Bactria and India as a, “path-breaking study.”37

Before considering the impacts of Tarn’s assumptions which have earned

him the “idealist” title as they particularly pertain to his treatment of the Greco-

Bactrian kingdom, one may place the origins of these beliefs in his biographical

work on Alexander III, which truly makes the Macedonian king deserved of the

epithet, “the Great.” Whereas previous scholars such as Rawlinson may have

seen Alexander as establishing a typical imperialistic structure in which the

naturally superior Greeks dominated the inferior barbarians in the fashion

considered natural by Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics,38 Tarn makes a

radically different claim. In his essay informatively titled Alexander and the

‘Unity of Mankind,’ he states that:

“Aristotle’s State had still cared nothing for humanity outside its own borders;
the stranger must still be a serf or an enemy. Alexander changed all that. When
he declared that all men were alike sons of one Father, and when at Opis he
prayed that Macedonians and Persians might be partners in the commonwealth
and that the peoples of his world might live in harmony and in unity of heart and
39
mind, he proclaimed for the first time the unity and brotherhood of mankind.

This claim, even to an untrained reader, appears highly suspect as it couches

Alexander’s actions in an altruistic mission divorced from the pragmatic interests

one often expects of a military and political leader of any age. Tarn goes even

further by magnifying the impact of Alexander idealized action, for if one is to

37
Sherwin-White 1993: 5.
38
As previously mentioned, I am here referring to the introduction of Book I. Recent
scholarship (Smith 1983: 109-122) has, however, sought to re-evaluate our perception of
Aristotle’s stance, meaning that one must be cautionary in linking the modern and
classical traditions together in this particular moment, and indeed more generally.
39
Tarn 1972: 147.

16
believe that there was a conceptual ideal of despotism originated in the time of

Alexander, “there is certainly a line of descent from his prayer at Opis…to that

brotherhood of all men which was proclaimed, though only proclaimed, in the

French Revolution.”40

Such sweeping statements may seem surprising decontextualized from the

period in which they were written, but make a great deal more sense when

considered in the proper context. The period following the First World War, in

which this essay was first written, saw a revival of the classically liberal

conception of world peace through the imposition of democratic and egalitarian

values. Tarn followed the thoughts of political theorists whose, “distinctive

characteristic…was their belief in progress: the belief, in particular, that the

system of international relations that had given rise to the First World War was

capable of being transformed into a fundamentally more peaceful and just world

order.”41 Democratic values were seen in Greek culture, and as such it and its

actors such as Alexander were often raised as exemplars. In the previous citations

Tarn sees Alexander’s actions to be an attempt to create an utopist egalitarianism

throughout his conquered empire, and thus finds at that point all origins of

equality which were exulted throughout the twentieth century. This idealistic

perception is interestingly left unchanged even in light of the terrors of the Second

World War, for, in an end-note following the conclusion of his essay Tarn states

of the previous section, “I have left the latter part of this paragraph substantially

as written in 1926. Since then we have seen new and monstrous births, and are

40
Ibid: 148.
41
Linklater 2000: 58.

17
still moving in a world not realized; and I do not know how to rewrite it.”42 For

this idealistic perception of Alexander Tarn has been derided throughout more

recent scholarship.43 However, for this fault alone it would not be wise to ignore

all of Tarn’s work. For, in the words of Kieran McGroarty, “One might argue that

we ought now to drop Tarn’s much refuted ‘unity of mankind’ theory and yet it

does still provide a starting point.”44 While this idealistic assumption may color

much of Tarn’s work, by isolating it from the rest of his writing much can be

gained from a close reading.

It is in light of this idealism that two specific instances in Greco-Bactria

history may be examined. In both cases, Tarn’s innovative readings of the

classical sources allowed for new theories which pushed at the boundaries of

conventions long held in Greco-Bactrian scholarship. However, in each instance

Tarn’s idealism causes him to take his conclusions too far, although the theories

themselves are often of great value for later scholarship. The first example which

one may examine is the case of the Branchidae. Until its destruction by the

Persians in 494 BCE, Didyma’s sanctuary was administered by the family of the

Branchidae,45 During the Persian invasion of Greece, the Branchidae were

evacuated by the Persians to Sogdiana, where their descendents are famously

described as being massacred by Alexander and his troops nearly 150 years later.

42
Ibid.
43
Worthington (Worthington 2003) follows a trend begun by Badian and extensively
expanded on by Bosworth which takes a very negative view of Alexander III and his
actions. On the other hand Holt, who disagrees with Tarn on many points, warns in an
excerpt included in the reader against considering such negative characterizations to be
entirely accurate as they are often based upon biased readings of the original sources.
44
McGroarty 2004: 151.
45
Herodotus, 1.157.3.

18
The reason for this massacre, according to Strabo, was due to the fact that the

temple at Didyma was, “plundered by the Branchidae who sided with the Persians

in the time of Xerxes.”46 Thanks to his innovative reading, Tarn attributes

Strabo’s source to Callisthenes, an attribution which has been maintained as true

by later scholars. However, because of his idealistic view of Alexander and

Hellenic culture in general, Tarn less plausibly argues that the massacre never

took place.47 Some may ignore Tarn’s argument wholesale due to this conclusion.

However, Parke, in his article The Massacre of the Branchidae, expands Tarn’s

argument that Callisthenes was Strabo’s source, while accepting that the massacre

actually happened.48 Hence, while Tarn’s conclusion may be incorrect due to his

idealism, the initial theory allowed for an expansion in Greco-Bactrian

scholarship. Modern scholars have been able to recognize the meaning of the

massacre in light of pragmatism which would have been largely unthinkable to

Tarn, giving as a reason, “for one, the king could thus reaffirm the Pan-Hellenic

nature of this crusade…it was crucial to assure his Greco-Macedonians, at a time

of discontent, that their leader has not lost sight of his traditional role.”49

While the previous example may have been extremely narrow in its scope,

the second example pertains to perhaps the most contentious result of Tarn’s

innovative readings, in this case found in the core of his seminal work The Greeks

in Bactria and India. Specifically, whereas previous authors may have been

rather conservative in the description of dynastic and political changes in Greco-

46
Strabo, 17.1.43.
47
Tarn 1948: 272-275.
48
Parke 1985: 59-68.
49
Holt 1993: 75.

19
Bactria, often limiting themselves to the shifts seen in the numismatic evidence

and literary sources, Tarn extrapolated complex political maneuverings out of his

own synthesis of the evidence. At times, these theories proved to be little more

than flights of fancy forced out of the evidence. An example of this was

described by a reviewer, who said, “in chapter V of the book we find a brilliant

hypothesis concerning the relationship between Antiochus IV and Eucratides.

This reviewer is not competent to judge the weight of the evidence adduced, but

certainly the case is argued with brilliance and plausibility.”50 The relationship

referred to be the reviewer is one of kinship, for Tarn claims that Eucratides was

the cousin of Antiochus IV.51 This conclusion was made through a complex

arrangement of evidence, as can be seen when Tarn says that Laodice, the

daughter of Seleucus II, must have been Eucratides’ mother, as, “this is confirmed

by the fact that Eucratides on his coinage adopted, though he modified, one of the

types of Seleucus II, the Dioscuri.”52 That said, Tarn’s innovative readings

proved to be true, as in the previously mentioned case of the Greco-Bactrian king

Agathocles. Tarn, from the series of commemorative coins, was able to

extrapolate the extent of Eucratides conflict with Agathocles, 53 and correctly

identify the reason behind the series as a means of legitimizing the ruling

dynasties’ claim to rule in the face of a highly successful usurper.

50
Bobrinskoy 1940: 198.
51
Tarn 1938: 183.
52
Ibid: 197.
53
Ibid: 132-134. Both Narain and Holt reject this theory and instead associate
Eucradities’ mother with the Diodotid dynasty or instead a relative of Euthydemus I.

20
 Meanwhile, it is with the death of Eucratides that one sees Tarn’s idealism

distort an otherwise valid theory. For centuries, Eucratides’ death at the hands of

his son was taken as one of the few factual remnants of Greco-Bactria’s political

history. Justin describes how Eucratides was killed by his son, and afterwards his

body was desecrated by his son riding over it with his chariot. Tarn raised doubts

about Justin’s passage, which, as he put it, is “one of the most confused and worst

excerpted anywhere in that unsatisfactory author.”54 He does not believe that the

son could assassinate his father on the field of battle and also have time to

desecrate his body, a most impious act in the eyes of the classical audience; a

point well received by more recent scholars.55 However, it would appear that

Tarn’s idealistic perception of Hellenic culture led to an unnecessary conclusion,

best summarized by Sidky when he writes of Tarn, “based on this, he reached the

astonishing conclusion that the man who killed Eucratides could not have been his

son, but the son of another, whose name dropped out somewhere between Justin

and his original source.”56 Although Tarn’s conclusion may be muddled by an

idealistic perception of the intentionality of the actors in his history, his work

cannot be discarded as many of his groundbreaking theories hold true well into

the most recent scholarship.

Where Tarn’s The Greeks in Bactria and India diverges most significantly

from previous scholarship is in the refutation of the tragic narrative of Greco-

54
Ibid: 219.
55
Scholars include H. Sidky. While he does not believe that the someone besides his son
killed Eucratides, he does question whether, due to the extreme and impious nature of the
action, the murder was in fact done in a less striking manner (Sidkey 2000: 223.).
56
Ibid.

21
Bactria as a ‘doomed experiment.’ One might think, due to Tarn’s fleshing out of

the dynastic struggles of the Bactrian kingdom, that he would attribute the

collapse of Greco-Bactria to internal struggle which left it too weak to effectively

defend its borders, as if latching onto Justin’s claim that Greco-Bactria was bled-

dry.57 However, that these rulers fought were matters which might have weakened,

but did not lead to the decline of the kingdom. Indeed, Helicoles,’ commonly

considered to be the last Greek king of Bactria, “conquests in India show that the

country must still have possessed a fair degree of strength.”58 Instead, Tarn goes

to great lengths to show that the nomadic hordes which overran Bactria were

similar if not greater than the ones which overran other kingdoms commonly

considered to be more stable. For example, he points out that only, “one battle

had sufficed to make the much weaker Galatae masters for a time of the much

stronger Macedonia.”59 However, despite the compelling theory which Tarn

presents, it has often been ignored due to the idealistic assumptions that underlie

his theory. For indeed, the idealistic fusion of Greek and non-Greek expressed in

the case of Alexander has been seen by critics to be uniquely applied by Tarn to

the situation in Greco-Bactria.60

Perhaps one of the most striking responses to Tarn’s theories came from A.

K. Narain, an Indian scholar who completed his The Indo-Greeks in 1957. While

acknowledging the extensive work done by Tarn, Narain, as he himself admits,

benefited from a great deal of fresh information, “a hoard of Indo-Greek coins

57
Justin, 41.6.
58
Tarn 1938: 270.
59
Ibid: 280.
60
Sherwin-White 1993: 111.

22
from Qunduz…a remarkable treasure of coins of the Indo-Greeks and their

successors found at Mir Zakah…[and] the discovery of a new manuscript of the

Yugapurāņa.”61 This wealth of new information caused Narain to highlight the

Indian influence upon the Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek kingdoms in

language, religion, and philosophy. In addition to discarding Tarn’s belief in the

Hellenizing power of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, Narain readopted the

commonly held theory of a weak Greco-Bactrian state isolated from the rest of the

Hellenistic world. This perception can be seen in Narain’s interpretation of the

inception of the kingdom, as this revolting province needed little strength, as, “the

political circumstances of the time were very congenial to such defections, and a

king as worthless and contemptible as Antiochus could have hardly inspired

respect or fear.”62 This splinter-state from an already weak Seleucid kingdom did

not warrant Tarn’s characterization as a “fifth Hellenistic state. Rather, Narain

subscribes to the earlier theory of R. B. Whitehead63 that the Greco-Bactrians

were their own worst enemies, and that their constant antagonism and civil strife

led to their eventual downfall after only a brief period of power. Similarly, just as

in previous histories, Narain believes that the rise of the Parthian state and other

non-Hellenic kingdoms exacerbated the difficulties already faced due to a weak

internal structure, saying, “the Yavanas, who were hemmed in from all sides,

could not hold their own, and were doomed sooner or later to collapse.”64 Hence,

already in 1957, the year of W. W. Tarn’s death, scholars had reverted to the

61
Narain 1957: vii.
62
Ibid: 14.
63
Whitehead 1923: 308.
64
Narain 1957: 164.

23
perception of Greco-Bactria as a tragically doomed state, only now seeing it as an

inherently weak kingdom. Indeed, this re-evaluation of the power dynamic

between conqueror and conquered, along with the evidence arising in the 1950s

which stressed this conclusion, allowed Narain to comfortably conclude the

introduction to his work by saying, “Once the Yavanas stood upon their own feet

their isolation prevented them from planting new Greek settlements in their

kingdom as the Seleucids did in the Middle East…Their history is part of the

history of India and not of the Hellenistic states; they came, they saw, but India

conquered.”65

65
Ibid: 11.

24
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