The History of British India Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 edition. Excerpt: ...In the reign, CBAP'' however, of his son or grandson, the governor of the Bactrian province threw off his dependence upon the Seleucidae; and a separate Greek kingdom was erected in that country, about sixty-nine years after the death of Alexander. The Persian dominions in India seem to have shared the fate of Bactria, and to have fallen into the hands of the same usurper. The Greek sovereigns of Bactria became masters of an extensive empire; and assumed the proud title of King of Kings; the distinctive appellation of the Persian monarchs in the zenith of their power. They carried on various wars with India; and extended their conquests into the interior of the country. The limits of their dominions in that direction we have no means of ascertaining. One of those great movements in central or eastern Tartary, which precipitates the eastern barbarians upon the countries of the west, brought an irresistible torrent of that people across the Jaxartes, about 126 years before the Christian era, which, pouring itself out upon Bactria, overwhelmed the Grecian monarchy, after it had lasted nearly 130 years.1 1 A curious history of the Greek kingdom of Bactria has been compiled by Bayer, entitled, Historia regni Graecorum Bactriani. In this, and in Strabo, lib. xi. Diod. lib. xv. and Justin, lib. xli. the only remaining memorials of this kingdom are to be found. The progress of the barbarians by whom it was destroyed has been traced by De Guignes, Mem. de Literat-xxv. 17, and Hist. de Huns, passim. Herodotus says that those of the Indians, whose mode of lite most resembled that of the Bactrians, were the most warlike of all the Indians, (lib. iii. cap. 102) which would seem to indicate a nearer affinity between the Hindus, and their Bactrian...