meant not the Indian Jhelum but some other stream, the Porali, or possibly even the Median Hydaspes of Vergil,[1] then Parthian conquests in India must remain in doubt. Orosius was influenced by the post-Augustan literary tradition, in which the gem-bearing Hydaspes figured prominently.[2]
If the identification of Turiva[3] with Traxiana[4] in the upper Ochus River valley be accepted, then the reign of Mithradates I brought the Parthians into a position where contact with the advancing Sacae was inevitable. In 130 b.c. Phraates II engaged the services of a body of Saca mercenaries (see pp. 35 f.), and shortly thereafter the flood of invaders must have reached the eastern provinces. The remnants of the Bactrian kingdom were swept away by these hordes,[5]
- ↑ Georg. iv. 211. Cf. PW, art. "Hydaspes," No. 2, followed by Rapson in CHI, I, 568. Rawlinson, Sixth Mon., pp. 78 f., saw the situation correctly. Cf. also Herzfeld, "Sakastan," AMI, IV (1932), 40, who suggests the Choaspes near Susa.
- ↑ Horace Od. i. 22. 8; Seneca Medea 723 ff. and Herc. Oet. 628; Lucan De bell. civ. iii. 236 and viii. 227; Pliny Hist. nat. vi. 71; Statius Thebais viii. 237; Dionysius Periegetes 1138 f.; Claudian Paneg. dictus Probino et Olybrio 70–80, In Rufinum ii. 243, Paneg. tertio cons. Hon. 4, Paneg. quarto cons. Hon. 601, Paneg. dictus Manlio Theodoro 29, and De raptu Proserpinae ii. 82 and iii. 325. Note the frequency of the references in Claudian, who immediately preceded Orosius.
- ↑ Strabo xi. 11. 2.
- ↑ Tarn, "Sel.-Parth. Studies," Proc. Brit. Acad., XVI (1930), 122–26. On the "campaign coins" which mention Traxiana, see p. 59 and n. 16.
- ↑ Tarn, "Notes on Hellenism in Bactria and India," JHS, XXII (1902), 268–93; Hugh George Rawlinson, Bactria—the History of a Forgotten Empire (London, 1912); Eduard Meyer in Encyc. Brit., art. "Bactria."
