Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/384

 866 BAGTBIANA. kings, whose coins have been preaeired, bat who are little known in histoiy tUl we come to Menander aboat B. c. 126. Strabo (xL p. 515) and Platarch (de i2ep. Gtr. p. 821) call him king of Bactriana: it has, howerer, been donbted whether he was ever actnaUj a king of Bactria. Prof. Wilson (^Arianaf p. 281) thinks he ruled over an extensive district between the Paiopaniisiis moontains and the sea, a view which is supported hj the statement of the authcur of the Periplus (p. 27, ed. Huds.), that, in his time (the end of the first centurj b. c), the drachms of Menander were stall current at Barygaza (^Baroachj on the coast of Guzerat), and by the tact that thej are at present discovered in great numbers in the neighbourhood ofKdbtd^ in the Hazara moun- tains, and even as &r E. as the banks of the Jumna. It may be remarked, that the features of the monarch on his coins are strikingly Indian. Menander was succeeded by several princes, of whom we have no certun recoil except their coins ; till at l^igth the empire founded by the Greeks in Bactria was over- thrown by Scythian tribes, an event of which we have certun knowledge from Chinese authorities, though the period at which it took place is not so certain. Indeed, ^e advance of the Scythians was for many years arrested by the Parthians. About b. c. 90 they were probably on the Paropamisus, and towards the end of the firsit century a. d. they had spread to the mouth of the Indus, where Ptolemy (vii. 1. § 62) and the author of the Periplus (/. c.) place tiiem. These Scythian tribes are probably correctly called by the Greeks and Ilindas, the Sacas. In Strabo (zL p. 511) they bear the names of Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli; in Trogus Pcmipeius, Asiani and Sarancae; they extended their conquests W. and S., and established themselves in a district called, after them, Sacostene (or Sakasthib, " the land of the Sakas), probably, as Prof. Wilson observes, the modem Sejestdn or Seut&n, {Arianaj p. 302.) On thar subsequent attempt to invade India, they were repulsed by Yikramadftya, king of Ujajrin b. c. 56, from which period the well-known Indian Saca aera is derived. (Colebrooke, IncL Algebra, p. 43.) The couis of the kings, who followed under the va- rious names of Hermaeus, Mayes, Azes, Palirisus, &c., bear testimony to their barbaric origin : their legends are, for a while, dear and l^ible, the forms of the Greek letters bearing great resemblaxKe to those of the Parthian princes; till, at length, on the introduction of some Parthian rulers, Vonones, Undo- pherres, &c., the Greek words are evidently engraven by a people to whom that language was not fami- liarly kno^vn. Next to the Saca princes, but probably of the same race with their predecessors, come a people, whom it has been agreed to call Indo-Scytbian, whose seat of power must have been the banks of the Kd- biU river, as their coins are discovered in great num- bers between KdinU and JdcUabdd. The date of the commencement of thdr sway has not been deter- mined, but Prof. Wilson and Lassen incline to place the two most important of their kings, Kadphises and Kanerkes, at the end of the first and the begin- ning of the second century a. d. Greek legends are still preserved ou the obverses of the coins, and the principal names of the princes may generally be de- ciphered; but words of genuine Indian origin, as Rao for Bc^jah, are found written in Greek cha- racters: on those of Kanerkes the words Nanaia or Nana Bao occur, which it has been conjectured re- present the Anaitis or Anakid of the Persians, — the BADEI-REGIA. Artemis of the Greeks, and who has beeb identified with Anaia or Nanaea, the tutelary goddess of Arme- nia. (Avdall, Jomm. At, Soc. Beng. voL v. p. 266 ; see also Maceab. il. c 1, v. 13, where Nanaea ap- pears as the goddess of Elymais, in whose temple Antiochus was slain.) With the Indo-Scythic princes of Kdbtdj the classical history of Bactriana may be considered to terminate. On Uie successful establish- ment of the Sassanian empire in Persia, the rule of its princes appears to have extended over Bactriana to the Indus, along the banks of which their crans are found constantly. They, in their turn, were suc- ceeded by the Muhammedan governors of the eighth and subsequent centuries. (Wilscxi, iiriana; Bayer, Hist JReg, Graee. Baetr. Petrop. 1738, 4to.; Lassen, GeschichU d. Gr. u, Indo-Scyth. Kou. in Bactr.; Raoul'Bochette, MedaSUi des Jiois d. L Baetr., in Joum. d, Sav. 1 834 ; Jacquet, Mid. Bactr., J. Asiat. Feb. 1836; G. 0. MUller, Indo-Grideh. Mww., Gctt GiiL Amg. 1838, Nos. 21—27.) [V.] BACTRUS (Bdicrpos, Strab. xL p. 516 ; Curt, vii. 4. § 31 ; Polyaen. viL 7; Lucan, iii. 267 ; Plin. vi. 16), the river on which Bactra, the capital town of Bactriana, was situated. It is supposed to be represented by the present Dakath. Harduin, in commenting on the words of Pliny (vL 16), " Bao- tri, quorum oppidum Zariaspe, quod postea Bactrum a flumine appellatum est," incloses within a pa- renthesis the words ** quod postea Bactrum," leaving the inference that tiie river was called Zariaspe. Ptolemy does not menti<Mi the river at all. [Bac- tra ; Bactriaka] [v.] BACUA'TAE (Bcurovarcu), a people of Maure- tania Tingitana, about the neighbourhood of Fez. (PtoL iv. 1. § 10.) There is an extant Latin in- scription to the memory of a youth, son of Aureliua Canartha, chief of the tribes of the Baquates iprin- cipis Gentium Baguatium, Orelli,*No. 525.) In the Chronicon Paschaie (vol. L pp. 46, 57) the name occurs in the form of McucovokoL In the same list as the Bacuatae, but at the extreme S., Ptolemy places the OdaKavarat, probably only an- other form of the name. [P. S.] BACU'NTIUS, a small river in Lower Pannonia, which falls into the Savus not far from the town of Sirmium. (Plin. iii. 28.) Its modem name is Bostuth. [L. S.] BADACA (BoBoic^, Died. xix. 19), a town in Susiana whither Antigonus retired after he had been defeated by Eumenes. It is said to have been on the Enlaeus (probably the Skahpur or Karun), but its exact position is not known. Bawlinson {J. Geogr. Soc. voL ix. p. 91) places it about 25 miles NW. of Susa. It has been supposed, bat without much reason, to be the same as Babytace. (See also Layard, J. Geogr. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 92.) [V,] BADARA (BaSdpa, Ptol. vi. 21. § 5), a town in Gedrosia, on the sea coast. According to Marcian (p. 26), who calls it ra BdSapa, it was 250 stad. £. of the river Zorambus. It is not improbably the same as the Bama (t^ Bcipya) of Arrian (c. 26). There was another place of the same name in Oar- mania. (Ptol. Ti. 8. § 9.) [V.] BADERA, is placed by the Table on the road from Tovlouae to Narbomne, at the distance of xv from Toulouse, wbidi means 15 Roman miles. D'AnviUe considers this to identiiy the place with Basiege. [G. L.] BADEI-REGL^ (BaSc^ /SeuriXctov, PtoL vi. 7. §6), the metropolis of the Cassaniti, a people on the west coast of Arabia, in the modem district of Hed*