Introduction

Summary

It may be well to begin with a statement of the plan of this book.

Asia under Greek rule, as matter of political history and not of distinctions of race or civilisation, may be divided into three parts. The first division consists of the countries west of the Euphrates and of the Syrian desert, Asia Minor and Syria, which were to become Roman and were for centuries to be dominated by Graeco-Roman civilisation before they ultimately returned to the East; with this division this book has nothing to do except by way of an occasional illustration. The second division, roughly speaking, consists of the countries between the Euphrates and the Persian desert, which were subsequently to form the kingdom of the Arsacids, known to Greeks and Romans as Parthia; from the Greek point of view it may be called the Middle East. The third division, which I call the Farther East, comprises Iran east of the Persian desert and India so far as it was under Greek rule. This division by the Persian desert is a real one, and very old; it is found in one of Darius' lists of the provinces of his empire. This book is really concerned only with the Farther East, the story of eastern Iran and northern India under Greek rule; it is an attempt to recover what can be recovered of the history of a lost dynasty and of a rather extraordinary experiment. This story begins with Chapter III, and from that chapter to the end the book (except for art) is meant to be as complete as I can make it.