Assorted Historical Questions - Gertrude et al, ask them here!

[keravnos]

I know next to nothing about Baktria so I have a few questions.

1.What would a Baktrian or Indo-Greek army consist of and how would that translate into an army in EB?

2.How large were the Baktrians at their height?

3.Did they change any of their fighting styled to adapt to new enemies in the steppes and India?

1. For that, you will have to wait a bit, but an early example would be the battle of Areios river - more data on them will be forthcoming.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:G...KingdomMap.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom

As for the IndoGreeks (also called Yavanas by the Hindus),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Greek_Kingdom

3. Yes to both, becoming a "civilised horde" of sorts in the steppes, and supposedly abandoning the pike phallanx for hoplites and lighter armed spearmen, for fear of mass archery and elephant assaults that this would entail. In India, Indogreeks made heavy use of local levies and of course the native baktrians (bahlikas and Kambojas) who fought alongside them, allowing them to settle in parts of India (Bahlikas in Punjab and surrounding areas, Kambojas in Mathura area and all along Indus river). This allowed IndoGreeks to have a ready to use force of loyal subjects to use. Menandros (greatest IndoGreek king, when he invaded and occupied Pataliputra/Palibothra/Patna, he is using...

"Then, after having approached Saketa together with the Panchalas and the Mathuras, the Yavanas, valiant in battle, will reach Kusumadhvaja ("The town of the flower-standard", Pataliputra). Then, once Puspapura (another name of Pataliputra) has been reached and its celebrated mud[-walls] cast down, all the realm will be in disorder." (Yuga Purana, Paragraph 47-48, 2002 edition.)

Panchalas=Bahlikas (or in EB terms' Baktrioi hippeis)
Mathuras=Native Indians (all native Indian units) AND Kambojas (or in EB terms Kamboja Asvaka Ksatriya)

(In Mahabharata Mathura is conquered by a joint Yavana(IndoGreek) and Kamboja force

MBH 12/105/5, Kumbhakonam Ed. Cf: "Mathura was under outlandish people like the Yavanas and Kambojas... who had a special mode of fighting (Manu and Yajnavalkya, Dr K. P. Jayswal.

-It was Indogreek (called Methora, or Μεθόρα by Megasthenes) from 180-100 BCE.)

For more on Kamboja and the armies they yielded, Kautiliya's Arthashastra

'Kamboja. Surastra.ksatriya.shreny.aadayo 'vaartta.shastra.upajiivinah'

i.e Corporations of warriors (Kshatriya shrenis) of the Kamboja and Surashtra and some other nations live by agriculture, trade and by wielding weapons

Kautiliya also attests that the Shrenis or corporations of the 'Shastr-opajivins' (i.e the Kambojas and Surastras etc) were the most heroic and best source for military recruitment

The Mayuravyamsakadi--Ganapatha on Panini's rule (Ganapatha II.1.72.) attests that the Kambojas and the Yavanas observed a social custom of supporting short head-hair (Kamboja.mundah Yavana.mundah...i.e shaved-headed like Kambojas, shaved-headed like Yavanas).

This same characteristics of the Kambojas are attested by Mahabharata (mundanetan ....Kambojan.eva... MBH 7/119/23) as well as numerous Puranic literature (Yavananam shirah sarvam Kambojanam tathaiva cha) (Harivamsa 14.16.)

--Thus one could conclude that by the above and other references the Kambojas and Bahlikas in India were there following their IndoGreek overlords into the central India.

Why bother with Indogreeks?

[ex]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Indo-Greeks

and their greatest accomplisment, defense of Buddhism, or the 3rd religion (numberwise) in the world which some say may have been extinguished altogether hadn't Demetrios I invaded the Sunga held Punjab.

Why so?

This is what the first Sunga emperor proclaimed when it came to Buddhists...

According to the 2nd century Ashokavadana:

"Then King Pusyamitra (first Sunga Emperor) equipped a fourfold army, and intending to destroy the Buddhist religion, he went to the Kukkutarama. (...) Pusyamitra therefore destroyed the sangharama, killed the monks there, and departed.
After some time, he arrived in Sakala, (the later IndoGreek Capital of Menandros under the name of Sagala) and proclaimed that he would give a hundred dinara reward to whomever brought him the head of a Buddhist monk" (Shramanas) Ashokavadana, 133, trans. John Strong.

Then Demetrios invaded reaching down into the Indus Mouth and Mathura, and under Menandros the Sunga capital of Pataliputra was taken. After that Sungas were a lot more likely to live with Buddhism, even built some of the greatest Stupas existing today...

Later Sunga kings were seen as amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at Bharhut.

and what I consider to be the greatest contribution of IndoGreeks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco_Buddhism