Quote Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX
I didn't mean they had been nobles before getting there, I meant that that in these kingdoms Greeks formed the upper-classes while the lower classes tended to be made up of natives. Baktria wasn't a Greek state, it was a state run by a Greek elite.
Have you read Samarkhand to Sardis by Kuhrt and Sherwin-White? This is largely an older idea that is now being reexamined. Many of the mercenaries who were placed in Baktria from Alexander's army would have constituted the upper class, yes, but not the later Greeks and Macedonians who travelled there to serve as mercenaries. While Greek-speakers had a much better chance of entering the upper class, they didn't do so simply by virtue of their ethnicity.