(BACTRIA, was, according to Strabo (11.11), one of the most powerful of
all the Greek rulers of that country, and one of those who made the most extensive conquests
in India. Plutarch tells us that his rule was mild and equitable, and that he was so popular
with his subjects, that the different cities under his authority, after vying with each other
in paying him funeral honours, insisted upon dividing his remains among them. (De Rep. Ger. p. 821.) Both these authors term him king of Bactria; but recent inquirers
are of opinion that he did not reign in Bactria Proper, but only in the provinces south of the
Paropamisus, or Indian Caucasus. (Lassen, Gesch. d. Bactr. Kön. p.
225, &c.; Wilson's Ariana, p. 282.) According to Strabo (l.c.), he extended his conquests beyond the Hypanis or Sutlej, and made
himself master of the district of Pattalene at the mouths of the Indus. These conquests appear
to have been related by Trogus Pompeius in his forty-first book (see Prol. Lib. xli.), but
they are omitted by Justin. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean sea, commonly
ascribed to Arrian, tells us (p. 27, ed. Huds.) that silver coins of Menander and Apollodotus
were still in circulation in his day among the merchants of Barygaza (Baroach); and they have
been discovered in modern times in considerable numbers in the countries south of the Hindoo
Koosh, and even as far east as the Jumna. (Wilson, p. 281.) The period of his reign is wholly
uncertain.