found storing vessels labelled in Greek, a mosaic 5.7 metres square and, most remarkable of all, from what was evidently its library, imprinted on fine earth formed from decomposed wall-bricks, the traces of a still partially legible text from a now perished piece of papyrus, which was evidently a page in a philosophical work which appears to have been written by a member of the Aristotelian school (of which Clearchus himself was a member). These finds confirm the picture of a city in which, despite its later isolation, Greek traditions continued strong right down to the time of its destruction by the nomads of the steppes in the second half of the second century.
But Ai Khanum was not the first site to furnish epigraphical evidence for a strong hellenic presence in Bactria, for only a few years earlier two Greek inscriptions, one with an Aramaic counterpart, had been found at Kandahar (see Schlumberger, CRAI (1964), 126–40). These contained fragments of the moralizing edicts of the Mauryan king Asoka and they too were elegantly carved and in an excellent Greek, which betrayed an intimate knowledge of the vocabulary of Greek philosophy and considerable skill in adapting it to render the thoughts of a Buddhist convert. Anxious to convey his lessons to those living in what now formed part of his dominions, Asoka used Aramaic, the official language of the Persian empire, and of course Greek. More recently a further Greek inscription has been found in Kandahar and more can be expected.
This use of Greek, in the popular cosmopolitan form called the koine, the ‘common tongue’, is characteristic of the whole vast area covered by Alexander’s conquests. It pays no heed to the later frontiers and serves to bind the whole into a single cultural continuum. Its prevalence is the result not merely of political domination, but also of a great movement of colonization which began under Alexander and continued in full spate until about 250, after which it slackened off. Ai Khanum has provided clear evidence of this, for a study of the traces of habitation in a wide area around this city has shown it to be virtually unpopulated under the Achaemenid kings, but with a dense population in hellenistic times.
II
Under Alexander the agents of colonization were largely mercenaries whom he left behind to hold strategic points. Conditions were rough and lacking in civilized amenity and so (as we saw, p. 44) provoked revolt. But the finds on the Oxus and at Kandahar are not the only evidence that by the mid-third century or even earlier conditions had improved. The growth in the number of colonists had brought with it a deepening of Greek civilization, not least in Bactria, and we can occasionally trace the process. A decree passed by the assembly of Antioch-in-Persis, recognizing the international character of the festival of Artemis Leucophryene at Magnesia-on-the-Maeander, recalls the kinship existing between the two peoples, for when Antiochus I (281–261) was anxious to reinforce the population of Antioch, the Magnesians had responded to his invitation by sending ‘men sufficient in number and outstanding in merit for the purpose’ (OGIS, 233, 1. 18). A generation later the bond was still remembered. As in the great European emigration to the United States in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries many went out in groups but others would have gone individually to try their fortune in new lands. The new cities of the east contained a mixture of Greeks from all parts, a motley throng from every sort of environment and social class, from the main centres of civilization and from the fringe areas.
Once in their new homes these Greeks and Macedonians sank their many differences to become the new master race – for Alexander’s notion of a joint Greco-Persian ruling class never took hold. From the outset these newcomers formed the governing minority in the areas where they settled. One of the great problems of the period is to define and analyse the shifting relations between this minority and the peoples whose lands they shared. It was not always a hostile relationship. Strabo (xi, 14, 12) describes how Cyrsilus of Pharsalus and Medius of Larissa, officers in Alexander’s army, set out to trace a cultural relationship between Armenia and Media and their native Thessaly. Their attitude was clearly open and friendly but what they were hoping to do was not to understand these people in their own environment but to prove that they were really some sort of Greeks. This, as we shall see (p. 228), is precisely what some Greeks tried to do when brought up against the phenomenon of Rome. Occasionally, especially in the early days, osmosis occurs between the different cultures. A dedication by ‘Diodotus, son of Achaeus, to King Ptolemy Soter’ (OGIS, 19) is bilingual, in Greek and demotic Egyptian, and we shall look at further similar evidence later (p. 117). It suggests some cultural interchange, but this is scanty and its importance must not be exaggerated nor is it safe to use material from one area to make generalizations applying to others. It is noteworthy that the inscription from Antioch-in-Persis mentions the sending of men from Magnesia, but not of women, presumably because they would find women on arrival, Greek or more likely barbarian. Ai Khanum too will certainly have contained a substantial proportion of non-Greeks, and probably their numbers increased with the passing of time. But it seems fairly clear, given the attitudes which led to the setting-up of the Delphic precepts by Clearchus, that in the early-third century at any rate native Bactrians will not have been admitted to the gymnasium and that, faced with a large non-Greek group around them, the usual reaction of Greeks and Macedonians was to close ranks and emphasize the Greek institutions of government, religion and education, in short their Greekness.
III
Greekness expressed itself primarily through the gymnasium, but there were also other institutions which catered for the private and social life of the citizens of hellenistic cities, both new and old. These were especially important in the new cities with their mixed populations and absence of traditions but they were also an integral part of life in the older cities. These associations are known as eranoi, thiasoi, and also by special names, such as Poseidoniastai, linking them with some particular deity worshipped as the patron of the association and the strong feeling of devotion to such bodies by their members comes out clearly from the inscriptional evidence. Here is an example from second-century Rhodes:
In the priesthood of Theophanes, the chief eranistes being Menecrates son of Cibyratas, on the 26th day of Hyacinthius, the following eranistai promised contributions for the rebuilding of the wall and the monuments which fell down in the earthquake: Menecrates son of Cibyratas [undertook] to rebuild the wall and monuments at his own expense. The money coming from the [other] sums promised will be at the society’s disposal. . . [Dion]jydus 10 . . . (here the inscription breaks off) (Syll., 1116).
The ‘walls’ are those of the clubhouse, the ‘monuments’ the graves of past members, for such guilds frequently combined the functions of a friendly society, dining club and burial club. In a city like Rhodes they were an important element in private life and in the new centres of the far east they were a means of building new loyalties in what was at first a rather drab and alien world. What is more, they were far less exclusive and purely ‘hellenic’ than the gymnasia. Though their structure and procedures often seem to imitate those of the city, they were catholic in their membership, and frequently included both Greeks and barbarians, free men and slaves, men and women. They gave opportunities for mixing which were less easy within the framework of the city institutions.
In public life the Greeks and Macedonians formed the ruling class. They were a closed circle to which natives gained access only gradually and in very small numbers – and then usually only by the difficult method of turning themselves culturally into Greeks. The creation of this ruling class was the direct outcome of the decisions taken by the armies and generals of Alexander, who after his death decisively rejected his policy of racial fusion and very soon expelled all Medes and Persians from positions of authority. The setting-up of the monarchies did not alter this attitude. It has been calculated that even in the Seleucid kingdom, which faced the greatest problems of cultural conflict, after two generations there were never more than 2.5 per cent of natives in positions of authority (out of a sample of several hundred names) and most of this 2.5 per cent were officers commanding local units (see p. 125). This was not due to incompetence or reluctance to serve on the part of the easterners, as some have argued, but to the firm determination of the Greeks and Macedonians to enjoy the spoils of victory.
When therefore we speak of the unity and homogeneity of hellenistic culture, it is of this Greco-Macedonian class we are speaking, a minority in every state made up of men from many