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I am currently reading Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, a very entertaining account of the writer's mountaineering trip to the area in 1957. Being in the area, of course, he has to mention the supposed descendents of the Macedonian settlers, but seems to be saying that there were Greeks in the area before Alexander. Now, it seems clear that he is talking about the Branchidae, but the intimation, as I read it, is that the Branchidae were more populous and had bred into the local population far more than I had ever supposed from my reading of the sources:

Whether or not the Nysaeans were pre-Alexandrian invaders from Greece, at the time Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush, the plains of Kabul and the passes over the Hindu Kush from Andarab were certainly held by Greeks, descendents of those transported to Asia by Darius Hystaspes after the fall of Miletus. Equally certainly Kafiristan and its inhabitants in those days covered a far wider area than is occupied by Nuristan today, taking in considerable parts of Badakshan, the Panjshir, Swat and Chitral. The admixture of Greek blood, which gives to many of the inhabitants of Nuristan today a startlingly South European look, had certainly begun long before the arrival of the Macedonian army. All that Alexander's stragglers did when they encountered the Kafir women, who have the reputation of being sluttish, accommodating and extremely handsome, was to strengthen it.

I wonder whether there is some scholarly work that supports Newby's statement, or is he merely extrapolating what he's read in Arrian, etc.?

ATB

Jona Lendering (good ol' Jona!) has this about Greeks in Bactria.

The Greeks, however, would probably never have heard of the Bactrians if king Darius I the Great had not decided to deport a group of Greeks from the Cyrenaica to Bactra. From coins, it can be deduced that these exiles managed to keep in touch with the motherland. Another group of Greek settlers was called the "Branchidae" and descended from a group of priests that had once lived near Didyma (near Miletus) and had been taken captive by the Persians

So that would make two groups of Greeks who would have had around 150 years or more to settle and populate the area before Alexander came along. Interesting that only the Branchidae are mentioned in the histories though. I'd have expected the descendants of the Greeks from Cyrene to also have welcomed Alexander, especially if they were large enough in number to have made their own coinage . . .

Best regards,

amyntoros wrote:So that would make two groups of Greeks who would have had around 150 years or more to settle and populate the area before Alexander came along. Interesting that only the Branchidae are mentioned in the histories though. I'd have expected the descendants of the Greeks from Cyrene to also have welcomed Alexander, especially if they were large enough in number to have made their own coinage . . .

Well, yes. Interesting that there is a clear distinction between two groups. But certainly Newby makes it sound as if a large percentage of the population of Bactria was Greek or at least Greek speaking. There are a number of things one can say from that:

1. Newby was, of course, a travel writer, not a historian, so we shouldn't take what he says too much as gospel.
2. One has always assumed that Roxane, Oxyartes, etc. etc. would have needed interpreters to communicate with the Macedonians. If there was so much Greek admixing of blood, perhaps they did already speak Greek, which might be one of the reasons why Oxyartes was so valuable to Alexander, and why it was worth his marrying Roxane.

I'm sure there are many more things one could infer. These are, of course, speculative inferences, with no evidence to back them up; but it's an interesting notion.

ATB

Hello,

I found this topic interesting because of the mention of the Branchidae. It is a fascinating to think that there could have been such an effect on the descendents as to give a "startling south European look".
As I understood it the Branchidae were the religious "clan" based around the famous oracle of Didyma that were resettled in Bactria or somewhere in that area- and the same who Curtius mentions were massacred by Alexander- for deserting.
Could this confirm the reliability of Curtius on this occasion? I think that the episode is only mentioned in his writings-

Best regards,
Dean