Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

326
HISTORY OF PERSIA
them being Europus and Heraclea, both at strategical
points in the neighbourhood of Rhages. Polybius says :
" Media was covered with Greek cities after the plan prescribed
by Alexander to form a defence against the
barbarians." ^
It is probable that there was
neighbouring
a chain of Greek cities or posts between Media and Bactria,
and we know what a
large number of colonists were settled
by Alexander in those utterly remote regions, and with
what pitiless severity they were treated when attempting to
return home. In Persis, which remained somewhat apart,
we hear of Antioch-in-Persis. In Carmania, the modern
province of Kerman, an Alexandria was founded, which,
as
already mentioned, has been identified with modern
Gulashkird, a small village which I have visited to the
north-east of Bandar Abbas. In Sistan the capital had
been made a Greek colony by Alexander under the name
of Prophthasia, and farther north he founded an Alexandria
on the Hari Rud ; two other Greek cities were built in
this comparatively fertile district under Seleucid
auspices.
Finally Hecatompylus, the capital of Parthia, and Eumenea
in Hyrcania must be mentioned.
The Greek Cities in the Persian Empire.— Let us, in
conclusion, consider for a moment the position of the
Greek cities. If we bear in mind the numerical paucity
of the Macedonians and Greeks, together with the
sanguinary wars in which they were constantly engaged,
it is clear that, unless they kept their ideals with the
utmost constancy and remained like flints in chalk, they
must within a few generations have merged into the
surrounding populations. To a certain extent this actually
was their ultimate fate. The consciousness of a
similar danger prevails very strongly
in India to-day
among the English community, where experience proves
that children educated in India are almost invariably
inferior in type to those brought up in England. As the
Greeks in Asia could not send their children back to
Hellas for education, it was of the utmost importance
that they should be brought up in cities which were
typically Hellenic, even if situated on the banks of the
1 Polybius X. 27. 3.