9 Evidence for Central Asia

Lauren Morris 9 Evidence for Central Asia I Introduction Recent research indicates that smaller scale networks of interaction in prehistoric Central and Inner Asia prefigure the later macro-networks of interaction and exchange of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages now conventionally referred to as the Silk Road(s).1 Likewise, archaeobotanical research has highlighted the occur- rence of trans-Eurasian exchange via crop transmission through, from, and into Central and Inner Asia during the early third millennium .2 Yet it remains difficult to analyze the specific economic developments which occurred in the orbit of the empires controlling Central Asia within the time window of 300 –300 – that is, the Greek Kingdoms and the Kushan Empire– although these developments should have constituted a key step in generating the heighten- ed connectivity and mobility across Afro-Eurasia by which the Silk Road paradigm is characterized. Perhaps the main hurdle is that the available source profile for this period is simply demanding: it is uneven, obscure, represents a diversity of cultural and intellectual perspectives (both ancient and modern), and often seems too frag- mentary and incommensurate to invite the development of broader conclusions. Thus, the aim of the present chapter is to clarify the shape of this source profile. Rather than aiming for comprehensiveness, I lay out the four main metacategories of data available for studying economic history and development within the pur- view of the Greek Kingdoms and the Kushan Empire: transmitted texts, coinage, archaeological data, and excavated texts, indicating the potentials and problemat- ics of each throughout. II Transmitted Texts II. Scope and Problems A bewildering diversity of fragments and passages have survived from transmitted texts that have some bearing on Central Asia’s economic history during antiquity. None, however, were produced in Central Asia itself, which had no literary tradition See, for example, Frachetti et al. 2017. Such as Spengler et al. 2014; Jones et al. 2016. Note: Thanks are due to Henry Albery, Olivier Bordeaux, Gunnar Dumke, and Moritz Huber for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Open Access. © 2020 Lauren Morris, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607741-014 382 Lauren Morris of its own. The following focuses on information in the two most useful bodies of texts, namely Greek and Latin literature and Chinese historiography, and brings specific issues relating to Central Asia to the fore. It should be noted that Indic literature provides only little usable historical information for the present purposes. This is due to the difficulties in dating information provided in these texts,3 as well as in the interpretation of terminology. For example, in early literature and epigra- phy the ethnonyms Yavana (as in Sanskrit) and Yona (Pali) first denoted Greeks, especially those living in or beyond the northwestern frontier of India. However, from around the first century , this designation slowly expanded to describe other foreigners, including the inhabitants of the Roman East, Arabs, Muslims, and even inhabitants of Southeast Asia. Accordingly, the interpretation of this term de- pends on the date and geographic orientation of the text in question.4 Even when the Indo-Greeks can be clearly identified, the information provided about them may not be historically useful. This is most clearly the case for the Milindapañha, a para- canonical Buddhist text extant in Pali and Chinese versions– but perhaps originally composed in Gāndhārī– which narrates a fictitious dialog between King Menander (Milinda) and the Buddhist monk Nāgasena.5 The first book of the text, likely composed between 100 and 200 , includes a description of the capital of Menan- der’s kingdom, the prosperous town of Sāgala (probably modern Sialkot in the Pun- jab). The city is painted as well organized and beautiful, with diverse castes and occupations, shops providing a variety of cloth, flowers, perfumes, and jewels, and stocked with abundant produce and warehouses.6 Nonetheless, this portrayal has the hallmarks of a conventional literary description of an ideal Indian city,7 and is thus of dubious utility. In contrast, some reality about the historical products of the northwest and re- gions beyond is likely preserved in the Mahābhārata, a Sanskrit epic composed between the fourth century and the fourth century .8 This is encountered in the Book of the Assembly Hall in the description of tribute brought to Yudhiṣṭhira, the leader of the Pāṇḍavas in the (partially or entirely) mythologized Kurukṣetra War. Among the many peoples and products mentioned, an obscure non-Greek king Bha- gadatta reportedly came with the Yavanas, bringing purebred fast horses.9 The Kambojas– an enigmatic Iranian people who perhaps lived in the eastern highlands of Afghanistan– are said to have brought fleeces, gold-embroidered furs, deerskin See Dwivedi, ch. 10.A, this volume. Karttunen 2015, 325–337, 409–410. On Yavanas, see further Dwivedi, chs. 3 and 10.A, this volume. For more on the text of the Milindapañha and its historicity, see Fussman 1993; von Hinüber 1996, 82–86. Milindapañha 1. 2, with translation in Horner 1963, 1–3. Schlingloff 2013, 12‒15. Brockington 1998, 26–27. Mahābhārata 2. 47. 12–14 Evidence for Central Asia 383 jackets, horses, and camel mares.10 The Tukhāras (Tocharoi, see below), amongŚa- kās, Kaṇkās, Romaśas and horned men, brought mahāgama and durāgama horses. Products from the countries of Bālhi (Balkh) and Cīna (China) were also brought, including asses and“textiles of ample size, rich in colors, and good to the touch.” 11 Greek, Latin, and Chinese texts were constructed and shaped by their outsider and (often) imperial perspectives on a space at the edges of their known worlds where direct information was limited. The information they do provide is perhaps more useful for understanding the perspectives of the informants, authors, and historical contexts that produced them. Nonetheless, when mined carefully, they provide some indications about demography, urbanization, resource exploitation (including agriculture and pastoralism), trade, mobility, and interregional interaction at a variety of scales. It should be noted here that information provided by these vastly different literary traditions cannot be simply reassembled to create a coherent bigger picture. Scholars disagree as to the productivity of working with both traditions, most clearly manifested in discussions of the various populations in Central Asia after the collapse of Graeco-Bactrian power. While many have attempted to cohere this information,12 others consider the enterprise to be methodologically unsound.13 II. Greek and Latin Sources Snippets of information in this tradition from largely intact sources cover multiple categories. The first is historiography of Alexander the Great’s campaigns, being here Curtius Rufus’s Historiae Alexandri Magni (first century ) and Arrian’s Anaba- sis (second century ). There is also universal historiography, such as Polybios’s Historiae (second century ), Diodoros’s Bibliotheca historica (first century ), and Justin’s Epitome of Pompeius Trogus’s Historiae Philippicae (ca. late second century , the original from the late first century to early first century ); Diodoros and Pompeius Trogus also dealt extensively with Alexander and his campaigns. Other types of texts are universal encyclopaediae, such as Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia (first century ), and treatises on geography such as Strabo’s Geographika (first century to first century ) and Ptolemy’s Geographia (early second century ). There are also treatises concerned more specifically with ani- mals or plants, such as Aristotle’s Historia animalium (fourth century ), Theo- phrastos’s Historia plantarum (late third to early second century ) and Aelian’s Mahābhārata 2. 47. 3–4. Mahābhārata 2. 47. 21–22, trans. van Buitenen 1975, 117. Recent examples incorporating archaeological evidence are Rapin 2007, 50–64; Abdullaev 2007. Mairs 2014, 155. 384 Lauren Morris De natura animalium (late second to early third century ). There are also itinerary texts, being Isidoros of Charax’s Stathmoi Parthikoi (ca. first century to first century ) and the Periplus Maris Erythraei (mid-first century ), and finally, Late Antique histories and biographies of the earlier Caesars, being the Vita Hadriani of the Historia Augusta, and the Epitome de Caesaribus (both late fourth to early fifth centuries ). Contrarily to the case for writing on India, little scholarship thus far has been generated about Graeco-Roman perspectives on Central Asia.14 However, Greek and Roman writing on this space is not dissimilar to that on India, which from the fifth century onward was largely ethno-geographical in nature, produced by explora- tion and conquest into distant lands, underpinned by military and intellectual aims, and ultimately shaped by imperialist ideologies.15 A particularly strong influence on presentations of Central Asia deriving from early Greek thought is in the description of peoples and places at the peripheries of the known world– far from the center located in Greek civilization– as wild, fabulous, and blessed with great re- sources, climate, or productivity, a trend which persisted despite the emergence of more empirically oriented writing in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.16 Certainly, after Alexander’s conquests, Bactria existed in the known world to some extent, if at its fringes.17 Several further observations can be made about this corpus. First, the Kushans are virtually unknown here. It is widely accepted, although not directly proven that the Yuezhi (as named in Chinese sources) overlap with the Tocharoi/Tochari mentioned by Strabo among the nomads that removed Bactria from Greek power,18 by Justin in listing groups of nomads,19 and by Ptolemy among the inhabitants of Bac- tria.20 Later, Bactrians– i.e., people of Bactria-Tokharistan under Kushan rule, or even Kushan envoys– are mentioned in two important contexts.

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