lves free of so hateful and yet contemptible a master.

It was, probably, about the year B.C. 256, the fifth of the second
Antiochus, when that prince, hard pressed by Philadelphus in the west,
was also, perhaps, engaged in a war with the king of Atropatene in the
north, that the standard of revolt was first actually raised in the
eastern provinces, and a Syrian satrap ventured to declare himself an
independent sovereign. This was Diodotus, satrap of Bactria a Greek, as
his name shows. Suddenly assuming the state and style of king he
issued coins stamped with his own name, and established himself without
difficulty as sovereign over the large and flourishing province of
Bactria, or the tract of fertile land about the upper and middle
Oxus. This district had from a remote antiquity been one with special
pretensions. The country was fertile, and much of it strong; the people
were hardy and valiant; they were generally treated with exceptional
favor by the Persian monarchs; and they seem to have had traditions
which assigned them a pre-eminence among the Arian tribes at some
indefinitely distant period. We may presume that they would gladly
support the bold enterprise of their new monarch; they would feel their
vanity flattered by the establishment of an independent Bactria, even
though it were under Greek kings; and they would energetically second
him in an enterprise which gratified their pride, while it held out to
them hopes of a career of conquest, with its concomitants of plunder and
glory. The settled quiet which they had enjoyed under the Achaemenide
and the Seleucidae was probably not much to their taste; and they
would gladly exchange so tame and dull a life for the pleasures of
independence and the chances of empire.

It would seem that Antiochus, sunk in luxury at his capital, could not
bring himself to make even an effort to check the spirit of rebellion,
and recover his revolted subjects. Bactria was allowed to establish
itself as an independent monarchy, without having to undergo the ordeal
of a bloody struggle. Antiochus neither marched against Diodotus
in person, nor sent a general to contend with him. The authority of
Diodotus was confirmed and riveted on his subjects by an undisturbed
reign of eighteen years before a Syrian army even showed itself in his
neighborhood.

The precedent of successful revolt thus set could not well be barren
of consequences. If one province might throw off the yoke of its f