152 
A. Cunningham —Relics from Ancient Persia. 
[No. 3, 
It is perhaps rather bold to speculate as to how this large treasure 
came to be hidden. It was not found all in one spot ; but scattered about 
in the sands of the river. One may therefore conjecture that it may have 
been concealed in the bank either in wooden boxes, or in vessels of earthen¬ 
ware, which fell to pieces when the swollen stream cut away the bank and 
scattered their contents over the sands. 
If I am right as to the age of the latest coins, the treasure must have 
been buried about the time of Antiochus the Great and his contemporary 
Euthydemus of Bactria, as not even a single specimen of either Demetrius 
or Eukratides has jet turned up. Now we know that Bactria was invaded 
by Antiochus in B. C. 208. Euthjulemus took up a position near Tagouria 
with an advanced post on the River Arius defended by ten thousand caval¬ 
ry. In the battle which followed, Euthydemus was defeated, and being 
disheartened he “ retreated to Zariaspa, a city of Bactriana, with all his 
army.” I quote the following from my account of this campaign in the 
Numismatic Chronicle. 
11 In marching from Hyrkania to Bactria, Antiochus must have follow¬ 
ed the high road along the valley of Meshed to the fort of Muzdaran, 
which stands on an isolated spur of table-land at the entrance of the 
Darband Pass.* 5 This is the place which I suppose that Antiochus was be¬ 
sieging when he heard that Euthydemus was encamped at Tagouria, only 
three days’ march distant, and that a body of cavalry was prepared to dispute 
the passage of the Arius River. Antiochus at once raised the siege, and 
resolved to cross the river, and advance against the enemy. For the first 
two days he moved slowly, but on the evening of the third day, leaving the 
main body behind, he made a forced march with all his cavalry and light¬ 
armed troops. As the country was level, and easy for the march of cavalry, 
he reached the banks of the River Arius and crossed it before dawn. Now 
the road through the Darband Pass leads direct upon the town of Sarakhs, 
which lies to the east of the Tejend, or Arius River, at forty-five miles 
distance from Muzdaran. The nature of this road also corresponds exactly 
with the account of Polybius; as Burnes describes the route for the 
eighteen miles to the south-west of Sarakhs, as lying “ over a level country, 
broken in some places by gravelly hillocks. ”f Sarakhs itself must there¬ 
fore be the city to which the Bactrian cavalry retired at night; and Ta¬ 
gouria, where Euthydemus was encamped, may be looked for somewhere 
along the line of the Murghab, or Margus River, in the neighbourhood of 
Maru-ur-Rud, or Alexandria Margiane.” 
“ Wilson thinks that Euthydemus showed little courage or conduct! 
in retiring at once so far back as Balkh, and he therefore infers that Zarias- 
* Burnes’ Travels, iii, 59. f Burnes’ Travels, iii, 58. 
X Ariana Antiqua, p. 221, note. 
