sehepunkte 26 (2026), Nr. 9

Apostolos Bousdroukis: D'Alexandre à Kanishka

Imagine you are a merchant in the service of Maes Titianos, setting out with his caravan on a long journey across myriad regions and territories, each very different from the next, and observing them through the eyes of an explorer eager to discover their unique characteristics and cultural nuances. This is precisely the sensation experienced while reading Apostolos Bousdroukis's monumental and ambitious work, which takes readers on an extensive and in-depth journey through Hellenistic settlements from the Mediterranean Near East to the Indus River. Experienced readers may be reminded of the works of Getzel M. Cohen, Ciro Lo Muzio or Maurice Sartre, and from this perspective D'Alexandre à Kanishka literally stands on the shoulders of giants - a fact of which the author is well aware from the outset (1-2).[1] After all, Bousdroukis has extensive experience in the field of interactions between the Greeks and the indigenous peoples of the Near East and the Indus Valley during the Hellenistic and Roman/Parthian periods, and his work clearly illustrates, already in the introduction, the effective interplay between the spheres of political and social institutions, palatial (as well as domestic and sacred) architecture, and religion - even though he could have streamlined the introduction to his work a bit, as the sheer volume of topics covered risks overwhelming the reader.

This two-volume work, totaling 1,375 pages written in elegant French, is organized so that the first volume covers a north-south route from Armenia to the Persian Gulf, concluding with the region of Babylonia and passing through Pieria, Cilicia, Chaonia, Mesopotamia, Paropotamia, Syria, Coele-Syria, the Arabian Gulf, and Adiabene - not all of which are consistently documented due to the lack of sources or excavation campaigns. In the second volume, the geographical scope follows an ideal west-east axis, starting from what the author calls the "province de la mer érythrée" (roughly the regions adjacent to Characene), and extending to the mouth of the Indus, passing through all the eastern satrapies of the former Achaemenid Empire (Persis, Susiana, Media, and Atropatene, Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Margiana, Drangiana, Bactria, Sogdiana, Paropamisus, and Arachosia).

However, Bousdroukis succeeds in offering both a historical overview, region by region - or rather, satrapy by satrapy - by weaving together literary sources (not only Greco-Roman, but also admirably Arabic and Armenian) and archaeological evidence - as well as an extensive modern bibliography in multiple languages (Italian, French, German, English), although the Russian bibliography is inevitably less well-represented, as it is always difficult to locate and not always easily accessible. And, in light of the large number of studies that continue to appear in specialized journals - and given the intensification of excavation campaigns in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - the merit of this work lies in its skillful navigation of an impressive number of publications, including recent ones, which will offer the reader a comprehensive overview of various topics, particularly the excavation work at individual sites.

In fact, as one reads through the work, one gets the impression that there is a significant disparity between what the sources and excavations tell us about the territories on this side of the Taurus Mountains (I am thinking, in the first volume, of the very lengthy section devoted to Mesopotamia, from 107-229, or the extremely well-documented section on Dura Europos alone, 229-312) - and how difficult it is to reconstruct the history of the regions or cities stretching from present-day Iran to the course of the Indus - with the exception, of course, of a few outstanding cases, such as Mithradātkert-Nysa or Aï Khanoum in the second volume, cities to which the author devotes far more than a single subparagraph (after all, readers will surely note the great importance of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan in this field).

In this regard, perhaps the volumes could have made a greater effort to make things easier for readers: an index at the beginning would certainly have made searching easier, but it was placed at the end of the second volume. As a result, it becomes necessary to have both of these heavy volumes (each weighing more than two kilograms) in front of you. Furthermore, maps are essential for navigating such a vast geographical area: although the volumes do include detailed maps - as well as a more general one on the back cover - the references in the text are not always precise, and sometimes maps several pages away are cited, forcing the reader to search for them in order to find their bearings. The same cannot be said, however, for the references to archaeological images or site plans, which are always placed close to their corresponding text and are very comprehensive. Finally, it should be noted that, although the name of a Kuṣāṇ ruler appears in the title, references to this empire are often not entirely up to date - I am thinking of certain dates or interpretations that are now considered outdated in modern historiography, such as those adopted on p. 890 regarding Nana on the coins of Wima Kadphises, which should in fact be attributed to his successor, or the dates set too low for Kujūla Kadphises on p. 993 and for the Indo-Parthian ruler Gondophares on p. 995.[2]

But in such a vast work, it is only natural for dynamics of this kind to arise, and this in no way diminishes the extraordinary work accomplished by the author, which I am certain will serve as a definitive point of reference in the coming years: Bousdroukis has, in fact, been able to systematically compile an impressive body of evidence, not limited to the literary or archaeological fields, but also including epigraphic and numismatic sources. For this reason, this volume will serve as an indispensable reference for various categories of scholars, such as those interested in Hellenistic foundations and the dynamics of the poleis in the East, scholars of cultural interactions or local institutions, historians of the Greco-Eastern world, and above all archaeologists - whose perspective is increasingly essential in academic research - but more generally for anyone interested in conducting up-to-date in-depth studies on a specific location or territory. And I would like to conclude by quoting the author's own words, which highlight the primary role of the Diadochi in the process of city-building through their interaction with local cultures, spreading a universal Hellenistic culture while at the same time fostering local distinctiveness: "nulle parte on n'assiste à un 'triomphe' des usages et des valeurs grecques, ou bien à une 'victoire' des cultures des pays d'accueil" (1214). It is a world that, even today, never ceases to amaze us with the dynamism and complexity of its cultural interactions, and Bousdroukis's book has managed to convey this message very effectively.

Notes:

[1] Inter alia, Getzel M. Cohen: The Hellenistic Settlements in the East from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 2013; Ciro Lo Muzio: Archeologia dell'Asia centrale preislamica. Dall'età del Bronzo al IX secolo d.C., Milano 2017; Maurice Sartre: D'Alexandre à Zénobie: Histoire du Levant antique, IVème siècle av. J.-C. - IIIème siècle ap. J.-C., Paris 2001.

[2] Cf. Joe Cribb / Aman Ur Rahman / Pankaj Tandon: The Kushan pantheon and the significance of the Kushan goddess Nana, in the light of new numismatic evidence of iconography and identity, in: Journal Asiatique 311.2 (2023), 247-266 (in part. 259). For the rest, Joe Cribb: Numismatic evidence and the date of Kaniṣka I, in: Problems of Chronology in Gandhāran Art, ed. by Wannaporn Rienjang / Peter Stewart, Oxford 2018, 7-34.