MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 717
There is no doubt that the formation of these enterprizing nations on the Indo-Iranian border helped to shake the empire of Ashoka in the time of his successors.
The Punjab, once a Persian satrapy and then a province of Alexander, was to find itself still more exposed to attack, now that smaller but turbulent states had arisen at its doors. After Diodotos I & II, the King of Bactria was Euthidemes, who went to war with Antioches the Great of Syria. Peace was concluded with the recognition of Bactrian independence about 208. But during hostilities Syrian troops had crossed the Hindu Kush and enterning the Kabul valley had severely dispoiled the ruler Subhagasena. Demetrius, the son of Enthidemos, increased his dominion not only in the present Afghanistan but in India proper, and bore the title of King of the Indians (200-190). Between 190 and 180 there were Greek adventurers reigning at Taxila, named Paleon & Agathocles. From 160 to 140 roughly, Kabul and the Punjab were held by a pure Greek, Milinda or Minander, who left a name in the history of Buddhism.
III
Huns
In the last years of Kumargupta new Iranian peoples assailed the empire, but they were kept back from the frontiers. Under Skandagupta, the first wave of formidable migration came down upon the same frontiers. This consisted of nomad Mongoloids to whom India afterwards gave the genuine name of Huna, under which we recognised the Huns who invaded Europe.
Those who reached India after the middle of the fifth century were white Huns or Ephthalites, who in type were closer to the Turks than to the hideous followers of Attila. After a halt in the valley of the Oxus they took possession of Persia and Kabul. Skandagupta had driven them off for a few years
(455 A. D.) but after they had slain Firoz the Sassanid in 484, no Indian state could stop them. One of them, named Toramana, established himself among the Malavas in 500 and his son Mihirgula set up his capital at Sakol (Sialkot) in the Punjab.