page_title: Ai-Khanoum
section_title: Epigraphic remains
hierarchical_section_title: Ai-Khanoum / Greek city in Bactria / Epigraphic remains
caption_attribution_description: Inscription of Kineas. Ai Khanoum 2nd century BCE. Musée Guimet. Personal photograph 2006. Also see File:AiKhanoumMaxim.jpg
context_page_description: Ai-Khanoum, possibly the historical Alexandria on the Oxus, possibly later named Eucratidia, Εὐκρατίδεια was one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom from circa 280 BCE, and of the Indo-Greek kings when they ruled both in Bactria and northwestern India, from the time of Demetrius I to the time of Eucratides. Previous scholars have argued that Ai Khanoum was founded in the late 4th century BC, following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Recent analysis now strongly suggests that the city was founded c. 280 BC by the Seleucid emperor, Antiochus I Soter. The city is located in Takhar Province, northern Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Panj River and the Kokcha River, both tributaries of the Amu Darya, historically known as the Oxus, and at the doorstep of South Asia.
  Ai-Khanoum was one of the focal points of Hellenism in the East for nearly two centuries until its annihilation by nomadic invaders around 145 BCE about the time of the death of Eucratides I.
context_section_description: Various inscriptions in Classical, non-barbarized, Greek have been found in Ai-Khanoum.
  On a Herõon (funerary monument), identified in Greek as the tomb of Kineas (also described as the oikistes (founder) of the Greek settlement) and dated to 300-250 BC, an inscription has been found describing Delphic maxims:
  παῖς ὢν κόσμιος γίνου,
  ἡβῶν ἐγκρατής,
  μέσος δίκαιος,
  πρεσβύτης εὔβουλος,
  τελευτῶν ἄλυπος.
  "Païs ôn kosmios ginou (As children, learn good manners)
  hèbôn enkratès, (as young men, learn to control the passions)
  mesos dikaios (in middle age, be just)
  presbutès euboulos (in old age, give good advice)
  teleutôn alupos. (then die, without regret.)"
  The precepts were placed by a Greek named Clearchos, who may or may not have been Clearchus of Soli the disciple of Aristotle, who, according to the same inscription, had copied them from Delphi:
  ἀνδρῶν τοι σοφὰ ταῦτα παλαιοτέρων ἀνάκει[τα]ι
  ῥήματα ἀριγνώτων Πυθοὶ ἐν ἠγαθέαι·
  ἔνθεν ταῦτ[α] Κλέαρχος ἐπιφραδέως ἀναγράψας
  εἵσατο τηλαυγῆ Κινέου ἐν τεμένει.
  "These wise commandments of men of old
  - Words of well-known thinkers - stand dedicated
  In the most holy Pythian shrine
  From there Klearchos, having copied them carefully, set them up, shining from afar, in the sanctuary of Kineas"
  Remains of some papyrus manuscripts, the imprint of which were left in the thin earth of brick walls, containing unknown philosophical dialogues on the theory of ideas, thought to be the only surviving remain of an Aristotelian dialogue, possibly the Sophist, where Xenocrates, another philosopher, present his theory of ideas.
  Various Greek inscriptions were also found in the Treasury of the palace, indicating the contents (money, imported olive oil...) of various vases, and names of the administrators in charge of them. The hierarchy of these administrators appears to be nearly identical to that in the Mediterranean Greek areas. From the names mentioned in these inscriptions, it appears that the directors of the Treasury were Greek, but that lower administrators had Bactrian names. Three signatories had Greek names (Kosmos, Isidora, Nikeratos), one a Macedonian or Thracian name (Lysanias), and two Bactrian names (Oxuboakes, Oxubazes).
  One of these economic inscriptions relates in Greek the deposit of olive oil jars in the treasury:
  "In the year 24, on ....;
  an olive oil (content);
  the partially empty (vase) A (contains) oil transferred from
  two jars by Hippias
  the hemiolios; and did seal:
  Molossos (?) for jar A, and Strato (?) for jar B (?)"
  The last of the dates on these jars has been computed to 147 BC, suggesting that Ai-Khanoum was destroyed soon after that date.
caption: Stone block with the inscriptions of Kineas. Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BC.
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