VII, 22),
Dionysius, Zoilus, Apollophanes (Summary), Strato I and II (PI.
Dionysius, Zoilus, Apollophanes (Summary), Strato I and II (PI.
Cambridge History of India - v1
Contrasted with these, the coin-portraits executed to
the south of the Hindu Kush are lifeless and conventional. Between the
two styles of art there is a gulf fixed. Neither can be brought into relation
with the other. They are the work of different regions and the outcome of
different types of civilisation. In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid
peoples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in the
Kābul valley and in India, they were brought into contact with a civilisation
which was in many respects as advanced as their own and even more
ancient-a civilisation in which, as in that of Ancient Egypt, religious and
social institutions bad long ago been stereotyped, and in which individual
effort in literature and art was no longer free but bound by centuries of
tradition. With this deeply-rooted civilisation the Greeks were forced to
make a compromise, and the results are seen in their bilingual coin-legends,
and in their adoption of the Indian (or Persian) weight-standard.
Differences less strongly marked, differences of degree rather than of
kind, are to be observed in the style of the coinages which the Yavanas
issued in the kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush. This diversity is no
doubt the result chiefly of varying local conditions. The Yavana dcminions
were very widely extended ; and the influence of Greek models was naturally
less strong in the more remote districts.
TAE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
The princes of the house of Euthydemus who reigned both in Bactria
and in kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush are Demetrius, Pantaleon,
Agathocles, and probably also Antimachus.
Of these Demetrius alone is known to the Greek historians, whose
statements as to his Indian conquests are confirmed, though scarcely
supplemented, by the evidence of coins. The district, in which his bilingual
square copper coins were struck, has not been determined ; and all that can
be said of his round coins, with types 'Elephant's head : Caduceus' and
Greek legend only, is that they were directly copied by the Çaka king
Maues, and that they must therefore have been in circulation in the lower
Kābul valley or in N. W, India (Pl. VI, 1, 2).
Chapter XVII, pp. 400-2
1
## p. 493 (#531) ############################################
ΧΧιι]
THE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
493
Pantaleon and Agathocles were undoubtedly closely connected, since
they struck coins which are identical in type and form. These were
borrowed from the earlier native currency which prevailed generally in the
Paropanisadae and Gandhāra. From a general consideration of the
provenance of their coins, which are found in Kābul, Ghazni, and Kandahār,
Cunningham concluded that Pantaleon and Agathocles must have ruled
over the Western Paropanisadae and Arachosia (N. Chr. , 1869, p. 41). They
would seem therefore to represent the south-western extension of the
Yavana power.
The commemorative medals struck by Antimachus show that he
claimed to be the successor of Diodotus and Euthydemus ; but there is
nothing to indicate his relation to Agathocles who makes the same claim.
The two princes may have been ruling at the same period in different king-
doms. From the recorded discoveries of the Indian coins of Antimachus,
Cunningham inferred that he ruled in the lower Kābul valley (the districts
of Jalālābād and Peshāwar). The reverse type in which the king is repre-
sented on a prancing horse and wearing a flat cap (kausia), as on the
obverse of the large silver Bactrian coins, is evidently a portrait ; and the
same type is continued on the coins of Philoxenus, Nicias, and Hippos-
tratus, who may have succeeded to the kingdom of Antimachus.
But if these four princes really ruled over the same kingdom, its
locality must be sought rather in the country of the Jhelum than in
the lower Kābul Valley. The coins of Philoxenus are found only to the east
of Jalālabad (B. M. Cat. , p. XXXVIII), and those of Nicias only in the Jhelum
District (Smith, Early Hist. of India. , 3rd ed. , p. 213); while the types
'Apollo : Tripod' which are also struck by Hippostratus seem undoubtedly,
in later times, to have been confined to the eastern districts of the Punjab
(p. 498). The occurrence of the type 'King on prancing horse' on the joint
coins of Hermaeus and Calliope may, as Cunningham suggested, indicate
the union of two royal houses.
The Bactrian and Indian coins of Antimachus with their types
*Poseidon' and 'Victory' must refer to a naval triumph ; and it is difficult
;
to explain the allusion except on the supposition that this king had
a victory on one of the great Indian rivers – the Indus or the
Jhelum.
Numismatists usually distinguish between an earlier Antimachus I
Deos and a later Antimachus II Nikndópos (Pl. VI, 3) ; but it seems more
probable that the coins assigned to these are merely the Bactrian and
the Indian issues of the same monarch. The two classes are connected by
their types ; and the difference between them may well be local rather than
chronological. They represent the workmanship of districts separated by
some hundreds of miles and dissimilar in culture. They find their parallels in
won
>
## p. 494 (#532) ############################################
494
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the coinages of other Graeco-Indian kings, viz. Demetrius, Eucratides, and
Heliocles. Like the title 'Acikgros, which is borne by Demetrius, the
Nikodópos of Antimachus has reference to Indian conquests and is
not found on the coins struck in Bactria.
Of the Yavana princes who ruled only to the south of the Hindu
Kush, Apollodotus would seem to have been the first. He is twice men-
tioned by ancient authors, and on both occasions in association with
Menander. From such evidence as is forthcoming we may reasonably con-
clude that the two princes were members of the family of Euthydemus,
that they belong to the same period -- the period of Yavana expansion-
and that Apollodotus was the elder.
The copper coins of Apollodotus bear types 'Apollo : Tripod' in
evident allusion to the king's name (PI. VI, 4). These were restruck
by Eucratides with his own types in the kingdom of Kāpiça (Kāfiristān)
immediately to the south of the Hindu Kush (p. 501 ; Pl. VII, 36). The
types of the silver coins, 'Elephant : Indian bull' (PI. VI, 7) which may have
symbolised the tutelary divinities of cities, are commonly found on
the earlier native coinages of the N. W. , and the Indian bull is more
particularly characteristic of Pushkalāvati (Chārsadda) in the Peshāwar
District (p. 503). These types continued to be struck by Heliocles
.
(Pl. VI, 8). The coins thus show most clearly the transference of the
upper and lower Kābul valleys from one Yavana house to the other,
and they determine the date of Apollodotus I: he was, like Demetrius,
the contemporary of Eucratides, who was the predecessor of Heliocles.
From their home in the N. W. the coins of Apollodotus were carried
far and wide into other regions. Such distribution may manifestly be the
result either of conquest or of commerce : it is therefore no certain
indication of the limits of a king's dominions. But in this case numis-
matic evidence of the kind may well be adduced to confirm the state.
ment preserved by Strabo, that Yavana rule extended on the south-
west to Ariāna and on the south to the Indus delta and Western India.
Cunningham observed that, while coins of Apollodotus are found in
Arachosia (Ghazni and Kandahār) and in Drangiāna (Seistān), those
of Menander do not occur in these regions ; and from this fact he inferred
;
that these provinces of Ariāna were lost to the house of Euthydemus during
the reign of Apollodotus and before the reign of Menander (N. Chr. , 1869,
p. 146). They would appear to have come successively under the sway of
Eucratides and of Mithradates. 1 That Menander did not rule in Ariāna
seems certain. He is associated rather with the eastern Punjab (p. 495);
and in this region he may have been reigning contemporaneously with
Apollodotus in the N. W. and in Ariāna.
1 Chapter XVII,
p. 411.
## p. 495 (#533) ############################################
XXII]
ÇAKALA
495
The memory of Apollodotus and Menander was preserved in Western
India by their coins, which, according to the author of Periplus of
the Erythraean Sea ($ 47), were still in circulation in the last quarter of the
first century A. D. at Barugaza (Broach). But Yavana rule had long
ago ceased in this region. Early in the first century B. c. the country of
the lower Indus had passed into the possession of the Çaka invaders from
Seistān. 1
After the conquests of Eucratides and Heliocles the dominions of the
house of Euthydemus were confined to those districts of the Punjab which
lie to the east of the Jhelum, that is to say, to the old kingdoms of
Alexander's first and second Paurava, and to the region beyond. Here
the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod,' were continued by Strabo I,
by Çaka king Maues, and, with some modification in the representation
both of Apollo and the Tripod, by Apollodotus II Philopator, Dionysius,
Zoilus, and Hippostratus (Pl. VI, 5, 6 and Summary, p. 530).
Menander is the only Yavana who has become celebrated in the
ancient literature of India. He is unquestionably to be identified with
Milinda, the Yavana king of Cākala (Siālkot), who is one of the two
leading characters in the Milindapānha, the Questions of Milinda,' a Pāli
treatise on the fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. It is in the
form of a dialogue between the king, who had become notorious as 'haras-
sing the brethren by putting puzzles to them of heretical tendency,' and
the Buddhist elder, Nāgasena, who triumphantly solves these puzzles and
succeeds in converting his royal antagonist. It is thus as a philosopher,
and not as a mighty conqueror, that Menander, like Janamejaya, king of
the Kurus, and Janaka, king of Videha, in the Upanishads, has won for
,
himself an abiding fame.
As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome; the acknowledged
superior of all the founders of the various schools of thought. As in wisdom so in
strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all
India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, and the number of his armed
hosts knew no end. (Trans Rhys, Davids, S. B. E. XXXV, pp. 6, 7. )
The capital is described in the same somewhat conventional style in a
passage which begins :
There is, in the country of the Yonakas, a great centre of trade, a city that is
called Sāgala. situated in a delightful country, abounding in parks and gardens and gro:
ves and lakes and tanks, a paradise of rivers and mountains and woods. (ibid. p. 2,)
Little is said which might not apply to any other important city lying
on the great high road of N. India”. For more precise information we
1 Chapter XXIII, pp. 509, 514.
2 In the Jain literature such conventional descriptions of persons and places have
attained to their complete logical development : they have become stereotyped, and are
to be supplied in each fresh instance from the bàre stage direction, r'anno, “the descrip-
tion as before. '
## p. 496 (#534) ############################################
496
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
а
must seek elsewhere.
Çākala was a city of the Madras, who are mentioned in the Bșihadā-
ranyaka Upanishad (111, 3, 1 ; 7, 1) probably as early as 600 B. C. , and who
appear in the epics to occupy the district of Siālkot between the rivers
Chenāb and Rāvi. Here Alexander found the second Paurava king, whose
dominions he annexed to the satrapy of his relation and rival, the great
Paurava, who ruled over the adjacent territory between the Jhelum and the
Chenāb. We may conclude then that the kings of the Madras claimed to be
Pūrus, and that their dominions together with their capital, Çakala, twice
passed under the sway of the Yavanas--under Alexander and under his
successor, Menander. At a later date, in the early part of the sixth cen-
tuny A. D. , Çākala became the capital of the Hūņa conqueror, Mihirakulat.
At his meetings with Nāgasena, the king is attended by his fire
hundred Greek (Yonaka) courtiers, some of whom bear Greek names
which have been slightly Indianised ; and, as the chief of these courtiers
were no doubt related to the royal family which traced its origin to Bactria,
it is not surprising to find among them a Demetrius (Devamantriya) and an
Antiochus (Anantakāya).
In the illustrations which are brought to bear on the philosophical
topics under discussion, certain facts of a more general interest emerge.
Milinda, it appears, was born at the village of Kalasi in the dripa of
Alasanda. Kalasi cannot be identified ; but the dvīpa of Alasanda is
doubt the district of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus – Alasanda of the
Yonas, as it is called in the Mahāvamsa (xxix, 39). Translators have per-
sistently rendered dvipa by 'island,' and have thus added to the difficulties
of identifying the site ; but this is only one of the meanings of this word,
which often denotes the land lying between two rivers — the Persian duab :
the district of Çākala, for example, in the Rechna Doáb between the
Chenāb and the Ravi, is often called Çākala dvipa. There is no reason
therefore why the term Alasanda-dvi pa should not be applied to the country
between the Panjshir and Kābul rivers, in which the ruins of Alexander's
city have been recognised near Chārikār. No other of the numerous
Alexandrias has an equal claim to the honour of being Menander's birth-
place, which, in reply to Nāgasena's question, the king himself describes as
being 200 yojanas distant from Çākala. The yojana has very different
values according to the period and the locality in which it is used ; but
there is good evidence of the use in Buddhist books of a short yojana,.
equal to about two and a half
English miles ; and an estimate of 500
miles
1 Chapter XV, p. 332 ; l'edic Index, II, p. 123 ; Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. pp. 315- 6;
Fleet. Trāns. Inter. Gr. Cong. , Algiers, 1905, I, pp. 164 ff.
no
## p. 497 (#535) ############################################
XXII]
MEN ANDER
497
for the route from Chārikār to Sialkot seems to be fairly correct (p. 490).
The statement thus incidentally preserved by the Milindapañha has the
appearance of truth. Some branch of the family of Euthydemus would
naturally be settled in the district, which was strategically important as con-
stituting the connecting link between Bactria and India, and we may
reasonably conclude that Menander, like Apoliodotus, belonged to this
branch.
Menander's fame as a great and just ruler was not confined to India.
Some two centuries after his time Plutarch recounted to the Greek world
the story how, after his death in camp, the cities of his realm contended
for the honour of preserving his ashes and agreed on a division among
themselves, in order that the memory of his reign should not be lost. The
story is evidently derived from some Buddhist source ; for, as Prinsep first
pointed out, it is a reminiscence of the story of the distribution of Buddha's
ashes1.
The coins of Menander show a greater variety of types and are
distributed over a wider area than those of any other Graeco-Indian ruler.
They are found not only in the Kābul valley and the Punjab, but also in
the western districts of the United Provinces. There can be no doubt that
Menander was the ruler over many kingdoms and that he was a great
conqueror. It was most probably under his leadership that the Yavana
armies invaded the Midland Country (p. 491). The statement, that the
expedition was recalled on account of the war which had broken out
between the Yavanas themselves in their own country, is in accordance
with what may be inferred as to his date. Menander and Eucratides were
almost certainly contemporary. Some of their square copper coins are so
similar in style that they may reasonably be assigned not only to the same
general period, but also to the same region --a region which must have
passed from one rule to the other (Pl. VI, 13, 14).
The numismatic record of Menander is unusually full, but it is at the
same time extraordinarily difficult to interpret. Few, if any, of his types
can be attributed to the different cities in which they were struck. The
most plausible suggestions are that the 'Os-head' (PI. VI, 17) may re-
present Bucephala, and the figure of Victory' (Pl. VI, 15 ; continued on
the coins of Strato, Pl. VI, 16) Nicaea, the two cities which Alexander
founded on the Jhelum in the realm of Porus.
The period is one of great historical complexity. The house of
Euthydemus, after a career of conquest under Demetrius, Apollodotus, and
Menander, was engaged in a struggle, under the same leaders. to maintain
its newly won possessions against the encroachments of the house of
1 Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae reipublicae (Moralia, 821, D); Prinscep's Essays,
ed. Thomas, I, pp. 50, 171. '
2 Chapter XV, p. 338.
>
## p. 498 (#536) ############################################
498
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXAVDAR THE GREAT
Eucratides. Coins can only have preserved a few indications of the
kaleidoscopic changes which must from time to time have taken place in
the political sitnation. Nevertheless, their evidence clearly illustrates some
of the main results of the struggle. They show unmistakably that the
dominions of the house of Euthydemus in the Kābul valley and in both
western and eastern Gandhāra (Pushkalāvati and Takshaçilā) had passed
into the hands of Eucratides (pp. 501 f. ) and his immediate successors
Heliocles (pp. 502 f. ) and Antialcidas (pp. 503 f. ). It is in the region which
lies to the south and east of the Rawalpindi District that we must seek
henceforth the remnants of the house of Euthydemus. Here Apollodotus
appears to be represented by Apollodotus II Philopator, and Menander by
Agathocleia and her son Strato.
The types which these families continue to use in the eastern
Punjab, and which are especially characteristic of the house of Euthydemus,
are chiefly two : (1) the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod’ (Pl. VI, 4)
-Strato I (Pl. VI, 5), and, with some modification in the types which
appears to indicate a later date, Apollodotus II (P. VI, 6), Dionysius,
Zoilus, Hippostratus (Summary); and (2) the type of Menander,
‘Athene Promachos' (Pl. VII, 18) - Agathocleia and Strato (Pl. VII, 19),
Strato I (Pl. VII, 20, 21 and Summary), Apollodotus JI (PI.
VII, 22),
Dionysius, Zoilus, Apollophanes (Summary), Strato I and II (PI. VII, 23).
In the long and distinguished list of queens who have ruled in India
must be included the name of Agathocleia. Her relation to Menander
cannot be proved very definitely ; but it is by no means improbable that
she was his queen and the governor of his kingdom after his death'. The
fact that she struck coins on which her portrait appears together with the
type of Euthydemus, 'Heracles seated', shows that she was a princess in her
own right and a member of the royal house ; and her name suggests that
she may have belonged to the family of Pantaleon and Agathocles (p. 492).
She was undoubtedly the mother of Strato I Soter.
The coins issued by Agathocleia in association with her son, and by
Strato ruling at first alone and afterwards in association with his grandson,
Strato II Philopator, supply the most valuable evidence for the reconstruc-
tion of the history and chronology of this period. They mark most clearly
1 The evidence, such as it is, is as follows :-(1) The 'bust of Athena helmeted"
which appears on coins of Menander (Pl. VI, 15) is perhaps a portrait of Agothocleia,
like the similar bust on coins which she strikes in association with Strato (PI. VII, 25);
(2) the figure of a warrior king on the reverse of certain coins struck by Agathocleia,
during Strato's minority and bearing her own portrait may be supposed to represent the
late king (Corolia Vumismilca, Pl. XII, 4) : a similarfigure occurs as the obverse type on
coins of Menander, where it is most naturally explained as that of Menander himself
(Lahore Cat. , PI. VI, 515).
2 For the detailed proof see Rapson in Corolla Numismatica (Oxford, 1903),
pp. 247-51.
## p. 499 (#537) ############################################
XXII]
AGATHOCLEIA AND STRATO
499
a
various stages in the long life of Strato, They begin at a time when the
conquests of the house of Eucratides had not yet reached their limit ; and
they end on the eve of the complete overthrow of Yavana power in the
eastern Punjab by the Çakas.
On the earliest of these coins Agathocleia appears as queen regent
holding the place of honour with her portrait and Greek inscription on the
obverse, while the Kharoshțhi legend of the young prince occupies a subor-
dinate position on the reverse (Pl. VII. 25). Afterwards, the combined
portraits of mother and son declare their association in the government
(Pl. VII, 19) ; and, later still, a series of portraits shows Strato first reign-
ing alone - as a youth (Pl. VII, 20), or as a bearded man (Pl. VII, 21)-and
then in advanced old age, with toothless jaws and sunken cheeks, both, as
the Kharoshthi legends indicate, reigning alone (Summary) and in
association with his grandson, Strato II Philopator (Pl. VII, 23). To judge
from these portraits, we have here glimpses of a life of more than seventy
years. Between the earliest and the latest there is indeed a long interval,
and to some period in this interval must be assigned the reigns of Apollo-
dotus II Philopator, Dionysius, and Zoilus. They are associated by their
common use of a peculiar monogram (Pl. VII, 22 and Summary) ;
and it is probable that they were all descendants of Apollodotus I. Apol-
lophanes, whose name suggests that he may have been a member of the
same family, must belong to the period represented by the latest coins of
Strato.
Coins of Agathocleia and Strato (Pl. VII, 25), and others of Strato
reigning alone (Pl. VII, 16), are sometimes found restruck with the types of
Heliocles (Pl. VII, 35). The restruck coins of Strato bear the reverse-type
'Victory,' which was inherited by him either from Menander or from
Agathocleia ruling in the name of Menander (Pl. VI, 15 and Summary) ;
and this type may not improbably be supposed to represent the
city of Nicaea on the Jhelum (p. 497). We have here unmistakable evidence
of a further transference of the dominions of the house of Euthydemus to
the rival house of Eucratides, and a certain indication that the conflict
which was begun by Eucratides in the time of Demetrius and Apollodotus,
was continued by Heliocles in the reign of Strato.
The lifetime of Strato witnessed not only the decline in the eastern
Punjab of the royal house to which he belonged, but also the downfall of
Yavana rule in Northern India ; for in his reign there came still another
great foreign invasion which led to the supremacy of the Çakas and Pahla-
The debased art of his latest coins and of those in which he is asso.
ciated with his grandson seems to show that the house of Euthydemus had
fallen on evil days ; and other coins clearly suggest the manner in which it
came to an end. The familiar type of the house of Euthydemus, 'Athene
vas.
## p. 500 (#538) ############################################
500
[CIT.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDAR THE GREAT
Promachos,' continues to appear on coins ; but the strikers no longer bear
Greek names. Their names are either Indian like Bhadrayaçasa, or Çaka
like Ranjubula (Summary, p. 532 and Pl. VII, 24). The former is otherwise
unknown : the latter was the satrap of Mathurā c. 50 B. c. It appears
most probable that the kingdom held in the eastern Punjab by the last
successors of Euthydemus were conquered not by the first Çaka king,
Maues, but by his successor, Azes I (58 B. c. ) who was either contemporary
with, or later in date than, Apollodotus II and Hippostratus whose coins
he restruck? .
THE HOUSE OF EUCRATIDES
I'rom such notices of the history of Bactria and Parthia as have been
preserved by Greek and Latin writers, a few main facts in the career of
Eucratides may be gathered. He deposed Demetrius from the throne of
Bactria c. 175 B. C. ); he invaded the countries to the south of Hindu Kush,
and wrested from Demetrius and the princes of his house their dominions
in the Kābul valley, in Ariāna (Arachosia and Aria) and in N. W. India at
some date before 162 B. C. ; he was deprived by Mithradates I of his recent-
ly conquered possession in Ariāna at some time between 162 and c. 155 ;
and, while returning in triumph from an Indian expedition, he was slain by
his son, c. 155. None of the princes of the royal house which he founded
are named in ancient literature ; all that can be known of them must be
inferred from the numerous coinages which they issued and from a single
Indian inscription.
The coins show that Heliocles, the successor of Eucratides, also ruled
both in Bactria and in India, and that after his reign Greek power in
Bactria ceased. Henceforth Yavana princes are found only in kingdoms
south of Hindu Kush, and they are divided into two rival dynasties – the
successors of Eucratides in the Kābul valley and in N. W. India, and the
successsors of Euthydemus in the eastern region of the Punjab.
Some stages in the conflict between the two houses are reflected in the
types of their coins : and especially valuable in the evidence which is some-
times supplied by restrikings. Thus certain copper coins of Apollodotus I
Soter, with the usual types ‘Apollo : Tripod’ (Pl. VI, 4) have been restruck
by Eucratides (Pl. VII, 36). This must surely indicate that territory
once occupied by Apollodotus had passed into the hands of Eucratides, and
that consequently Eucratides must have been either contemporary
with Apollodotus or later in date. Other evidence shows that these
two kings were contemporary, for each of them was the predecessor
of Heliocles (p. 503). This inevitable conclusion is perfectly in agreement
1 See Chapter XXIII, pp. 518 f.
2 Lahore Mus. Cat. pp. 122-3; and Chapter XXIII, p. 516.
## p. 501 (#539) ############################################
XXII]
KĀPIÇA
501
)
with the style of the coins ; for the Indian issues of Eucratides appear to
be at least as late in style as those of Apollodotus. The comparatively
early date of Apollodotus is moreover proved by his use of the Attic weight-
standard.
But these restruck coins not only show that the two monarchs repre-
sent the two rival houses ; they also give the name of the kingdom
which had been lost and won. The reverse type is ‘Zeus enthroned,' and it
is accompanied by two symbols, a mountain and the head of an elephant ;
and the Kharoshthi legend describes the type as 'the divinity of the city of
Kāpiçi' (Pl. VII, 36).
Kāpiçī, the Kdtlga (Mss. Kdrilga) of Ptolemy (vi, 18, 4), was a city of
the Paropanisadae ; and, according to Pliny (vi, 23 (25)), it had been
destroyed by Cyrus. It is mentioned by Pāṇini (1v, 2, 99); and from his
time onwards it is best known in Sanskrit literature as giving its name to a
spirituous liquor distilled from the flowers of the Mādhavi creeper. But our
chief knowledge of Kāpiça, as the kingdom may be called in distinc-
tion from its capital, Kāpiçī, comes from Chinese sources. For the Chinese
Buddhist pilgrims it was the frontier country on their long journey
to Northern India. It was a fruitful land of alpine valleys surrounded by
mountains on every side. It was here that the Chinese princes who were de-
tained as hostages in Kanishka's court spent the summer, while they passed
the spring and autumn in Gandhāra and the winter in India. When Hiuen
Tsiang visited Kāpica in 630 A. D. , it was a powerful kingdom, which,
according to his description as interpreted by Cunningham, 'must have in-
cluded the whole of Kāfiristān, as well as the two large valleys of Ghorband
and Panjshir' (Geog. p. 16) ; and on it at that period were dependent the
neighbouring kingdoms of Lampāka (Laghmān), Nagara (probably Jalālā-
bād), and Gandhāra.
Hiuen Tsiang's account includes a notice which furnishes an interest-
ing explanations of the coin-type :
To the south-west of the capital was the Pi-lo-sho-lo Mountain. The name
was given to the mountain from its presiding genius who had the form of an elephant
and was therefore called Pi-lo. sho-lo. (Watters, On Yuan Chuang, I, p. 129).
The name is explained as meaning 'solid as an elephant,' and
its Indian form has been restored as Pilu-sāra, the first part of the com-
pound being supposed to be of Persian derivation (bil=elephant).
In this case, as also in others recorded by the historians of Alexander,
the Greeks sought to identify the Indian divinities with their own. They
evidently regarded the tutelary deity of the city of Kāpiçi as Zeus. The
cointype thus inaugurated became characteristic of the house of Eucratides
in the Kābul valley. It continued to be used by his successors until all
Yavana rule in India came to an end. It is found on the coins of Heliocles
Antialcidas, Amyntas (Summary), and Hermaeus (Pl. VII, 37).
9
## p. 502 (#540) ############################################
502
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXAVDER THE GREAT
The conquests which Eucratides carried beyond the Kābul valley into
the region of eastern Gandhāra (Takshaçilā) seem to be represented by
the coins bearing the type 'Dioscuri' (Pl. VIII, 39), which was continued by
Diomedes (Pl. VIII, 40). One of its varieties which shows the pointed caps
(pilei) of these deities (Pl. VIII, 41) was certainly imitated by Liaka
Kusūlaka, the Çaka satrap of the districts of Chhahara and Chukhsa
in the neighbourhood of Takshaçilā (P). VIII, 42). The 'Pilei' appear also
on coins of Antialcidaö (Pl. VIII, 43), Lysias and Antialcidas (Summary),
and Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44). Whether the type 'Victory' (Pl. VI. 13)
denotes that Eucratides was at some time in possession of Nicaea on
the Jhelum must remain doubtful (p. 497).
Although the evidence for the very existence of Heliocles is purely
numismatic, it is almost certain that he was the son of Eucratides, and
quite certain that he succeeded. Eucratides both in Bactria and in
India. That he was the last Yavana king to rule in Bactria is shown by
the fact that after his reign coins of Greek workmanship ceases entirely in
that region, and are replaced by the rude imitations of his coins which sup-
plied the currency of the barbarous Çaka conquerors. That he extended
the conquests of Eucratides in India is shown by his restrikings of coins
originally issued hy rulers belonging to the house of Euthydemus (p. 499).
In the Kābul valley he continued to issue coins bearing the type 'Zeus
enthroned,' with which Eucratides had restruck the coins of Apollodotus
(Summary) and others bearing the types ‘Elephant : Bull' which
are identical with those of Apollodotus himself (Pl. VI, 8). The type
'Elephant' occurs frequently both on the purely Indian, and on the Graeco-
Indian, coinages of the Kābul valley and N. W'. India. The various mints
which it denotes cannot be identified more precisely ; but it may be sugges-
ted that the type, like the 'Zeus enthroned derived' its origion from the
elephant-deity of Kāpiça. The ‘Bull' on the other hand, can be shown to
have been the distinctive badge of Pushkalāvati (Peucelaotis) in the lower
Kābul valley, the capital of western Gandhāra. The evidence which makes
this identification certain is supplied by the gold piece illustrated in Pl.
VI, 10. On the obverse is seen the goddess wearing a mural crown, the
emblem of a Greek civic divinity. and holding in her right hand a lotus as
the tutelary deity of 'the City of Lotuses. The accompanying Kharoshthi
legend describes her as the goddess of Pushka! āvai’: and it is quite
possible that her name may lie hidden in the three illegible Kharoshthi
characters on the left. On the reverse is the figure of a humped bull ; and
above and below are the Greek and Kharoshțhi equivalents for “bull. ' As
in the case of the city divinity of Kāpiçī, the Greek artist has represented
in accordance with Greek ideas an Indian deity who was supposed to bear
the form of a bull. Here once again we are indebted to Hiuen Tsiang,
who, in his description of Pushkalavatī, says :
:
9
## p. 503 (#541) ############################################
XXII]
PUSHKALĀVATI
503
on the
Outside the west gate of the city was a Deva-Temple and a marvel-working
image of the Deva. (Watters, On Yuan Chuang, I, p. 214).
The Bull, like the elephant, is a common emblem in Indian mythology,
and is associated with the deities worshipped by various sects; but in this
case it would seem undoubtedly to be the bull of Çiva ; for the coin-type
passed from the Yavanas and their successors, the Çakas, to the Kushāņa
kings who added to the figure of the god himself. The bull continued to
appear on the coins of this region for many centuries It is seen
'Bull and Horseman' coins of the Shāhis of Gandhāra as late as the eleventh
century A. D. , and from then it is borrowed by the early Muhammadan
conquerors.
The successor of Heliocles who from such numismatic evidence are
known to have ruled over the kingdom of Pushkalāvati are-
e-Diomedes
(Pl. VI, 11), Epander, Philoxenus, Artemidorus, and Peucolaus (Summary).
The figure of Artemis, which occurs on the coins of Artemidorus, bears
an evident allusion to the king's name ; and, since it is found also on the
coins of Peucolaus, it shows that the Greeks identified the city goddess
with Artemis. The association of Peucolaus with Pushkalāvati is proclaim-
ed by his name, which is simply the adjective of Peucolaitis, an alternative
form of the Greek Peucelaotis.
The kingdom of Pushkalāvati was wrested from the Yavanas by the
first Çaka king, Maues, who imitates the types of Artemidorus, ‘Artemis :
Indian bull' (Pl. VI, 12); and the date of this event was probably about
75 B. c. 1
The only Yavana king whose name has yet been found on a purely
Indian monument is Antialcidas. The inscription on a stone column at
Besnagar, near Bhilsa in the Gwalior State, records that the column was
erected in honour of Krishna (Vasudeva) by the Yavana ambassador
Heliodorus, son of Dio, an inhabitant of Takshaçilā, who had come from
the Great King Antialcidas to King Kāçīputra Bhāgabhadra then in the four-
teenth year of this reign. The inscription is full of interest. It testifies to
the existence of diplomatic relations between the Yavana king of Takshaçilā
and the king of Vidiçā (Bhilsa) ; and it proves that already at this period
some of the Yavanas had adopted Indian faiths. for Heliodorus is styled ‘a
follower of Vishnu' (bhāgavata)".
The coins of Antialcidas with the type 'Pilei' also indicate that he
was king of Takshaçilā (Pl. VIII, 43 and p. 502). As all the types connec-
ted with the worship of the Dioscuri are ultimately derived from the
Bactrian coins of Eucratides (Pl. IV, 4-6), there can be no doubt that
Antialcidas reigned after Eucratides.
1 Chapter XXIII.
2 For the Inscription see J. R,1. 9. for the years 1909-10. For the kingdom of
see Chapter XXI, pp. 470 f.
## p. 504 (#542) ############################################
50+
(ch.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Hitherto numismatists have assumed that Antialcidas was the pre-
decessor of Eucratides ; but the assumption, so far as it has any support,
rests on an observation of von Sallet which may well have been mistaken ;
and what was originally a diffident suggestion on the part of von Sallet has
been treated by each succeeding writer on the subject as a statement of
a
fact1.
That Antialcidas succeeded Eucratides also in the kingdom of Kāpica
appears from his coins with the type of the city divinity of Kāpiçi with
which Eucratides restruck the coins of Apollodotus (Summary).
Some connexion between Antialcidas and Heliocles is indicated by their
common use of the types 'Bust of king : Elephant,' with which Heliocles
restruck the coins of Agathocleia and Strato (Summary ). Heliocles
was no doubt the elder, for no Bactrian coinage of Antialcidas is known ;
but, even if these two kings were father and son, their reigns in India may
have been to some extent contemporary. The dominions of the house of
Eucratides included a number of kingdoms, of which some, as far instance,
Kāpiça, Pushkālavati, and Takshaçilā can be identified by the types of
their coins; and it seems probable that the government of some of these
kingdoms was entrusted to the heir apparent and other members of the
royal family. It is possible, therefore, that some of the princes whose coins
we possess may have been ruling at the same time in different provinces.
On certain coins struck in the district of Takshaçılā ( type 'Pilei,'
Summary), Antialcidas is associated with Lysias, but there is no-
thing to explain the relation which one bore to the other, or even to show
clearly to which of the royal houses of Yavanas Lysias belonged. Indeed,
since one class of the coins which Lysias strikes as sole rule bears types,'
'Bust of king wearing elephant's scalp. Heracles standing,' which are iden-
tical with those of Demetrius, it is usually assumed that the two kings
belong to the same family. But in this case, as so frequently, numismatic
evidence is ambiguous. It is perhaps equally probable that the types intro-
duced into India by Demetrius had become characteristic of a particular
district, and therefore continued to be used in that district after it had
passed from the house of Euthydemus to the house of Eucratides.
The type 'Pilei’ is continued by Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44) after whose
reign it is no longer found on any coins issued by a Yavana king. It next
appears on the small silver coins which the Çaka satrap, Liaka Kusūlaka,
struck imitation of those of Eucratides with the same type ( Pl. VIII,
42,41). The evidence of coins thus shows that after the reign of Archebius
the region of Takshaçilā passed from the Yavanas to the Çakas ; and the
evidence of the Takshaçilā copper plate indicates that Takshaçilā was con-
1 Zeit. f.
the south of the Hindu Kush are lifeless and conventional. Between the
two styles of art there is a gulf fixed. Neither can be brought into relation
with the other. They are the work of different regions and the outcome of
different types of civilisation. In Bactria the Greeks ruled supreme amid
peoples of a lower culture. On the south of the mountain barrier, in the
Kābul valley and in India, they were brought into contact with a civilisation
which was in many respects as advanced as their own and even more
ancient-a civilisation in which, as in that of Ancient Egypt, religious and
social institutions bad long ago been stereotyped, and in which individual
effort in literature and art was no longer free but bound by centuries of
tradition. With this deeply-rooted civilisation the Greeks were forced to
make a compromise, and the results are seen in their bilingual coin-legends,
and in their adoption of the Indian (or Persian) weight-standard.
Differences less strongly marked, differences of degree rather than of
kind, are to be observed in the style of the coinages which the Yavanas
issued in the kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush. This diversity is no
doubt the result chiefly of varying local conditions. The Yavana dcminions
were very widely extended ; and the influence of Greek models was naturally
less strong in the more remote districts.
TAE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
The princes of the house of Euthydemus who reigned both in Bactria
and in kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush are Demetrius, Pantaleon,
Agathocles, and probably also Antimachus.
Of these Demetrius alone is known to the Greek historians, whose
statements as to his Indian conquests are confirmed, though scarcely
supplemented, by the evidence of coins. The district, in which his bilingual
square copper coins were struck, has not been determined ; and all that can
be said of his round coins, with types 'Elephant's head : Caduceus' and
Greek legend only, is that they were directly copied by the Çaka king
Maues, and that they must therefore have been in circulation in the lower
Kābul valley or in N. W, India (Pl. VI, 1, 2).
Chapter XVII, pp. 400-2
1
## p. 493 (#531) ############################################
ΧΧιι]
THE HOUSE OF EUTHYDEMUS
493
Pantaleon and Agathocles were undoubtedly closely connected, since
they struck coins which are identical in type and form. These were
borrowed from the earlier native currency which prevailed generally in the
Paropanisadae and Gandhāra. From a general consideration of the
provenance of their coins, which are found in Kābul, Ghazni, and Kandahār,
Cunningham concluded that Pantaleon and Agathocles must have ruled
over the Western Paropanisadae and Arachosia (N. Chr. , 1869, p. 41). They
would seem therefore to represent the south-western extension of the
Yavana power.
The commemorative medals struck by Antimachus show that he
claimed to be the successor of Diodotus and Euthydemus ; but there is
nothing to indicate his relation to Agathocles who makes the same claim.
The two princes may have been ruling at the same period in different king-
doms. From the recorded discoveries of the Indian coins of Antimachus,
Cunningham inferred that he ruled in the lower Kābul valley (the districts
of Jalālābād and Peshāwar). The reverse type in which the king is repre-
sented on a prancing horse and wearing a flat cap (kausia), as on the
obverse of the large silver Bactrian coins, is evidently a portrait ; and the
same type is continued on the coins of Philoxenus, Nicias, and Hippos-
tratus, who may have succeeded to the kingdom of Antimachus.
But if these four princes really ruled over the same kingdom, its
locality must be sought rather in the country of the Jhelum than in
the lower Kābul Valley. The coins of Philoxenus are found only to the east
of Jalālabad (B. M. Cat. , p. XXXVIII), and those of Nicias only in the Jhelum
District (Smith, Early Hist. of India. , 3rd ed. , p. 213); while the types
'Apollo : Tripod' which are also struck by Hippostratus seem undoubtedly,
in later times, to have been confined to the eastern districts of the Punjab
(p. 498). The occurrence of the type 'King on prancing horse' on the joint
coins of Hermaeus and Calliope may, as Cunningham suggested, indicate
the union of two royal houses.
The Bactrian and Indian coins of Antimachus with their types
*Poseidon' and 'Victory' must refer to a naval triumph ; and it is difficult
;
to explain the allusion except on the supposition that this king had
a victory on one of the great Indian rivers – the Indus or the
Jhelum.
Numismatists usually distinguish between an earlier Antimachus I
Deos and a later Antimachus II Nikndópos (Pl. VI, 3) ; but it seems more
probable that the coins assigned to these are merely the Bactrian and
the Indian issues of the same monarch. The two classes are connected by
their types ; and the difference between them may well be local rather than
chronological. They represent the workmanship of districts separated by
some hundreds of miles and dissimilar in culture. They find their parallels in
won
>
## p. 494 (#532) ############################################
494
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
the coinages of other Graeco-Indian kings, viz. Demetrius, Eucratides, and
Heliocles. Like the title 'Acikgros, which is borne by Demetrius, the
Nikodópos of Antimachus has reference to Indian conquests and is
not found on the coins struck in Bactria.
Of the Yavana princes who ruled only to the south of the Hindu
Kush, Apollodotus would seem to have been the first. He is twice men-
tioned by ancient authors, and on both occasions in association with
Menander. From such evidence as is forthcoming we may reasonably con-
clude that the two princes were members of the family of Euthydemus,
that they belong to the same period -- the period of Yavana expansion-
and that Apollodotus was the elder.
The copper coins of Apollodotus bear types 'Apollo : Tripod' in
evident allusion to the king's name (PI. VI, 4). These were restruck
by Eucratides with his own types in the kingdom of Kāpiça (Kāfiristān)
immediately to the south of the Hindu Kush (p. 501 ; Pl. VII, 36). The
types of the silver coins, 'Elephant : Indian bull' (PI. VI, 7) which may have
symbolised the tutelary divinities of cities, are commonly found on
the earlier native coinages of the N. W. , and the Indian bull is more
particularly characteristic of Pushkalāvati (Chārsadda) in the Peshāwar
District (p. 503). These types continued to be struck by Heliocles
.
(Pl. VI, 8). The coins thus show most clearly the transference of the
upper and lower Kābul valleys from one Yavana house to the other,
and they determine the date of Apollodotus I: he was, like Demetrius,
the contemporary of Eucratides, who was the predecessor of Heliocles.
From their home in the N. W. the coins of Apollodotus were carried
far and wide into other regions. Such distribution may manifestly be the
result either of conquest or of commerce : it is therefore no certain
indication of the limits of a king's dominions. But in this case numis-
matic evidence of the kind may well be adduced to confirm the state.
ment preserved by Strabo, that Yavana rule extended on the south-
west to Ariāna and on the south to the Indus delta and Western India.
Cunningham observed that, while coins of Apollodotus are found in
Arachosia (Ghazni and Kandahār) and in Drangiāna (Seistān), those
of Menander do not occur in these regions ; and from this fact he inferred
;
that these provinces of Ariāna were lost to the house of Euthydemus during
the reign of Apollodotus and before the reign of Menander (N. Chr. , 1869,
p. 146). They would appear to have come successively under the sway of
Eucratides and of Mithradates. 1 That Menander did not rule in Ariāna
seems certain. He is associated rather with the eastern Punjab (p. 495);
and in this region he may have been reigning contemporaneously with
Apollodotus in the N. W. and in Ariāna.
1 Chapter XVII,
p. 411.
## p. 495 (#533) ############################################
XXII]
ÇAKALA
495
The memory of Apollodotus and Menander was preserved in Western
India by their coins, which, according to the author of Periplus of
the Erythraean Sea ($ 47), were still in circulation in the last quarter of the
first century A. D. at Barugaza (Broach). But Yavana rule had long
ago ceased in this region. Early in the first century B. c. the country of
the lower Indus had passed into the possession of the Çaka invaders from
Seistān. 1
After the conquests of Eucratides and Heliocles the dominions of the
house of Euthydemus were confined to those districts of the Punjab which
lie to the east of the Jhelum, that is to say, to the old kingdoms of
Alexander's first and second Paurava, and to the region beyond. Here
the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod,' were continued by Strabo I,
by Çaka king Maues, and, with some modification in the representation
both of Apollo and the Tripod, by Apollodotus II Philopator, Dionysius,
Zoilus, and Hippostratus (Pl. VI, 5, 6 and Summary, p. 530).
Menander is the only Yavana who has become celebrated in the
ancient literature of India. He is unquestionably to be identified with
Milinda, the Yavana king of Cākala (Siālkot), who is one of the two
leading characters in the Milindapānha, the Questions of Milinda,' a Pāli
treatise on the fundamental principles of Buddhist philosophy. It is in the
form of a dialogue between the king, who had become notorious as 'haras-
sing the brethren by putting puzzles to them of heretical tendency,' and
the Buddhist elder, Nāgasena, who triumphantly solves these puzzles and
succeeds in converting his royal antagonist. It is thus as a philosopher,
and not as a mighty conqueror, that Menander, like Janamejaya, king of
the Kurus, and Janaka, king of Videha, in the Upanishads, has won for
,
himself an abiding fame.
As a disputant he was hard to equal, harder still to overcome; the acknowledged
superior of all the founders of the various schools of thought. As in wisdom so in
strength of body, swiftness, and valour there was found none equal to Milinda in all
India. He was rich too, mighty in wealth and prosperity, and the number of his armed
hosts knew no end. (Trans Rhys, Davids, S. B. E. XXXV, pp. 6, 7. )
The capital is described in the same somewhat conventional style in a
passage which begins :
There is, in the country of the Yonakas, a great centre of trade, a city that is
called Sāgala. situated in a delightful country, abounding in parks and gardens and gro:
ves and lakes and tanks, a paradise of rivers and mountains and woods. (ibid. p. 2,)
Little is said which might not apply to any other important city lying
on the great high road of N. India”. For more precise information we
1 Chapter XXIII, pp. 509, 514.
2 In the Jain literature such conventional descriptions of persons and places have
attained to their complete logical development : they have become stereotyped, and are
to be supplied in each fresh instance from the bàre stage direction, r'anno, “the descrip-
tion as before. '
## p. 496 (#534) ############################################
496
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
а
must seek elsewhere.
Çākala was a city of the Madras, who are mentioned in the Bșihadā-
ranyaka Upanishad (111, 3, 1 ; 7, 1) probably as early as 600 B. C. , and who
appear in the epics to occupy the district of Siālkot between the rivers
Chenāb and Rāvi. Here Alexander found the second Paurava king, whose
dominions he annexed to the satrapy of his relation and rival, the great
Paurava, who ruled over the adjacent territory between the Jhelum and the
Chenāb. We may conclude then that the kings of the Madras claimed to be
Pūrus, and that their dominions together with their capital, Çakala, twice
passed under the sway of the Yavanas--under Alexander and under his
successor, Menander. At a later date, in the early part of the sixth cen-
tuny A. D. , Çākala became the capital of the Hūņa conqueror, Mihirakulat.
At his meetings with Nāgasena, the king is attended by his fire
hundred Greek (Yonaka) courtiers, some of whom bear Greek names
which have been slightly Indianised ; and, as the chief of these courtiers
were no doubt related to the royal family which traced its origin to Bactria,
it is not surprising to find among them a Demetrius (Devamantriya) and an
Antiochus (Anantakāya).
In the illustrations which are brought to bear on the philosophical
topics under discussion, certain facts of a more general interest emerge.
Milinda, it appears, was born at the village of Kalasi in the dripa of
Alasanda. Kalasi cannot be identified ; but the dvīpa of Alasanda is
doubt the district of Alexandria-under-the-Caucasus – Alasanda of the
Yonas, as it is called in the Mahāvamsa (xxix, 39). Translators have per-
sistently rendered dvipa by 'island,' and have thus added to the difficulties
of identifying the site ; but this is only one of the meanings of this word,
which often denotes the land lying between two rivers — the Persian duab :
the district of Çākala, for example, in the Rechna Doáb between the
Chenāb and the Ravi, is often called Çākala dvipa. There is no reason
therefore why the term Alasanda-dvi pa should not be applied to the country
between the Panjshir and Kābul rivers, in which the ruins of Alexander's
city have been recognised near Chārikār. No other of the numerous
Alexandrias has an equal claim to the honour of being Menander's birth-
place, which, in reply to Nāgasena's question, the king himself describes as
being 200 yojanas distant from Çākala. The yojana has very different
values according to the period and the locality in which it is used ; but
there is good evidence of the use in Buddhist books of a short yojana,.
equal to about two and a half
English miles ; and an estimate of 500
miles
1 Chapter XV, p. 332 ; l'edic Index, II, p. 123 ; Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. pp. 315- 6;
Fleet. Trāns. Inter. Gr. Cong. , Algiers, 1905, I, pp. 164 ff.
no
## p. 497 (#535) ############################################
XXII]
MEN ANDER
497
for the route from Chārikār to Sialkot seems to be fairly correct (p. 490).
The statement thus incidentally preserved by the Milindapañha has the
appearance of truth. Some branch of the family of Euthydemus would
naturally be settled in the district, which was strategically important as con-
stituting the connecting link between Bactria and India, and we may
reasonably conclude that Menander, like Apoliodotus, belonged to this
branch.
Menander's fame as a great and just ruler was not confined to India.
Some two centuries after his time Plutarch recounted to the Greek world
the story how, after his death in camp, the cities of his realm contended
for the honour of preserving his ashes and agreed on a division among
themselves, in order that the memory of his reign should not be lost. The
story is evidently derived from some Buddhist source ; for, as Prinsep first
pointed out, it is a reminiscence of the story of the distribution of Buddha's
ashes1.
The coins of Menander show a greater variety of types and are
distributed over a wider area than those of any other Graeco-Indian ruler.
They are found not only in the Kābul valley and the Punjab, but also in
the western districts of the United Provinces. There can be no doubt that
Menander was the ruler over many kingdoms and that he was a great
conqueror. It was most probably under his leadership that the Yavana
armies invaded the Midland Country (p. 491). The statement, that the
expedition was recalled on account of the war which had broken out
between the Yavanas themselves in their own country, is in accordance
with what may be inferred as to his date. Menander and Eucratides were
almost certainly contemporary. Some of their square copper coins are so
similar in style that they may reasonably be assigned not only to the same
general period, but also to the same region --a region which must have
passed from one rule to the other (Pl. VI, 13, 14).
The numismatic record of Menander is unusually full, but it is at the
same time extraordinarily difficult to interpret. Few, if any, of his types
can be attributed to the different cities in which they were struck. The
most plausible suggestions are that the 'Os-head' (PI. VI, 17) may re-
present Bucephala, and the figure of Victory' (Pl. VI, 15 ; continued on
the coins of Strato, Pl. VI, 16) Nicaea, the two cities which Alexander
founded on the Jhelum in the realm of Porus.
The period is one of great historical complexity. The house of
Euthydemus, after a career of conquest under Demetrius, Apollodotus, and
Menander, was engaged in a struggle, under the same leaders. to maintain
its newly won possessions against the encroachments of the house of
1 Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae reipublicae (Moralia, 821, D); Prinscep's Essays,
ed. Thomas, I, pp. 50, 171. '
2 Chapter XV, p. 338.
>
## p. 498 (#536) ############################################
498
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXAVDAR THE GREAT
Eucratides. Coins can only have preserved a few indications of the
kaleidoscopic changes which must from time to time have taken place in
the political sitnation. Nevertheless, their evidence clearly illustrates some
of the main results of the struggle. They show unmistakably that the
dominions of the house of Euthydemus in the Kābul valley and in both
western and eastern Gandhāra (Pushkalāvati and Takshaçilā) had passed
into the hands of Eucratides (pp. 501 f. ) and his immediate successors
Heliocles (pp. 502 f. ) and Antialcidas (pp. 503 f. ). It is in the region which
lies to the south and east of the Rawalpindi District that we must seek
henceforth the remnants of the house of Euthydemus. Here Apollodotus
appears to be represented by Apollodotus II Philopator, and Menander by
Agathocleia and her son Strato.
The types which these families continue to use in the eastern
Punjab, and which are especially characteristic of the house of Euthydemus,
are chiefly two : (1) the types of Apollodotus, 'Apollo : Tripod’ (Pl. VI, 4)
-Strato I (Pl. VI, 5), and, with some modification in the types which
appears to indicate a later date, Apollodotus II (P. VI, 6), Dionysius,
Zoilus, Hippostratus (Summary); and (2) the type of Menander,
‘Athene Promachos' (Pl. VII, 18) - Agathocleia and Strato (Pl. VII, 19),
Strato I (Pl. VII, 20, 21 and Summary), Apollodotus JI (PI.
VII, 22),
Dionysius, Zoilus, Apollophanes (Summary), Strato I and II (PI. VII, 23).
In the long and distinguished list of queens who have ruled in India
must be included the name of Agathocleia. Her relation to Menander
cannot be proved very definitely ; but it is by no means improbable that
she was his queen and the governor of his kingdom after his death'. The
fact that she struck coins on which her portrait appears together with the
type of Euthydemus, 'Heracles seated', shows that she was a princess in her
own right and a member of the royal house ; and her name suggests that
she may have belonged to the family of Pantaleon and Agathocles (p. 492).
She was undoubtedly the mother of Strato I Soter.
The coins issued by Agathocleia in association with her son, and by
Strato ruling at first alone and afterwards in association with his grandson,
Strato II Philopator, supply the most valuable evidence for the reconstruc-
tion of the history and chronology of this period. They mark most clearly
1 The evidence, such as it is, is as follows :-(1) The 'bust of Athena helmeted"
which appears on coins of Menander (Pl. VI, 15) is perhaps a portrait of Agothocleia,
like the similar bust on coins which she strikes in association with Strato (PI. VII, 25);
(2) the figure of a warrior king on the reverse of certain coins struck by Agathocleia,
during Strato's minority and bearing her own portrait may be supposed to represent the
late king (Corolia Vumismilca, Pl. XII, 4) : a similarfigure occurs as the obverse type on
coins of Menander, where it is most naturally explained as that of Menander himself
(Lahore Cat. , PI. VI, 515).
2 For the detailed proof see Rapson in Corolla Numismatica (Oxford, 1903),
pp. 247-51.
## p. 499 (#537) ############################################
XXII]
AGATHOCLEIA AND STRATO
499
a
various stages in the long life of Strato, They begin at a time when the
conquests of the house of Eucratides had not yet reached their limit ; and
they end on the eve of the complete overthrow of Yavana power in the
eastern Punjab by the Çakas.
On the earliest of these coins Agathocleia appears as queen regent
holding the place of honour with her portrait and Greek inscription on the
obverse, while the Kharoshțhi legend of the young prince occupies a subor-
dinate position on the reverse (Pl. VII. 25). Afterwards, the combined
portraits of mother and son declare their association in the government
(Pl. VII, 19) ; and, later still, a series of portraits shows Strato first reign-
ing alone - as a youth (Pl. VII, 20), or as a bearded man (Pl. VII, 21)-and
then in advanced old age, with toothless jaws and sunken cheeks, both, as
the Kharoshthi legends indicate, reigning alone (Summary) and in
association with his grandson, Strato II Philopator (Pl. VII, 23). To judge
from these portraits, we have here glimpses of a life of more than seventy
years. Between the earliest and the latest there is indeed a long interval,
and to some period in this interval must be assigned the reigns of Apollo-
dotus II Philopator, Dionysius, and Zoilus. They are associated by their
common use of a peculiar monogram (Pl. VII, 22 and Summary) ;
and it is probable that they were all descendants of Apollodotus I. Apol-
lophanes, whose name suggests that he may have been a member of the
same family, must belong to the period represented by the latest coins of
Strato.
Coins of Agathocleia and Strato (Pl. VII, 25), and others of Strato
reigning alone (Pl. VII, 16), are sometimes found restruck with the types of
Heliocles (Pl. VII, 35). The restruck coins of Strato bear the reverse-type
'Victory,' which was inherited by him either from Menander or from
Agathocleia ruling in the name of Menander (Pl. VI, 15 and Summary) ;
and this type may not improbably be supposed to represent the
city of Nicaea on the Jhelum (p. 497). We have here unmistakable evidence
of a further transference of the dominions of the house of Euthydemus to
the rival house of Eucratides, and a certain indication that the conflict
which was begun by Eucratides in the time of Demetrius and Apollodotus,
was continued by Heliocles in the reign of Strato.
The lifetime of Strato witnessed not only the decline in the eastern
Punjab of the royal house to which he belonged, but also the downfall of
Yavana rule in Northern India ; for in his reign there came still another
great foreign invasion which led to the supremacy of the Çakas and Pahla-
The debased art of his latest coins and of those in which he is asso.
ciated with his grandson seems to show that the house of Euthydemus had
fallen on evil days ; and other coins clearly suggest the manner in which it
came to an end. The familiar type of the house of Euthydemus, 'Athene
vas.
## p. 500 (#538) ############################################
500
[CIT.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDAR THE GREAT
Promachos,' continues to appear on coins ; but the strikers no longer bear
Greek names. Their names are either Indian like Bhadrayaçasa, or Çaka
like Ranjubula (Summary, p. 532 and Pl. VII, 24). The former is otherwise
unknown : the latter was the satrap of Mathurā c. 50 B. c. It appears
most probable that the kingdom held in the eastern Punjab by the last
successors of Euthydemus were conquered not by the first Çaka king,
Maues, but by his successor, Azes I (58 B. c. ) who was either contemporary
with, or later in date than, Apollodotus II and Hippostratus whose coins
he restruck? .
THE HOUSE OF EUCRATIDES
I'rom such notices of the history of Bactria and Parthia as have been
preserved by Greek and Latin writers, a few main facts in the career of
Eucratides may be gathered. He deposed Demetrius from the throne of
Bactria c. 175 B. C. ); he invaded the countries to the south of Hindu Kush,
and wrested from Demetrius and the princes of his house their dominions
in the Kābul valley, in Ariāna (Arachosia and Aria) and in N. W. India at
some date before 162 B. C. ; he was deprived by Mithradates I of his recent-
ly conquered possession in Ariāna at some time between 162 and c. 155 ;
and, while returning in triumph from an Indian expedition, he was slain by
his son, c. 155. None of the princes of the royal house which he founded
are named in ancient literature ; all that can be known of them must be
inferred from the numerous coinages which they issued and from a single
Indian inscription.
The coins show that Heliocles, the successor of Eucratides, also ruled
both in Bactria and in India, and that after his reign Greek power in
Bactria ceased. Henceforth Yavana princes are found only in kingdoms
south of Hindu Kush, and they are divided into two rival dynasties – the
successors of Eucratides in the Kābul valley and in N. W. India, and the
successsors of Euthydemus in the eastern region of the Punjab.
Some stages in the conflict between the two houses are reflected in the
types of their coins : and especially valuable in the evidence which is some-
times supplied by restrikings. Thus certain copper coins of Apollodotus I
Soter, with the usual types ‘Apollo : Tripod’ (Pl. VI, 4) have been restruck
by Eucratides (Pl. VII, 36). This must surely indicate that territory
once occupied by Apollodotus had passed into the hands of Eucratides, and
that consequently Eucratides must have been either contemporary
with Apollodotus or later in date. Other evidence shows that these
two kings were contemporary, for each of them was the predecessor
of Heliocles (p. 503). This inevitable conclusion is perfectly in agreement
1 See Chapter XXIII, pp. 518 f.
2 Lahore Mus. Cat. pp. 122-3; and Chapter XXIII, p. 516.
## p. 501 (#539) ############################################
XXII]
KĀPIÇA
501
)
with the style of the coins ; for the Indian issues of Eucratides appear to
be at least as late in style as those of Apollodotus. The comparatively
early date of Apollodotus is moreover proved by his use of the Attic weight-
standard.
But these restruck coins not only show that the two monarchs repre-
sent the two rival houses ; they also give the name of the kingdom
which had been lost and won. The reverse type is ‘Zeus enthroned,' and it
is accompanied by two symbols, a mountain and the head of an elephant ;
and the Kharoshthi legend describes the type as 'the divinity of the city of
Kāpiçi' (Pl. VII, 36).
Kāpiçī, the Kdtlga (Mss. Kdrilga) of Ptolemy (vi, 18, 4), was a city of
the Paropanisadae ; and, according to Pliny (vi, 23 (25)), it had been
destroyed by Cyrus. It is mentioned by Pāṇini (1v, 2, 99); and from his
time onwards it is best known in Sanskrit literature as giving its name to a
spirituous liquor distilled from the flowers of the Mādhavi creeper. But our
chief knowledge of Kāpiça, as the kingdom may be called in distinc-
tion from its capital, Kāpiçī, comes from Chinese sources. For the Chinese
Buddhist pilgrims it was the frontier country on their long journey
to Northern India. It was a fruitful land of alpine valleys surrounded by
mountains on every side. It was here that the Chinese princes who were de-
tained as hostages in Kanishka's court spent the summer, while they passed
the spring and autumn in Gandhāra and the winter in India. When Hiuen
Tsiang visited Kāpica in 630 A. D. , it was a powerful kingdom, which,
according to his description as interpreted by Cunningham, 'must have in-
cluded the whole of Kāfiristān, as well as the two large valleys of Ghorband
and Panjshir' (Geog. p. 16) ; and on it at that period were dependent the
neighbouring kingdoms of Lampāka (Laghmān), Nagara (probably Jalālā-
bād), and Gandhāra.
Hiuen Tsiang's account includes a notice which furnishes an interest-
ing explanations of the coin-type :
To the south-west of the capital was the Pi-lo-sho-lo Mountain. The name
was given to the mountain from its presiding genius who had the form of an elephant
and was therefore called Pi-lo. sho-lo. (Watters, On Yuan Chuang, I, p. 129).
The name is explained as meaning 'solid as an elephant,' and
its Indian form has been restored as Pilu-sāra, the first part of the com-
pound being supposed to be of Persian derivation (bil=elephant).
In this case, as also in others recorded by the historians of Alexander,
the Greeks sought to identify the Indian divinities with their own. They
evidently regarded the tutelary deity of the city of Kāpiçi as Zeus. The
cointype thus inaugurated became characteristic of the house of Eucratides
in the Kābul valley. It continued to be used by his successors until all
Yavana rule in India came to an end. It is found on the coins of Heliocles
Antialcidas, Amyntas (Summary), and Hermaeus (Pl. VII, 37).
9
## p. 502 (#540) ############################################
502
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXAVDER THE GREAT
The conquests which Eucratides carried beyond the Kābul valley into
the region of eastern Gandhāra (Takshaçilā) seem to be represented by
the coins bearing the type 'Dioscuri' (Pl. VIII, 39), which was continued by
Diomedes (Pl. VIII, 40). One of its varieties which shows the pointed caps
(pilei) of these deities (Pl. VIII, 41) was certainly imitated by Liaka
Kusūlaka, the Çaka satrap of the districts of Chhahara and Chukhsa
in the neighbourhood of Takshaçilā (P). VIII, 42). The 'Pilei' appear also
on coins of Antialcidaö (Pl. VIII, 43), Lysias and Antialcidas (Summary),
and Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44). Whether the type 'Victory' (Pl. VI. 13)
denotes that Eucratides was at some time in possession of Nicaea on
the Jhelum must remain doubtful (p. 497).
Although the evidence for the very existence of Heliocles is purely
numismatic, it is almost certain that he was the son of Eucratides, and
quite certain that he succeeded. Eucratides both in Bactria and in
India. That he was the last Yavana king to rule in Bactria is shown by
the fact that after his reign coins of Greek workmanship ceases entirely in
that region, and are replaced by the rude imitations of his coins which sup-
plied the currency of the barbarous Çaka conquerors. That he extended
the conquests of Eucratides in India is shown by his restrikings of coins
originally issued hy rulers belonging to the house of Euthydemus (p. 499).
In the Kābul valley he continued to issue coins bearing the type 'Zeus
enthroned,' with which Eucratides had restruck the coins of Apollodotus
(Summary) and others bearing the types ‘Elephant : Bull' which
are identical with those of Apollodotus himself (Pl. VI, 8). The type
'Elephant' occurs frequently both on the purely Indian, and on the Graeco-
Indian, coinages of the Kābul valley and N. W'. India. The various mints
which it denotes cannot be identified more precisely ; but it may be sugges-
ted that the type, like the 'Zeus enthroned derived' its origion from the
elephant-deity of Kāpiça. The ‘Bull' on the other hand, can be shown to
have been the distinctive badge of Pushkalāvati (Peucelaotis) in the lower
Kābul valley, the capital of western Gandhāra. The evidence which makes
this identification certain is supplied by the gold piece illustrated in Pl.
VI, 10. On the obverse is seen the goddess wearing a mural crown, the
emblem of a Greek civic divinity. and holding in her right hand a lotus as
the tutelary deity of 'the City of Lotuses. The accompanying Kharoshthi
legend describes her as the goddess of Pushka! āvai’: and it is quite
possible that her name may lie hidden in the three illegible Kharoshthi
characters on the left. On the reverse is the figure of a humped bull ; and
above and below are the Greek and Kharoshțhi equivalents for “bull. ' As
in the case of the city divinity of Kāpiçī, the Greek artist has represented
in accordance with Greek ideas an Indian deity who was supposed to bear
the form of a bull. Here once again we are indebted to Hiuen Tsiang,
who, in his description of Pushkalavatī, says :
:
9
## p. 503 (#541) ############################################
XXII]
PUSHKALĀVATI
503
on the
Outside the west gate of the city was a Deva-Temple and a marvel-working
image of the Deva. (Watters, On Yuan Chuang, I, p. 214).
The Bull, like the elephant, is a common emblem in Indian mythology,
and is associated with the deities worshipped by various sects; but in this
case it would seem undoubtedly to be the bull of Çiva ; for the coin-type
passed from the Yavanas and their successors, the Çakas, to the Kushāņa
kings who added to the figure of the god himself. The bull continued to
appear on the coins of this region for many centuries It is seen
'Bull and Horseman' coins of the Shāhis of Gandhāra as late as the eleventh
century A. D. , and from then it is borrowed by the early Muhammadan
conquerors.
The successor of Heliocles who from such numismatic evidence are
known to have ruled over the kingdom of Pushkalāvati are-
e-Diomedes
(Pl. VI, 11), Epander, Philoxenus, Artemidorus, and Peucolaus (Summary).
The figure of Artemis, which occurs on the coins of Artemidorus, bears
an evident allusion to the king's name ; and, since it is found also on the
coins of Peucolaus, it shows that the Greeks identified the city goddess
with Artemis. The association of Peucolaus with Pushkalāvati is proclaim-
ed by his name, which is simply the adjective of Peucolaitis, an alternative
form of the Greek Peucelaotis.
The kingdom of Pushkalāvati was wrested from the Yavanas by the
first Çaka king, Maues, who imitates the types of Artemidorus, ‘Artemis :
Indian bull' (Pl. VI, 12); and the date of this event was probably about
75 B. c. 1
The only Yavana king whose name has yet been found on a purely
Indian monument is Antialcidas. The inscription on a stone column at
Besnagar, near Bhilsa in the Gwalior State, records that the column was
erected in honour of Krishna (Vasudeva) by the Yavana ambassador
Heliodorus, son of Dio, an inhabitant of Takshaçilā, who had come from
the Great King Antialcidas to King Kāçīputra Bhāgabhadra then in the four-
teenth year of this reign. The inscription is full of interest. It testifies to
the existence of diplomatic relations between the Yavana king of Takshaçilā
and the king of Vidiçā (Bhilsa) ; and it proves that already at this period
some of the Yavanas had adopted Indian faiths. for Heliodorus is styled ‘a
follower of Vishnu' (bhāgavata)".
The coins of Antialcidas with the type 'Pilei' also indicate that he
was king of Takshaçilā (Pl. VIII, 43 and p. 502). As all the types connec-
ted with the worship of the Dioscuri are ultimately derived from the
Bactrian coins of Eucratides (Pl. IV, 4-6), there can be no doubt that
Antialcidas reigned after Eucratides.
1 Chapter XXIII.
2 For the Inscription see J. R,1. 9. for the years 1909-10. For the kingdom of
see Chapter XXI, pp. 470 f.
## p. 504 (#542) ############################################
50+
(ch.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
Hitherto numismatists have assumed that Antialcidas was the pre-
decessor of Eucratides ; but the assumption, so far as it has any support,
rests on an observation of von Sallet which may well have been mistaken ;
and what was originally a diffident suggestion on the part of von Sallet has
been treated by each succeeding writer on the subject as a statement of
a
fact1.
That Antialcidas succeeded Eucratides also in the kingdom of Kāpica
appears from his coins with the type of the city divinity of Kāpiçi with
which Eucratides restruck the coins of Apollodotus (Summary).
Some connexion between Antialcidas and Heliocles is indicated by their
common use of the types 'Bust of king : Elephant,' with which Heliocles
restruck the coins of Agathocleia and Strato (Summary ). Heliocles
was no doubt the elder, for no Bactrian coinage of Antialcidas is known ;
but, even if these two kings were father and son, their reigns in India may
have been to some extent contemporary. The dominions of the house of
Eucratides included a number of kingdoms, of which some, as far instance,
Kāpiça, Pushkālavati, and Takshaçilā can be identified by the types of
their coins; and it seems probable that the government of some of these
kingdoms was entrusted to the heir apparent and other members of the
royal family. It is possible, therefore, that some of the princes whose coins
we possess may have been ruling at the same time in different provinces.
On certain coins struck in the district of Takshaçılā ( type 'Pilei,'
Summary), Antialcidas is associated with Lysias, but there is no-
thing to explain the relation which one bore to the other, or even to show
clearly to which of the royal houses of Yavanas Lysias belonged. Indeed,
since one class of the coins which Lysias strikes as sole rule bears types,'
'Bust of king wearing elephant's scalp. Heracles standing,' which are iden-
tical with those of Demetrius, it is usually assumed that the two kings
belong to the same family. But in this case, as so frequently, numismatic
evidence is ambiguous. It is perhaps equally probable that the types intro-
duced into India by Demetrius had become characteristic of a particular
district, and therefore continued to be used in that district after it had
passed from the house of Euthydemus to the house of Eucratides.
The type 'Pilei’ is continued by Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44) after whose
reign it is no longer found on any coins issued by a Yavana king. It next
appears on the small silver coins which the Çaka satrap, Liaka Kusūlaka,
struck imitation of those of Eucratides with the same type ( Pl. VIII,
42,41). The evidence of coins thus shows that after the reign of Archebius
the region of Takshaçilā passed from the Yavanas to the Çakas ; and the
evidence of the Takshaçilā copper plate indicates that Takshaçilā was con-
1 Zeit. f.
