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.
the conquests of Eucratides in India is shown by his restrikings of coins
originally issued hy rulers belonging to the house of Euthydemus (p.
Cambridge History of India - v1
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. Vum. , 1879, pp. 298, 305. The coin on which von Sallet very doubtfully
read three syllables of the Kharoshthi legend-Ali ki-was probably one of Apollodotus
restruck by Eucratides (see PII. VI, 4 ; VII, 36).
9
## p. 505 (#543) ############################################
XXII)
HARMAEUS
505
quered by the first Çaka king, Maues, who was reigning there in the year
78 of an unspecified era, a date which, until the era can be determined,
may be regarded provisionally as the equivalent of about 72 B. c. 1
The two great kingdoms of Gandhāra Pushkalāvati to the west of
the Indus (p. 503) and Takshaçilā to the east thus passed under the sway
of the Çakas during the reign of Maues. The Çaka conquerors, moving
up the valley of the Indus from their Indian base in Indo-Scythia (Sind),
had come in like a wedge, which for a time separated the remnants of
the two Yavana houses. The descendants of Euthydemus, the families of
Appollodotus and Menander, still continued to rule in the eastern districts
of the Punjab (p. 498), and the descendants of Eucratides in the upper
Kābul valley (the province of the Paropanisadae).
The house of Eucratides was now reduced to the possession of the
region which represented its earliest conquest to the south of the Hindu
Kush. In the city of Kāpiçi on the most northern extremity of this region
Eucratides had first used the type 'Zeus enthroned' to restrike the coins
of the defeated Apollodotus ; and this type deprived of the special emb.
lems of the tutelary divinity of Kāpiçi 'Elephant and mountain,' remained
characteristic of the coinages of the upper Kābul valley until the chap-
ter of Yavana rule in India was closed. It was continued after the time
of Eucratides by Heliocles, Antialcidas? , Amyntas, and Hermaeus
(Summary, p. 534, and Pl. VII, 37).
On some of his silver coins Hermaeus is associated with his queen.
Calliope, who, like Agathocleia, must have been a princess in her own
right. In the obv' type which represents the jugate busts of the king and
queen, both of them wear the diadem ; and their names are associated in
the Greek and Kharoshthi legends. These joint coins are distinguished from
the other issues of Hermaeus by the rev. type 'King on prancing horse';
and, as this type is characteristic of Antimachus and his successors, it is
probable, as Cunningham suggested, that Calliope was a princess of this
family (p. 492 f. , and Summary, pp. 529).
With the conquest by the Çakas of the kingdoms held by the last
successors of Euthydemus in the eastern Punjab, Yavana rule had already
ceased in the north-western region of the sub-continent which is now known
as India, that is to say, the N. W. Frontier Province and the Punjab; and
Hermaeus was the last king of his race to reign in India in its more extend.
ed historical and geographical sense, which includes the southern half of the
present Afghānistān. His kingdom in the upper Kābul valley was the last
1 Chapter XXIII, p. 514.
2 Coins bearing this type no doubt circulated beyond the limits of the region
which seems to have been their home. Tho type as it appears on coins of Antialcidas
was imitated by Maues, who was never in possession of the upper Kābul valley (Sum-
mary, p. 534).
>
## p. 506 (#544) ############################################
506
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
survival of the Yavana dominions ; and it was hemmed in on every
side by actual or possible foes-on the east and on the south-west by the
Çakas and Pahlavas of Peshāwar and Kandahār, and on the north by the
Yueh-chi, who, since their settlement in the rich land of Bactria, had
become a great power under the leadership of their chief tribe, the
Kushāņas. From one or other of these three possible sources -over the
mountain region which is now traversed by the Khyber Pass, over the belt
of highland country varying from 12,000 to 18,000 feet which lies between
Ghazni and Kābul of the route from Kandabār, or over the Paropanisus-
must have come the conquerors who put an end to the kingdom of
Hermaeus. It was formerly held by the present writer that these hostile in-
vaders were the Kushāņas who came over the Paropanisus from Bactria ;
and the testimony of coins, on which the names of the last Yavana king,
Hermaeus, and the first Kushāņa conqueror, Kujūla Kadphises, are found
in association, seemed to justify this conlcusion! But a fuller considera-
tion of all the available evidence shows that the opinion of Dr. F. W.
Thomas is almost certainly correct, viz. that there was an intermediate
period during which the Pahlavas were in possession of Kābul'.
The coins which bear the name of Hermaeus must, if we may judge
from their style and fabric, extend over a long period ; and those which
were mechanically copied by Kujūla Kadphises to supply his first issues
in the Kābul valley are themselves barbarous. They are of copper and
very
far removed from the silver coins which were their prototypes (Pl. VII,
37 and Summary, (p. 534). The earliest coins are of good style and of
good metal ; and they belong to the period before any of the squared
Greek letters had been introduced. Later issues are of coarser workman-
ship ; the silver is alloyed, and the square appears in the Greek legend.
So far the deterioration of art and the debasement of the coinage are such
as might well be expected to have taken place during the reign of a king
who was menaced by enemies on every side. But further stages of
degradation can only be explained as the result of a complete change in the
character of the civilisation of this region. The alloyed coins are succeeded
by barbarous issues which are undisguisedly of copper, and finally by others
in which the word OTHPOS, 'the saviour,' in the king's title appears as
THPOEY and is rendered in the corresponding Kharoshțhi legend by
the word mahatasa (mahantassu), 'greats. It is clear that the Greek
language was no longer properly understood by the die-engravers. These
last are the coins which are imitated by Kūjula Kadphises (PI. VII, 28 and
Summary) whose date can scarcely be earlier than 50 A. D. , since,
according to Sir John Marshall's observations, the evidence of the dis-
coveries at Takshçilā shows that he was rather later than Gondopharnes,
1 Rapson, Indian Coins, p. 16.
i
2 J. R. A. S. 1906, p. 194, note 1.
3 Rapson, J. R. A. S. , 1897, p. 319.
.
1
## p. 507 (#545) ############################################
XXII
HERM AEUS
507
who is known to have reigned during the period from 19 A. D. to 45 A. D. '
It would appear then that, while Hermaeus may have been reigning
for some time before and after c. 40 B. C. , as would seem to be indicated
by the square in his later Greek coin-legends”, a coinage bearing his
name and his types was issued by his conquerors until a much later date,
in the same way and for the same reasons that the East India Company
continued for many years to strike rupees bearing the name of the Mughal
Emperor, Shāh ‘Alam'. That these conquerors were not Kushāņas may,
from chronological considerations, be regarded as certain. That they were
the Pahlavas of Kandahār is made probable by the evidence of the coins
which were struck by Spalirises with the characteristic type of the Yavana
kings of Kābul, “Zeus enthroned' (PI. VII, 38). It was probably not un-
til at least seventy years after the death of its last Yavana king that the
Kābul valley passed from the Pahlavas to the Kushāņas, the next suzerain
power in Afghānistān and N. W. India.
1 The four stages in the currency which bears the name of Hermaeus are shown
in the B. M. Cat. : (1) pp. 62-3 nos, 1. 4, PI. XV, 1,2 ; (2) p. 63, nos. 20-1, Pl. XV, 4 ;
(3) pp. 64-5, no:. 25-40, PI, XV, 6; (4) p. 65, nos. 45-50.
2 Chapter XXIII, pp. 515-16.
3 Chapter XXIII, 518.
.
P,
## p. 508 (#546) ############################################
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SCYTHIAN AND PARTHIAN INVADERS
The Scythians (Çaka) and Parthian (Pahlava) invaders of India are
often mentioned in Sanskrit literature, and nearly always in association
with each other and with the Yavanas. But, as this literature is not
historical, we must turn to other sources – to Greek and Chinese historians,
to the inscriptions of Persia and India, and to coins - for information as
to their origin and their rule in India.
The Yavanas had come from Bactria over the Hindu Kush into the
upper Kābul valley, and thence along the Kābul river into India by a
route which has since been abandoned for that which now leads through
the Khyber defile. It was formerly assumed that the Çakas came directly
into India from the same region and by the same way. But this view is
attended with difficulties which cannot be explained. In the first place,
if the Çakas came through the Kābul valley, all traces of their invasion
must be supposed to have disappeared from that region : for, among the
many thousands of coins which were collected on its ancient sites at the
time when the country was still open to archaeological investigations, the
coins of the earliest Çaka kings are conspicuous by their absence ; and
secondly, it is certain that the Kābul valley remained in the possession of
the Yavana princes of the house of Eucratides after the Yavana domi-
nions in N. W. India on the eastern side of the Khyber Pass, that is to say,
in Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi, had been conquered by the Çakas. Ingress
from Bactria was therefore barred at this period.
The alternative suggestion that the Çakas may have come into India
from their northern home in the country of the Jaxartes through Kashmir
involves a physical impossibility. The geographical difficulties of this
region are such that an invasion from this direction of tribal hordes or
armies sufficiently powerful to overwhelm the Yavana kingdoms and to
conquer the whole of the N. W. Frontier Province and the Punjab is
inconceivable!
1 See the authorities quoted by Thomas, J. R. A. S. 1913, p. 635. notes 1 and 2.
508
## p. 509 (#547) ############################################
xxu)
SCYTHIAN SETTLEMENTS
509
Any direct invasion from the north seems, in fact, to be out of the
question. It is therefore far more probable, nay almost certain, that the
Çakas reached India indirectly, and that, like the Pahlavas, they came
through Ariāna (W. and S.
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. Vum. , 1879, pp. 298, 305. The coin on which von Sallet very doubtfully
read three syllables of the Kharoshthi legend-Ali ki-was probably one of Apollodotus
restruck by Eucratides (see PII. VI, 4 ; VII, 36).
9
## p. 505 (#543) ############################################
XXII)
HARMAEUS
505
quered by the first Çaka king, Maues, who was reigning there in the year
78 of an unspecified era, a date which, until the era can be determined,
may be regarded provisionally as the equivalent of about 72 B. c. 1
The two great kingdoms of Gandhāra Pushkalāvati to the west of
the Indus (p. 503) and Takshaçilā to the east thus passed under the sway
of the Çakas during the reign of Maues. The Çaka conquerors, moving
up the valley of the Indus from their Indian base in Indo-Scythia (Sind),
had come in like a wedge, which for a time separated the remnants of
the two Yavana houses. The descendants of Euthydemus, the families of
Appollodotus and Menander, still continued to rule in the eastern districts
of the Punjab (p. 498), and the descendants of Eucratides in the upper
Kābul valley (the province of the Paropanisadae).
The house of Eucratides was now reduced to the possession of the
region which represented its earliest conquest to the south of the Hindu
Kush. In the city of Kāpiçi on the most northern extremity of this region
Eucratides had first used the type 'Zeus enthroned' to restrike the coins
of the defeated Apollodotus ; and this type deprived of the special emb.
lems of the tutelary divinity of Kāpiçi 'Elephant and mountain,' remained
characteristic of the coinages of the upper Kābul valley until the chap-
ter of Yavana rule in India was closed. It was continued after the time
of Eucratides by Heliocles, Antialcidas? , Amyntas, and Hermaeus
(Summary, p. 534, and Pl. VII, 37).
On some of his silver coins Hermaeus is associated with his queen.
Calliope, who, like Agathocleia, must have been a princess in her own
right. In the obv' type which represents the jugate busts of the king and
queen, both of them wear the diadem ; and their names are associated in
the Greek and Kharoshthi legends. These joint coins are distinguished from
the other issues of Hermaeus by the rev. type 'King on prancing horse';
and, as this type is characteristic of Antimachus and his successors, it is
probable, as Cunningham suggested, that Calliope was a princess of this
family (p. 492 f. , and Summary, pp. 529).
With the conquest by the Çakas of the kingdoms held by the last
successors of Euthydemus in the eastern Punjab, Yavana rule had already
ceased in the north-western region of the sub-continent which is now known
as India, that is to say, the N. W. Frontier Province and the Punjab; and
Hermaeus was the last king of his race to reign in India in its more extend.
ed historical and geographical sense, which includes the southern half of the
present Afghānistān. His kingdom in the upper Kābul valley was the last
1 Chapter XXIII, p. 514.
2 Coins bearing this type no doubt circulated beyond the limits of the region
which seems to have been their home. Tho type as it appears on coins of Antialcidas
was imitated by Maues, who was never in possession of the upper Kābul valley (Sum-
mary, p. 534).
>
## p. 506 (#544) ############################################
506
[CH.
SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
survival of the Yavana dominions ; and it was hemmed in on every
side by actual or possible foes-on the east and on the south-west by the
Çakas and Pahlavas of Peshāwar and Kandahār, and on the north by the
Yueh-chi, who, since their settlement in the rich land of Bactria, had
become a great power under the leadership of their chief tribe, the
Kushāņas. From one or other of these three possible sources -over the
mountain region which is now traversed by the Khyber Pass, over the belt
of highland country varying from 12,000 to 18,000 feet which lies between
Ghazni and Kābul of the route from Kandabār, or over the Paropanisus-
must have come the conquerors who put an end to the kingdom of
Hermaeus. It was formerly held by the present writer that these hostile in-
vaders were the Kushāņas who came over the Paropanisus from Bactria ;
and the testimony of coins, on which the names of the last Yavana king,
Hermaeus, and the first Kushāņa conqueror, Kujūla Kadphises, are found
in association, seemed to justify this conlcusion! But a fuller considera-
tion of all the available evidence shows that the opinion of Dr. F. W.
Thomas is almost certainly correct, viz. that there was an intermediate
period during which the Pahlavas were in possession of Kābul'.
The coins which bear the name of Hermaeus must, if we may judge
from their style and fabric, extend over a long period ; and those which
were mechanically copied by Kujūla Kadphises to supply his first issues
in the Kābul valley are themselves barbarous. They are of copper and
very
far removed from the silver coins which were their prototypes (Pl. VII,
37 and Summary, (p. 534). The earliest coins are of good style and of
good metal ; and they belong to the period before any of the squared
Greek letters had been introduced. Later issues are of coarser workman-
ship ; the silver is alloyed, and the square appears in the Greek legend.
So far the deterioration of art and the debasement of the coinage are such
as might well be expected to have taken place during the reign of a king
who was menaced by enemies on every side. But further stages of
degradation can only be explained as the result of a complete change in the
character of the civilisation of this region. The alloyed coins are succeeded
by barbarous issues which are undisguisedly of copper, and finally by others
in which the word OTHPOS, 'the saviour,' in the king's title appears as
THPOEY and is rendered in the corresponding Kharoshțhi legend by
the word mahatasa (mahantassu), 'greats. It is clear that the Greek
language was no longer properly understood by the die-engravers. These
last are the coins which are imitated by Kūjula Kadphises (PI. VII, 28 and
Summary) whose date can scarcely be earlier than 50 A. D. , since,
according to Sir John Marshall's observations, the evidence of the dis-
coveries at Takshçilā shows that he was rather later than Gondopharnes,
1 Rapson, Indian Coins, p. 16.
i
2 J. R. A. S. 1906, p. 194, note 1.
3 Rapson, J. R. A. S. , 1897, p. 319.
.
1
## p. 507 (#545) ############################################
XXII
HERM AEUS
507
who is known to have reigned during the period from 19 A. D. to 45 A. D. '
It would appear then that, while Hermaeus may have been reigning
for some time before and after c. 40 B. C. , as would seem to be indicated
by the square in his later Greek coin-legends”, a coinage bearing his
name and his types was issued by his conquerors until a much later date,
in the same way and for the same reasons that the East India Company
continued for many years to strike rupees bearing the name of the Mughal
Emperor, Shāh ‘Alam'. That these conquerors were not Kushāņas may,
from chronological considerations, be regarded as certain. That they were
the Pahlavas of Kandahār is made probable by the evidence of the coins
which were struck by Spalirises with the characteristic type of the Yavana
kings of Kābul, “Zeus enthroned' (PI. VII, 38). It was probably not un-
til at least seventy years after the death of its last Yavana king that the
Kābul valley passed from the Pahlavas to the Kushāņas, the next suzerain
power in Afghānistān and N. W. India.
1 The four stages in the currency which bears the name of Hermaeus are shown
in the B. M. Cat. : (1) pp. 62-3 nos, 1. 4, PI. XV, 1,2 ; (2) p. 63, nos. 20-1, Pl. XV, 4 ;
(3) pp. 64-5, no:. 25-40, PI, XV, 6; (4) p. 65, nos. 45-50.
2 Chapter XXIII, pp. 515-16.
3 Chapter XXIII, 518.
.
P,
## p. 508 (#546) ############################################
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SCYTHIAN AND PARTHIAN INVADERS
The Scythians (Çaka) and Parthian (Pahlava) invaders of India are
often mentioned in Sanskrit literature, and nearly always in association
with each other and with the Yavanas. But, as this literature is not
historical, we must turn to other sources – to Greek and Chinese historians,
to the inscriptions of Persia and India, and to coins - for information as
to their origin and their rule in India.
The Yavanas had come from Bactria over the Hindu Kush into the
upper Kābul valley, and thence along the Kābul river into India by a
route which has since been abandoned for that which now leads through
the Khyber defile. It was formerly assumed that the Çakas came directly
into India from the same region and by the same way. But this view is
attended with difficulties which cannot be explained. In the first place,
if the Çakas came through the Kābul valley, all traces of their invasion
must be supposed to have disappeared from that region : for, among the
many thousands of coins which were collected on its ancient sites at the
time when the country was still open to archaeological investigations, the
coins of the earliest Çaka kings are conspicuous by their absence ; and
secondly, it is certain that the Kābul valley remained in the possession of
the Yavana princes of the house of Eucratides after the Yavana domi-
nions in N. W. India on the eastern side of the Khyber Pass, that is to say,
in Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi, had been conquered by the Çakas. Ingress
from Bactria was therefore barred at this period.
The alternative suggestion that the Çakas may have come into India
from their northern home in the country of the Jaxartes through Kashmir
involves a physical impossibility. The geographical difficulties of this
region are such that an invasion from this direction of tribal hordes or
armies sufficiently powerful to overwhelm the Yavana kingdoms and to
conquer the whole of the N. W. Frontier Province and the Punjab is
inconceivable!
1 See the authorities quoted by Thomas, J. R. A. S. 1913, p. 635. notes 1 and 2.
508
## p. 509 (#547) ############################################
xxu)
SCYTHIAN SETTLEMENTS
509
Any direct invasion from the north seems, in fact, to be out of the
question. It is therefore far more probable, nay almost certain, that the
Çakas reached India indirectly, and that, like the Pahlavas, they came
through Ariāna (W. and S.
