박트리아 왕국

Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

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Greco-Bactrian Kingdom ← 256 BC–125 BC → Approximate maximum extent of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom circa 180 BCE, including the regions of Tapuria and Traxiane to the West, Sogdiana and Ferghana to the north, Bactria and Arachosia to the south. Capital Balkh Ai-Khanoum Language(s) Greek Bactrian Religion Greek gods Buddhism Government Monarchy King  - 250-240 BC Diodotus I  - 145-130 BC Heliocles I Historical era Antiquity  - Established 256 BC  - Disestablished 125 BC

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (also Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom) was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BCE. The expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into northern India from 180 BCE established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 CE.

Contents [hide] 1 Independence (around 250 BCE) 2 Overthrow of Diodotus (230 BCE) 3 Seleucid invasion 4 Geographic expansion 4.1 Contacts with China 4.2 Contacts with India (250–180) 4.3 Expansion into India (after 180 BCE) 5 Usurpation of Eucratides 5.1 Defeats against Parthia 6 Nomadic invasions 6.1 Yuezhi expansion (c. 162 BCE-) 6.2 Scythians (c. 140 BCE-) 6.3 Second Yuezhi expansion (120 BCE-) 7 Main Greco-Bactrian kings 7.1 House of Diodotus 7.2 House of Euthydemus 7.3 House of Eucratides 8 Greek culture in Bactria 9 Notes 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Independence (around 250 BCE)

Gold coin of Diodotus c. 245 BCE. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΟΔΟΤΟΥ - "(of) King Diodotus".

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was founded when Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria (and probably the surrounding provinces) seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC. The preserved ancient sources (see below) are somewhat contradictory and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a high chronology (c. 255 BC) and a low chronology (c. 246 BC) for Diodotos’ secession ^[1]. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus' reign ^[2]. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire.

Diodotus, the governor of the thousand cities of Bactria (Latin: Theodotus, mille urbium Bactrianarum praefectus), defected and proclaimed himself king; all the other people of the Orient followed his example and seceded from the Macedonians. (Justin, XLI,4 ^[3])

The new kingdom, highly urbanized and considered as one of the richest of the Orient (opulentissimum illud mille urbium Bactrianum imperium "The extremely prosperous Bactrian empire of the thousand cities" Justin, XLI,1 ^[4]), was to further grow in power and engage into territorial expansion to the east and the west:

Remains of a Hellenistic capital found in Balkh, ancient Bactra.

"The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander... Their cities were Bactra (also called Zariaspa, through which flows a river bearing the same name and emptying into the Oxus), and Darapsa, and several others. Among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler." (Strabo, XI.XI.I ^[5])

When the ruler of neighbouring Parthia, the former satrap and self-proclaimed king Andragoras, was eliminated by Arsaces, the rise of the Parthian Empire cut off the Greco-Bactrians from direct contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a reduced rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed.

Diodotus was succeeded by his son Diodotus II, who allied himself with the Parthian Arsaces in his fight against Seleucus II:

"Soon after, relieved by the death of Diodotus, Arsaces made peace and concluded an alliance with his son, also by the name of Diodotus; some time later he fought against Seleucos who came to punish the rebels, and he prevailed: the Parthians celebrated this day as the one that marked the beginning of their freedom" (Justin, XLI,4 ^[6])

[edit] Overthrow of Diodotus (230 BCE)

Asia in 200BCE, showing the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and its neighbors.

Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius^[7] and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew Diodotus II around 230 BCE and started his own dynasty. Euthydemus's control extended to Sogdiana, going beyond the city of Alexandria Eschate founded by Alexander the Great in Ferghana:

"And they also held Sogdiana, situated above Bactriana towards the east between the Oxus River, which forms the boundary between the Bactrians and the Sogdians, and the Iaxartes River. And the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads." Strabo XI.11.2^[8]

[edit] Seleucid invasion

Coin depicting the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus 230-200 BCE. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΕΥΘΥΔΗΜΟΥ - "(of) King Euthydemus".

Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BCE. Although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius ^[9] and had to retreat. He then successfully resisted a three-year siege in the fortified city of Bactra (modern Balkh), before Antiochus finally decided to recognize the new ruler, and to offer one of his daughters to Euthydemus's son Demetrius around 206 BCE ^[10]. Classical accounts also relate that Euthydemus negotiated peace with Antiochus III by suggesting that he deserved credit for overthrowing the original rebel Diodotus, and that he was protecting Central Asia from nomadic invasions thanks to his defensive efforts:

"...for if he did not yield to this demand, neither of them would be safe: seeing that great hords of Nomads were close at hand, who were a danger to both; and that if they admitted them into the country, it would certainly be utterly barbarised." (Polybius, 11.34 ^[7])

[edit] Geographic expansion

Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded. In the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria and Traxiane.

Statuette of a Greek soldier, from a 3rd century BCE burial site north of the Tian Shan, Urumqi Xinjiang Museum (drawing).

[edit] Contacts with China

Probable Greek soldier in the Sampul tapestry, woollen wall hanging, 3rd-2nd century BCE, Sampul, Urumqi Xinjiang Museum.

Zhou/ Han bronze mirror with glass inlays, said to incorporate Greco-Bactrian artistic patterns (rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays). 300-200 BCE. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Western-influenced Zhou vase with glass inlays, 4th-3rd century BCE, British Museum.

To the north, Euthydemus also ruled Sogdiana and Ferghana, and there are indications that from Alexandria Eschate the Greco-Bactrians may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar and Ürümqi in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 220 BCE. The Greek historian Strabo too writes that:

"they extended their empire even as far as the Seres (Chinese) and the Phryni" (Strabo, XI.XI.I ^[5]).

Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been found north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China, and are today on display in the Xinjiang museum at Urumqi (Boardman ^[11]).

Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested (Hirth, Rostovtzeff). Designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences ^[12], can be found on some early Han bronze mirrors, dated between 300-200 BCE ^[13].

Numismatics also suggest that some technology exchanges may have occurred on these occasions: the Greco-Bactrians were the first in the world to issue cupro-nickel (75/25 ratio) coins ^[14], an alloy technology only known by the Chinese at the time under the name "White copper" (some weapons from the Warring States Period were in copper-nickel alloy ^[15]). The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in particular iron, for trade is attested around that period. Kings Agathocles and Pantaleon made these coin issues around 170 BCE. Copper-nickel would not be used again in coinage until the 19th century.

The presence of Chinese people in India from ancient times is also suggested by the accounts of the "Ciñas" in the Mahabharata and the Manu Smriti.

The Han Dynasty explorer and ambassador Zhang Qian visited Bactria in 126 BCE, and reported the presence of Chinese products in the Bactrian markets:

""When I was in Bactria (Daxia)", Zhang Qian reported, "I saw bamboo canes from Qiong and cloth made in the province of Shu (territories of southwestern China). When I asked the people how they had gotten such articles, they replied, "Our merchants go buy them in the markets of Shendu (India)."" (Shiji 123, Sima Qian, trans. Burton Watson).

Upon his return, Zhang Qian informed the Chinese emperor Han Wudi of the level of sophistication of the urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia, who became interested in developing commercial relationship them:

"The Son of Heaven on hearing all this reasoned thus: Ferghana (Dayuan) and the possessions of Bactria (Daxia) and Parthia (Anxi) are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed abodes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, and placing great value on the rich produce of China" (Han Shu, Former Han History).

A number of Chinese envoys were then sent to Central Asia, triggering the development of the Silk Road from the end of the 2nd century BCE.^[16]

[edit] Contacts with India (250–180)

The Indian emperor Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan dynasty, had re-conquered northwestern India upon the death of Alexander the Great around 322 BCE. However, contacts were kept with his Greek neighbours in the Seleucid Empire, a dynastic alliance or the recognition of intermarriage between Greeks and Indians were established (described as an agreement on Epigamia in Ancient sources), and several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes, resided at the Mauryan court. Subsequently, each Mauryan emperor had a Greek ambassador at his court.

Bilingual Edict of Ashoka (in Greek and Aramaic), found in Kandahar. Circa 250 BCE, Kabul Museum.

Chandragupta's grandson Asoka converted to the Buddhist faith and became a great proselytizer in the line of the traditional Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, directing his efforts towards the Indian and the Hellenistic worlds from around 250 BCE. According to the Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, some of them written in Greek, he sent Buddhist emissaries to the Greek lands in Asia and as far as the Mediterranean. The edicts name each of the rulers of the Hellenistic world at the time.

"The conquest by Dharma has been won here, on the borders, and even six hundred yojanas (4,000 miles) away, where the Greek king Antiochos rules, beyond there where the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander rule, likewise in the south among the Cholas, the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni." (Edicts of Ashoka, 13th Rock Edict, S. Dhammika).

Some of the Greek populations that had remained in northwestern India apparently converted to Buddhism:

"Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dharma. (Edicts of Ashoka, 13th Rock Edict, S. Dhammika).

Furthermore, according to Pali sources, some of Ashoka's emissaries were Greek Buddhist monks, indicating close religious exchanges between the two cultures:

The Greco-Bactrian kings Agathocles and Pantaleon issued bilingual coins in the Indian square standard, with depictions of the Buddhist lion, the Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ (ΠΑΝ)ΤΑΛΕΟΝΤΟΣ - "(of) King (Pan)taleon", the other side represents a Lakshmi.

"When the thera (elder) Moggaliputta, the illuminator of the religion of the Conqueror (Ashoka), had brought the (third) council to an end… he sent forth theras, one here and one there: …and to Aparantaka (the "Western countries" corresponding to Gujarat and Sindh) he sent the Greek (Yona) named Dhammarakkhita... and the thera Maharakkhita he sent into the country of the Yona". (Mahavamsa XII).

Greco-Bactrians probably received these Buddhist emissaries (At least Maharakkhita, lit. "The Great Saved One", who was "sent to the country of the Yona") and somehow tolerated the Buddhist faith, although little proof remains. In the 2nd century CE, the Christian dogmatist Clement of Alexandria recognized the existence of Buddhist Sramanas among the Bactrians ("Bactrians" meaning "Oriental Greeks" in that period), and even their influence on Greek thought:

"Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the barbarians, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece. First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians; and the Chaldeans among the Assyrians; and the Druids among the Gauls; and the Sramanas among the Bactrians ("Σαρμαναίοι Βάκτρων"); and the philosophers of the Celts; and the Magi of the Persians, who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea guided by a star. The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other barbarian philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sramanas ("Σαρμάναι"), and others Brahmins ("Βραφμαναι")." Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies" Book I, Chapter XV ^[17].

[edit] Expansion into India (after 180 BCE)

Silver coin depicting King Demetrius (reigned c. 200-180 BCE), wearing an elephant scalp, symbol of his conquests in India.

Main article: Indo-Greek Kingdom

Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, started an invasion of India from 180 BCE, a few years after the Mauryan empire had been overthrown by the Sunga dynasty. Historians differ on the motivations behind the invasion. Some historians suggest that the invasion of India was intended to show their support for the Mauryan empire, and to protect the Buddhist faith from the religious persecutions of the Sungas as alleged by Buddhist scriptures (Tarn). Other historians have argued however that the accounts of these persecutions have been exaggerated (Thapar, Lamotte).

Demetrius may have been as far as the imperial capital Pataliputra in eastern India (today Patna). However, these campaigns are typically attributed to Menander. The invasion was completed by 175 BCE. This established in northern India what is called the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which lasted for almost two centuries until around 10 CE. The Buddhist faith flourished under the Indo-Greek kings, foremost among them Menander I.

It was also a period of great cultural syncretism, exemplified by the development of Greco-Buddhism.

[edit] Usurpation of Eucratides

Back in Bactria, Eucratides, either a general of Demetrius or an ally of the Seleucids, managed to overthrow the Euthydemid dynasty and establish his own rule around 170 BCE, probably dethroning Antimachus I and Antimachus II. The Indian branch of the Euthydemids tried to strike back. An Indian king called Demetrius (very likely Demetrius II) is said to have returned to Bactria with 60,000 men to oust the usurper, but he apparently was defeated and killed in the encounter:

Silver tetradrachm of King Eucratides 171-145 BCE. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ - "(of) King Great Eucratides".

Bilingual coin of Eucratides in the Indian standard, on the obverse Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ - "(of) King Great Eucratides", Pali in the Kharoshthi script on the reverse.

"Eucratides led many wars with great courage, and, while weakened by them, was put under siege by Demetrius, king of the Indians. He made numerous sorties, and managed to vanquish 60,000 enemies with 300 soldiers, and thus liberated after four months, he put India under his rule" (Justin, XLI,6 ^[18])

Eucratides campaigned extensively in northwestern India, and ruled on a vast territory as indicated by his minting of coins in many Indian mints, possibly as far as the Jhelum River in Punjab. In the end however, he was repulsed by the Indo-Greek king Menander I, who managed to create a huge unified territory.

In a rather confused account, Justin explains that Eucratides was killed on the field by "his son and joint king", who would be his own son, either Eucratides II or Heliocles I (although there are speculations that it could be his enemy's son Demetrius II). The son drove over Eucratides' bloodied body with his chariot and left him dismembered without a sepulture:

"As Eucratides returned from India, he was killed on the way back by his son, whom he had associated to his rule, and who, without hiding his parricide, as if he didn't kill a father but an enemy, ran with his chariot over the blood of his father, and ordered the corpse to be left without a sepulture" (Justin XLI,6 ^[18]).

[edit] Defeats against Parthia

Concurrently, and possibly during or after his Indian campaigns, Eucratides' Bactria was attacked and defeated by the Parthian king Mithridates I, possibly in alliance with partisans of the Euthydemids:

Golden stater of Eucratides, the largest golden coin of Antiquity. The coin weighs 169.2 grams, and has a diameter of 58 millimeters.

"The Bactrians, involved in various wars, lost not only their rule but also their freedom, as, exhausted by their wars against the Sogdians, the Arachotes, the Dranges, the Arians and the Indians, they were finally crushed, as if drawn of all their blood, by an enemy weaker than them, the Parthians." (Justin, XLI,6 ^[18])

Following his victory, Mithridates I gained Bactria's territory west of the Arius, the regions of Tapuria and Traxiane:

"The satrapy Turiva and that of Aspionus were taken away from Eucratides by the Parthians." (Strabo XI.11.2 ^[8])

In the year 141 BCE, the Greco-Bactrians seem to have entered in an alliance with the Seleucid king Demetrius II to fight again against Parthia:

"The people of the Orient welcomed his (Demetrius II) arrival, partly because of the cruelty of the Arsacid, king of the Parthians, partly because, used to the rule of the Macedonians, they disliked the arrogance of this new people. Thus, Demetrius, supported by the Persians, Elymes, Bactrians, routed the Parthians in numerous battles. At the end, trumped by a false peace, he was taken prisoner." (Justin XXXVI, 1,1 ^[19])

The 5th century historian Orosius declares that Mithridates I managed to occupy territory between the Indus and the Hydaspes towards the end of his reign, circa 138 BCE, before his kingdom was weakened by his death in 136 BCE.^[20]

Heliocles I ended up ruling in what territory remained. The defeat, both in the west and the east, may have left Bactria very weakened and open to the nomadic invasions.

[edit] Nomadic invasions

[edit] Yuezhi expansion (c. 162 BCE-)

The migrations of the Yuezhi through Central Asia, from around 176 BCE to 30 CE.

According to the Han chronicles, following a crushing defeat in 162 BCE by the Xiongnu (Huns), the nomadic tribes of the Yuezhi fled from the Tarim Basin towards the west, crossed the neighbouring urban civilization of the "Ta-Yuan" (probably the Greek possessions in Ferghana), and re-settled north of the Oxus in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in the northern part of the Greco-Bactrian territory. The Ta-Yuan remained a healthy and powerful urban civilization which had numerous contacts and exchanges with China from 130 BCE.

The Yuezhi apparently occupied the Greco-Bactrian territory north of the Oxus during the reign of Eucratides, who was busy fighting in India against the Indo-Greeks.

[edit] Scythians (c. 140 BCE-)

Gold artifacts of the Scythians in Bactria, at the site of Tillia tepe.

Around 140 BCE, eastern Scythians (the Saka, or Sacaraucae of Greek sources), apparently being pushed forward by the southward migration of the Yuezhi started to invade various parts of Parthia and Bactria. Their invasion of Parthia is well documented, in which they attacked in the direction of the cities of Merv, Hecatompolis and Ectabana. They managed to defeat and kill the Parthian king Phraates II, son of Mithridates I, routing the Greek mercenary troops under his command (troops he had acquired during his victory over Antiochus VII). Again in 123 BCE, Phraates's successor, his uncle Artabanus II was killed by the Scythians.^[21]

It seems that Bactria was also attacked and strongly diminished during the same massive movement of the Scythians. The destruction of the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum, dated to around 140 BCE, is regularly attributed to them. The Scythians would be further displaced to the South and South-East into Afghanistan and India, under the pressure of the Yuezhi.

The culture of these nomadic invaders is apparently documented by such archaeological sites as Tillia Tepe, is northwestern Afghanistan.

[edit] Second Yuezhi expansion (120 BCE-)

When Zhang Qian visited the Yuezhi in 126 BCE, trying to obtain their alliance to fight the Xiongnu, he explained that the Yuezhi were settled north of the Oxus but also held under their sway the territory south of Oxus, which makes up the remaining of Bactria.

According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi represented a considerable force of between 100,000 and 200,000 mounted archer warriors ^[22], with customs identical to those of the Xiongnu, which would probably have easily defeated Greco-Bactrian forces (in 208 BCE when the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I confronted the invasion of the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great, he commanded 10,000 horsemen ^[9]). Zhang Qian actually visited Bactria (named Daxia in Chinese) in 126 BCE, and portrays a country which was totally demoralized and whose political system had vanished, although its urban infrastructure remained:

"Daxia (Bactria) is located over 2,000 li southwest of Dayuan, south of the Gui (Oxus) river. Its people cultivate the land and have cities and houses. Their customs are like those of Dayuan. It has no great ruler but only a number of petty chiefs ruling the various cities. The people are poor in the use of arms and afraid of battle, but they are clever at commerce. After the Great Yuezhi moved west and attacked Daxia, the entire country came under their sway. The population of the country is large, numbering some 1,000,000 or more persons. The capital is called the city of Lanshi (Bactra) and has a market where all sorts of goods are bought and sold." ("Records of the Great Historian" by Sima Qian, quoting Zhang Qian, trans. Burton Watson)

The Yuezhi further expanded southward into Bactria around 120 BCE, apparently further pushed out by invasions from the northern Wu-Sun. It seems they also pushed Scythian tribes before them, which continued to India, where they came to be identified as Indo-Scythians.

Silver coin of Heliocles (r.150–125 BCE), the last Greco-Bactrian king. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΗΛΙΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ - "(of) King Heliocles the Just".

One of the first Yuezhi coins, imitative, in crude style, of the coins of the Greco-Bactrian king Heliocles, circa 120 BCE.
Obv: Bust of a Yuezhi chief with Greek royal headband.
Rev: Zeus with thunderbolt and sceptre. Misspelled Greek legend BASILEO HELIOLEEU - "(of) King Heliocles".

The invasion is also described in western Classical sources from the 1st century BCE, with different names than those used by the Chinese:

"The best known tribes are those who deprived the Greeks of Bactriana, the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli, who came from the country on the other side of the Jaxartes, opposite the Sacae and Sogdiani."
(Strabo, 11-8-1 ^[23])

Around that time the king Heliocles abandoned Bactria and moved his capital to the Kabul valley, from where he ruled his Indian holdings. Having left the Bactrian territory, he is technically the last Greco-Bactrian king, although several of his descendants, moving beyond the Hindu Kush, would form the western part of the Indo-Greek kingdom. The last of these "western" Indo-Greek kings, Hermaeus, would rule until around 70 BCE, when the Yuezhi again invaded his territory in the Paropamisadae (while the "eastern" Indo-Greek kings would continue to rule until around 10 CE in the area of the Punjab).

Overall, the Yuezhi remained in Bactria for more than a century. They became Hellenized to some degree, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek alphabet to write their Iranian language, and by numerous remaining coins, minted in the style of the Greco-Bactrian kings, with the text in Greek.

Around 12 BCE the Yuezhi were then to move further to northern India where they established the Kushan Empire.

[edit] Main Greco-Bactrian kings

[edit] House of Diodotus

Territories of Bactria, Sogdiana, Ferghana, Arachosia:

• Diodotus I (reigned c. 250-240 BCE) Coins
• Diodotus II (reigned c. 240-230 BCE) Son of Diodotus I Coins

The existence of a third Diodotid king, Antiochus Nikator, is uncertain.

Many of the dates, territories, and relationships between Greco-Bactrian kings are tentative and essentially based on numismatic analysis and a few Classical sources. The following list of kings, dates and territories after the reign of Demetrius is derived from the latest and most extensive analysis on the subject, by Osmund Bopearachchi ("Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné", 1991).

[edit] House of Euthydemus

Territories of Bactria, Sogdiana, Ferghana, Arachosia:

• Euthydemus I (reigned c. 223- c.200 BCE) Overthrew Diodotus II. Coins

Coin of Demetrius I, founder of the Indo-Greek kingdom (r.c. 205-171 BCE). The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ - "(of) King Demetrius".

The descendants of the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus invaded northern India around 190 BCE. Their dynasty was probably thrown out of Bactria after 170 BCE by the new king Eucratides, but remained in the Indian domains of the empire at least until the 150s BCE.

• Demetrius I (reigned c. 200–180 BCE) Son of Euthydemus I. Greco-Bactrian king, and conqueror of India. Coins

The territory won by Demetrius was separated between western and eastern parts, ruled by several sub-kings and successor kings:

Territory of Bactria

Silver coin of Antimachus I. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΑΝΤΙΜΑΧΟΥ - "(of) King God Antimachus".

• Euthydemus II (c 180 BCE), probably a son of Demetrius. Coins
• Antimachus I (possibly 180-165 BCE), brother of Demetrius. Defeated by usurper Eucratides. Coins

Territories of Paropamisadae, Arachosia, Gandhara, Punjab

• Pantaleon (190s or 180s BCE) Possibly another brother and co-ruler of Demetrius I.
• Agathocles (c180-170 BCE) Yet another brother? Coins
• Apollodotus I (reigned c. 175–160 BCE) A fourth brother?
• Antimachus II Nikephoros (160-155 BCE)
• Demetrius II (155-150 BCE) Coins
• Menander (reigned c. 150–135 BCE). Legendary for the size of his Kingdom, and his support of the Buddhist faith. It is unclear whether he was related to the other kings, and thus if the dynasty survived further.Coins
• Followed by Indo-Greek kings in northern India.

[edit] House of Eucratides

Silver tetradrachm of King Eucratides 171-145 BCE. The Greek inscription reads: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ - "(of) King Great Eucratides".

Territory of Bactria and Sogdiana

• Eucratides I 170-c.145 BCE Coins
• Plato co-regent c.166 BCE
• Eucratides II 145-140 BCE Coins
• Heliocles (r.c. 145-130 BCE).

Heliocles, the last Greek king of Bactria, was invaded by the nomadic tribes of the Yuezhi from the North. Descendants of Eucratides may have ruled on in the Indo-Greek kingdom.

[edit] Greek culture in Bactria

Corinthian capital, found at Ai-Khanoum, 2nd century BCE.

The Greco-Bactrians were known for their high level of Hellenistic sophistication, and kept regular contact with both the Mediterranean and neighbouring India. They were on friendly terms with India and exchanged ambassadors.

Their cities, such as Ai-Khanoum in northeastern Afghanistan (probably Alexandria on the Oxus), and Bactra (modern Balkh) where Hellenistic remains have been found, demonstrate a sophisticated Hellenistic urban culture. This site gives a snapshot of Greco-Bactrian culture around 145 BCE, as the city was burnt to the ground around that date during nomadic invasions and never re-settled. Ai-Khanoum "has all the hallmarks of a Hellenistic city, with a Greek theater, gymnasium and some Greek houses with colonnaded courtyards" (Boardman). Remains of Classical Corinthian columns were found in excavations of the site, as well as various sculptural fragments. In particular a huge foot fragment in excellent Hellenistic style was recovered, which is estimated to have belonged to a 5–6 meters tall statue.

One of the inscriptions in Greek found at Ai-Khanoum, the Herôon of Kineas, has been dated to 300–250 BCE, and describes Delphic precepts:

"As children, learn good manners.

As young men, learn to control the passions.

In middle age, be just.

In old age, give good advice.

Then die, without regret."

Some of the Greco-Bactrian coins, and those of their successors the Indo-Greeks, are considered the finest examples of Greek numismatic art with "a nice blend of realism and idealization", including the largest coins to be minted in the Hellenistic world: the largest gold coin was minted by Eucratides (reigned 171–145 BCE), the largest silver coin by the Indo-Greek king Amyntas (reigned c. 95–90 BCE). The portraits "show a degree of individuality never matched by the often bland depictions of their royal contemporaries further West" (Roger Ling, "Greece and the Hellenistic World").

Several other Greco-Bactrian cities have been further identified, as in Saksanokhur in southern Tajikistan (archaeological searches by a Soviet team under B.A. Litvinski), or in Dal'verzin Tepe.

Bronze Herakles statuette. Ai Khanoum. 2nd century BCE.	Sculpture of an old man, possibly a philosopher. Ai Khanoum, 2nd century BCE.	Bust of the same man.	Frieze of a naked man wearing a chlamys. Ai Khanoum, 2nd century BCE.
Same frieze, seen from the side.	Hellenistic gargoyle. Ai Khanoum, 2nd century BCE.	Plate depicting Cybele pulled by lions. Ai Khanoum.	Stone block with the inscriptions of Kineas in Greek. Ai Khanoum.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ J. D. Lerner, The Impact of Seleucid Decline on the Eastern Iranian Plateau: the Foundations of Arsacid Parthia and Graeco-Bactria, (Stuttgart 1999)
2. ^ F. L. Holt, Thundering Zeus (Berkeley 1999)
3. ^ Justin XLI, paragraph 4
4. ^ Justin XLI, paragraph 1
5. ^ ^{a b} Strabo XI.XI.I
6. ^ Justin XLI)
7. ^ ^{a b} Polybius 11.34
8. ^ ^{a b} Strabo 11.11.2
9. ^ ^{a b} Polybius 10.49, Battle of the Arius
10. ^ Polybius 11.34 Siege of Bactra
11. ^ On the image of the Greek kneeling warrior: "A bronze figurine of a kneeling warrior, not Greek work, but wearing a version of the Greek Phrygian helmet.. From a burial, said to be of the 4th century BCE, just north of the Tien Shan range". Ürümqi Xinjiang Museum. (Boardman "The diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity")
12. ^ Notice of the British Museum on the Zhou vase (2005, attached image): "Red earthenware bowl, decorated with a slip and inlaid with glass paste. Eastern Zhou period, 4th-3rd century BC. This bowl was probably intended to copy a more precious and possibly foreign vessel in bronze or even silver. Glass was little used in China. Its popularity at the end of the Eastern Zhou period was probably due to foreign influence."
13. ^ "The things which China received from the Graeco-Iranian world- the pomegranate and other "Chang-Kien" plants, the heavy equipment of the cataphract, the traces of Greeks influence on Han art (such as) the famous white bronze mirror of the Han period with Graeco-Bactrian designs (...) in the Victoria and Albert Museum" (Tarn, "The Greeks in Bactria and India", p363-364)
14. ^ Copper-Nickel coinage in Greco-Bactria.
15. ^ Ancient Chinese weapons A halberd of copper-nickel alloy, from the Warring States Period.
16. ^ C.Michael Hogan, Silk Road, North China, Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham
17. ^ Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies" Book I, Chapter XV
18. ^ ^{a b c} Justin XLI,6
19. ^ [http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/texte36.html Justin XXXVI, 1,1]
20. ^ Mentioned in "Hellenism in ancient India", Banerjee, p140, to be taken carefully since Orosius is often rather unreliable in his accounts.
21. ^ "Parthians and Sassanid Persians", Peter Wilcox, p15
22. ^ "They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu. They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors... The Yuezhi originally lived in the area between the Qilian or Heavenly mountains and Dunhuang, but after they were defeated by the Xiongnu they moved far away to the west, beyond Dayuan, where they attacked and conquered the people of Daxia (Bactria) and set up the court of their king on the northern bank of the Gui (Oxus) river" ("Records of the Great Historian", Sima Qian, trans. Burton Watson, p234)
23. ^ Strabo 11-8-1 on the nomadic invasions of Bactria

[edit] See also

• Greco-Buddhism
• Seleucid Empire
• Indo-Greek Kingdom
• Yuezhi
• Indo-Scythians
• Indo-Parthian Kingdom

[edit] References

• "The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies" by Thomas McEvilley (Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts, 2002) ISBN 1-58115-203-5
• "The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World" by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-285438-0
• "The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity" by John Boardman (Princeton University Press, 1994) ISBN 0-691-03680-2
• "Records of the Great Historian. Han dynasty II", Sima Qian, trans. Burton Watson. Columbia University Press. 1993. ISBN 0-231-08167-7
• "Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné", Osmund Bopearachchi, 1991, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ISBN 2-7177-1825-7.
• "Buddhism in Central Asia" by B.N. Puri (Motilal Banarsidass Pub, January 1, 2000) ISBN 81-208-0372-8
• "The Greeks in Bactria and India", W.W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press.
• "De l'Indus à l'Oxus, Archéologie de l'Asie Centrale", Osmund Bopearachchi, Christine Sachs, ISBN 2-9516679-2-2

[edit] External links

• The impact of Greco-Indian Culture on Western Civilisation

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Indo-Greeks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  

Indo-Greek Kingdom ← 180 BC–10 → Indo-Greek Kingdoms in 100 BC. Capital Alexandria in the Caucasus Sirkap/Taxila Sagala/Sialkot Pushkalavati/Peucela Language(s) Greek (Greek alphabet) Pali (Kharoshthi script) Sanskrit, Prakrit (Brahmi script) Possibly Aramaic Religion Buddhism Ancient Greek religion Hinduism Zoroastrianism Government Monarchy King  - 180-160 BC Apollodotus I  - 25 BC-10 Strato II Historical era Antiquity  - Established 180 BC  - Disestablished 10

Indo-Greek Kingdom
Ancient sources
History
Religion
Art
Legacy

The Indo-Greek Kingdom (or sometimes Graeco-Indian Kingdom^[1]) covered various parts of the northwest and northern Indian subcontinent during the last two centuries BC, and was ruled by more than 30 Hellenistic kings,^[2] often in conflict with each other. The kingdom was founded when the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius invaded India early in the second century BC; in this context the boundary of "India" is the Hindu Kush. The Greeks in India were eventually divided from the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom centered in Bactria (now the border between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan). The expression "Indo-Greek Kingdom" loosely describes a number of various dynastic polities. There were numerous cities, such as Taxila^[3] Pakistan's Punjab, or Pushkalavati and Sagala.^[4] These cities would house a number of dynasties in their times, and based on Ptolemy's Geographia and the nomenclature of later kings, a certain Theophila in the south was also probably a satrapal or royal seat at some point.

During the two centuries of their rule, the Indo-Greek kings combined the Greek and Indian languages and symbols, as seen on their coins, and blended ancient Greek, Hindu and Buddhist religious practices, as seen in the archaeological remains of their cities and in the indications of their support of Buddhism, pointing to a rich fusion of Indian and Hellenistic influences.^[5] The diffusion of Indo-Greek culture had consequences which are still felt today, particularly through the influence of Greco-Buddhist art.

The Indo-Greeks ultimately disappeared as a political entity around 10 AD following the invasions of the Indo-Scythians, although pockets of Greek populations probably remained for several centuries longer under the subsequent rule of the Indo-Parthians and Kushans.^[6]

Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Preliminary Greek presence in India 1.2 Greek rule in Bactria 1.3 Rise of the Sungas (185 BC) 2 History of the Indo-Greek kingdom 2.1 Nature and quality of the sources 2.2 Demetrius 2.2.1 After Demetrius I 2.2.2 The first conquests 2.3 Consolidation 2.3.1 The fall of Bactria and death of Menander 2.4 Later History 2.4.1 Loss of Mathura and eastern territories (circa 100 BC) 2.4.2 Scythian invasions (80 BC-20 AD) 2.4.3 Western Yuezhi or Saka expansion (70 BC-) 3 Ideology 4 Religion 5 Art 6 Economy 6.1 Tribute payments 6.2 Trade with China 6.3 Indian Ocean trade 7 Armed forces 7.1 Military technology 7.2 Size of Indo-Greek armies 8 Legacy of the Indo-Greeks 9 List of the Indo-Greek kings and their territories 10 Footnotes 11 References 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Background

[edit] Preliminary Greek presence in India

In 326 BC Alexander the Great conquered the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent as far as the Hyphasis River, and established satrapies as well as several cities, such as Bucephala, until his troops refused to go further east.^[7] The Indian satrapies of the Punjab were left to the rule of Porus and Taxiles, who were confirmed again at the Treaty of Triparadisus in 321 BC, and remaining Greek troops in these satrapies were left under the command of general Eudemus. Sometime after 321 Eudemus toppled Taxiles, until he left India in 316 BC. Another general also ruled over the Greek colonies of the Indus: Peithon, son of Agenor,^[8] until his departure for Babylon in 316 BC.

In 305 BC, Seleucus I led an army to the Indus, where he encountered Chandragupta. The confrontation ended with a peace treaty, and "an intermarriage agreement" (Epigamia, Greek: Επιγαμια), meaning either a dynastic marriage or an agreement for intermarriage between Indians and Greeks. Accordingly, Seleucus ceded to Chandragupta his northwestern territories, possibly as far as Arachosia and received 500 war elephants (which played a key role in the victory of Seleucus at the Battle of Ipsus):^[9]

"The Indians occupy in part some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants."

—Strabo 15.2.1(9)^[10]

Also several Greeks, such as the historian Megasthenes,^[11] followed by Deimachus and Dionysius, were sent to reside at the Mauryan court.^[12] Presents continued to be exchanged between the two rulers.^[13] The intensity of these contacts is testified by the existence of a dedicated Mauryan state department for Greek (Yavana) and Persian foreigners,^[14] or the remains of Hellenistic pottery that can be found throughout northern India.^[15]

Bilingual edict (Greek and Aramaic) by king Ashoka, from Kandahar. Kabul Museum (click image for translation).^[16]

On these occasions, Greek populations apparently remained in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent under Mauryan rule. Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka, who had converted to the Buddhist faith declared in the Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, some of them written in Greek,^[17][18] that Greek populations within his realm also had converted to Buddhism:^[19]

"Here in the king's domain among the Greeks, the Kambojas, the Nabhakas, the Nabhapamkits, the Bhojas, the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Palidas, everywhere people are following Beloved-of-the-Gods' instructions in Dharma."

—Rock Edict Nb13 (S. Dhammika).

In his edicts, Ashoka claims he sent Buddhist emissaries to Greek rulers as far as the Mediterranean (Edict No. 13),^[20][21] and that he developed herbal medicine in their territories, for the welfare of humans and animals (Edict No. 2).^[22]

The Greeks in India even seem to have played an active role in the propagation of Buddhism, as some of the emissaries of Ashoka such as Dharmaraksita,^[23] or the teacher Mahadharmaraksita,^[24] are described in Pali sources as leading Greek ("Yona") Buddhist monks, active in Buddhist proselytism (the Mahavamsa, XII).^[25] It is also thought that Greeks contributed to the sculptural work of the Pillars of Ashoka,^[26] and more generally to the blossoming of Mauryan art.^[27]

Again in 206 BC, the Seleucid emperor Antiochus led an army into India, where he received war elephants and presents from the king Sophagasenus:^[28]

"He (Antiochus) crossed the Caucasus (Hindu Kush) and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had a hundred and fifty altogether; and having once more provisioned his troops, set out again personally with his army: leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him."

—Polybius 11.39^[29]

[edit] Greek rule in Bactria

Greco-Bactrian statue of an old man or philosopher, Ai Khanoum, Bactria, 2nd century BC

Main article: Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

Alexander had also established several colonies in neighbouring Bactria, such as Alexandria on the Oxus (modern Ai-Khanoum) and Alexandria of the Caucasus (medieval Kapisa, modern Bagram). After Alexander's death in 323 BC, Bactria became a Satrapy of the Seleucid Empire. In 250 BC the Satrap Diodotus of Bactria rebelled against the Seleucids and proclaimed himself King of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. According to Ranajit Pal[2] he was the same as the great Ashoka. Diodotus' son was overthrown by Euthydemus I in 230 BC, who founded the Euthydemid Dynasty. The Greco-Bactrians maintained a strong Hellenistic culture at the door of India during the rule of the Mauryan empire in India, as exemplified by the archaeological site of Ai-Khanoum.^[30][31]

The Greeks in Bactria (Greco-Bactrians) remained in close contact with the Greeks in the Mauryan Empire.^[32] When the Mauryan empire was overthrown by the Sunga Dynasty around 185 BC, an army led by King Demetrius I of Bactria invaded India and seized the lands of the Kabul Valley.

[edit] Rise of the Sungas (185 BC)

Main article: Sunga Empire

In India, the Maurya Dynasty was overthrown around 185 BC when Pusyamitra Sunga, the commander-in-chief of Mauryan Imperial forces and a Brahmin, assassinated the last of the Mauryan emperors Brhadrata.^[33][34] Pusyamitra Sunga then ascended the throne and established the Sunga Empire, which extended its control as far west as the Punjab.

Buddhist sources, such as the Asokavadana, mention that Pusyamitra was hostile towards Buddhists and allegedly persecuted the Buddhist faith. A large number of Buddhist monasteries (viharas) were allegedly converted to Hindu temples, in such places as Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath or Mathura. While it is established by secular sources that Hinduism and Buddhism were in competition during this time, with the Sungas preferring the former to the latter, historians such as Etienne Lamotte^[35] and Romila Thapar^[36] argue that Buddhist accounts of persecution of Buddhists by Sungas are largely exaggerated.

[edit] History of the Indo-Greek kingdom

Main article: History of the Indo-Greek Kingdom

[edit] Nature and quality of the sources

Main article: Indo-Greeks (sources)

Some narrative history has survived for most of the Hellenistic world, at least of the kings and the wars;^[37] this is lacking for India. The main Greco-Roman source on the Indo-Greeks is Justin, who wrote an anthology drawn from the Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, who in turn wrote, from Greek sources, at the time of Augustus Caesar.^[38] Justin tells the parts of Trogus' history he finds particularly interesting at some length; he connects them by short and simplified summaries of the rest of the material. In the process he has left 85% to 90% of Trogus out; and his summaries are held together by phrases like "meanwhile" (eodem tempore) and "thereafter" (deinde), which he uses very loosely. Where Justin covers periods for which there are other and better sources, he has occasionally made provable mistakes. As Develin, the recent annotator of Justin, and Tarn both point out, Justin is not trying to write history in our sense of the word; he is collecting instructive moral anecdotes.^[39] Justin does find the customs and growth of the Parthians, which were covered in Trogus' 41st book, quite interesting, and discusses them at length; in the process, he mentions four of the kings of Bactria and one Greek king of India.^[40]

Menander I (155-130 BC) is one of the few Indo-Greek kings mentioned in both Graeco-Roman and Indian sources.

In addition to these dozen sentences, the geographer Strabo mentions India a few times in the course of his long dispute with Eratosthenes about the shape of Eurasia. Most of these are purely geographical claims, but he does mention that Eratosthenes' sources say that some of the Greek kings conquered further than Alexander; Strabo does not believe them on this, but modern historians do; nor does he believe that Menander and Demetrius son of Euthydemus conquered more tribes than Alexander^[41] There is half a story about Menander in one of the books of Polybius which has not come down to us intact.^[42]

There are Indian literary sources, ranging from the Milinda Panha, a dialogue between a Buddhist sage Nagasena and King Menander I, which includes some incidental information on Menander's biography and the geography and institutions of his kingdom, down to a sentence about Menander (presumably the same Menander) and his attack on Pataliputra which happens to have survived as a standard example in grammar texts; none is a narrative history. Names in these sources are consistently Indianized, and there is some dispute whether, for example, Dharmamitra represents "Demetrius" or is an Indian prince with that name. There was also a Chinese expedition to Bactria by Chang-k'ien under the Emperor Wu of Han, recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian and Book of the Former Han, with additional evidence in the Book of the Later Han; the identification of places and peoples behind transcriptions into Chinese is difficult, and several alternate interpretations have been proposed.^[43]

There is also significant archaeological evidence, including some epigraphic evidence, for the Indo-Greek kings, such as the mention of the "Yavana" embassy of king Antialcidas on the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha,^[44] primarily in Indic languages, which has the same problems with names as the Indic literary evidence. But the chief archaeological evidence is the coins.

There are coin finds of several dozen Indo-Greek rulers in India; exactly how many is complicated to determine, because the Greeks did not number their kings, and the eastern Greeks did not date their coins. For example, there are a substantial number of coin finds for a King Demetrius, but authors have postulated one, two, or three Demetrii, and the same coins have been identified by different enquirers as describing Demetrius I, Demetrius II, or Demetrius III.^[45] The following deductions have been made from coins, in addition to mere existence:

• Kings who left many coins reigned long and prosperously.
• Hoards which contain many coins of the same king come from his realm.
• Kings who use the same iconography are friendly, and may well be from the same family,
• If a king overstrikes another king's coins, this is an important evidence to show that the overstriker reigned after the overstruck. Overstrikes may indicate that the two kings were enemies.
• Indo-Greek coins, like other Hellenistic coins, have monograms in addition to their inscriptions. These are generally held to indicate a mint official; therefore, if two kings issue coins with the same monogram, they reigned in the same area, and if not immediately following one another, have no long interval between them.

All of these arguments are arguments of probability, and have exceptions; one of Menander's coins was found in Wales.

The exact time and progression of the Bactrian expansion into India is difficult to ascertain, but ancient authors name Demetrius, Apollodotus, and Menander as conquerors.^[46]

[edit] Demetrius

The founder of the Indo-Greek Kingdom Demetrius I (c. 205– c.170 BC), wearing the scalp of an elephant, symbol of his conquests in India.^[47]

Demetrius I was the son of Euthydemus I of Bactria; there is an inscription from his father's reign already officially hailing him as victorious. He also has one of the few absolute dates in Indo-Greek history: after his father held off Antiochus III for two years, 208-6 BC, the peace treaty included the offer of a marriage between Demetrius and Antiochus' daughter.^[48] Coins of Demetrius I have been found in Arachosia and in the Kabul Valley; the latter would be the first entry of the Greeks into India, as they defined it. There is also literary evidence for a campaign eastward against the Seres and the Phryni; but the order and dating of these conquests is uncertain.^[49] Demetrius I seems to have conquered the Kabul valley, Arachosia and perhaps Gandhara;^[50] he struck no Indian coins, so either his conquests did not penetrate that far into India or he died before he could consolidate them. On his coins, Demetrius I always carries the elephant-helmet worn by Alexander, which seems to be a token of his Indian conquests.^[51] Bopearachchi believes that Demetrius received the title of "King of India" following his victories south of the Hindu Kush.^[52] He was also given, though perhaps only posthumously, the title ανικητος ("Anicetos", lit. Invincible) a cult title of Heracles, which Alexander had assumed; the later Indo-Greek kings Lysias, Philoxenus, and Artemidorus also took it.^[53] Finally, Demetrius may have been the founder of a newly discovered Greek Era, starting in 186/5 BC.^[54]

[edit] After Demetrius I

Indo-Greek territory, with known campaigns and battles.^[55][56][57]

After the death of Demetrius, the Bactrian kings Pantaleon and Agathocles struck the first bilingual coins with Indian inscriptions found as far east as Taxila^[58] so in their time (c. 185-170 BC) the Bactrian kingdom seems to have included Gandhara.^[59] Several Bactrian kings followed after Demetrius' death, and it seems likely that the civil wars between them made it possible for Apollodotus I (from c. 180/175 BC) to make himself independent as the first proper Indo-Greek king (who did not rule from Bactria). Large numbers of his coins have been found in India, and he seems to have reigned in Gandhara as well as western Punjab. Apollodotus I was succeeded by or ruled alongside Antimachus II, likely the son of the Bactrian king Antimachus I.^[60]

The next important Indo-Greek king was Menander (from c. 165/155 BC) whose coins are frequently found even in eastern Punjab. Menander seems to have begun a second wave of conquests, and since he already ruled in India, it seems likely that the easternmost conquests were made by him.^[61]

According to Apollodorus of Artemita, quoted by Strabo, the Indo-Greek territory for a while included the Indian coastal provinces of Sindh and possibly Gujarat.^[62] With archaeological methods, the Indo-Greek territory can however only be confirmed from the Kabul Valley to the eastern Punjab, so Greek presence outside was probably short-lived or less significant.

Western and Indian sources also indicate that the Indo-Greeks may have captured the Sunga capital Pataliputra in northeastern India, but if this was the case, they did not hold it for long but were forced to retreat, probably due to wars in their own territories.^[63] Menander's reign saw the end of the Indo-Greek expansion.

An Indo-Greek stone palette showing Poseidon with attendants. He wears a chiton tunic, a chlamys cape, and boots. 2nd-1st century BC, Gandhara, Ancient Orient Museum.

[edit] The first conquests

Greek presence in Arachosia, where Greek populations had been living since before the acquisition of the territory by Chandragupta from Seleucus is mentioned by Isidore of Charax. He describes Greek cities there, one of them called Demetrias, probably in honour of the conqueror Demetrius.^[64]

Apollodotus I (and Menander I) were mentioned by Pompejus Trogus as important Indo-Greek kings.^[65] It is theorized that Greek advances temporarily went as far as the Sunga capital Pataliputra (today Patna) in eastern India. Senior considers that these conquests can only refer to Menander:^[66] Against this, John Mitchener considers that the Greeks probably raided the Indian capital of Pataliputra during the time of Demetrius,^[67] though Mitchener's analysis is not based on numismatic evidence.

"Of the eastern parts of India, then, there have become known to us all those parts which lie this side of the Hypanis, and also any parts beyond the Hypanis of which an account has been added by those who, after Alexander, advanced beyond the Hypanis, to the Ganges and Pataliputra."

—Strabo, 15-1-27^[68]

The seriousness of the attack is in some doubt: Menander may merely have joined a raid led by Indian Kings down the Ganga,^[69] as Indo-Greek presence has not been confirmed this far east.

To the south, the Greeks may have occupied the areas of the Sindh and Gujarat, including the strategic harbour of Barygaza (Bharuch),^[70] conquests also attested by coins dating from the Indo-Greek ruler Apollodotus I and by several ancient writers (Strabo 11; Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Chap. 41/47):^[71]

"The Greeks... took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis."

—Strabo 11.11.1^[72]

Menander I became the most important of the Indo-Greek rulers.^[73]

Narain however dismisses the account of the Periplus as "just a sailor's story", and holds that coin finds are not necessarily indicators of occupation.^[74] Coin hoards suggest that in Central India, the area of Malwa may also have been conquered.^[75]

Various Indian records describe Yavana attacks on Mathura, Panchala, Saketa, and Pataliputra. The term Yavana is thought to be a transliteration of "Ionians" and is known to have designated Hellenistic Greeks (starting with the Edicts of Ashoka, where Ashoka writes about "the Yavana king Antiochus"),^[76] but may have sometimes referred to other foreigners as well after the 1st century AD.^[77]

Patanjali, a grammarian and commentator on Panini around 150 BC, describes in the Mahābhāsya, the invasion in two examples using the imperfect tense of Sanskrit, denoting a recent event:^[78][79]

• "Arunad Yavanah Sāketam" ("The Yavanas (Greeks) were besieging Saketa")
• "Arunad Yavano Madhyamikām" ("The Yavanas were besieging Madhyamika" (the "Middle country")).

Also the Brahmanical text of the Yuga Purana, which describes Indian historical events in the form of a prophecy, but is thought to be likely historical,^[80][81][82] relates the attack of the Indo-Greeks on the capital Pataliputra,^[83] a magnificent fortified city with 570 towers and 64 gates according to Megasthenes,^[84] and describes the ultimate destruction of the city's walls:^[85]

"Then, after having approached Saketa together with the Panchalas and the Mathuras, the Yavanas, valiant in battle, will reach Kusumadhvaja ("The town of the flower-standard", Pataliputra). Then, once Puspapura (another name of Pataliputra) has been reached and its celebrated mud-walls cast down, all the realm will be in disorder."

—Yuga Purana, Paragraph 47–48, quoted in Mitchener, The Yuga Purana, 2002 edition

Earlier authors such as Tarn have suggested that the raid on Pataliputra was made by Demetrius.^[86] According to Mitchener, the Hathigumpha inscription indicates the presence of the Greeks led by a "Demetrius" in eastern India (Magadha) sometime during the 1st century BC,^[87] although this interpretation was previously disputed by Narain.^[88] But while this inscription may be interpreted as an indication that Demetrius I was the king who made conquests in Punjab, it is still true that he never issued any Indian coins, and the restoration of his name in Kharosthi on the Hathigumpha inscription: Di-Mi-Ta, has been doubted.^[89] The "Di" is a reconstruction, and it may be noted that the name of another Indo-Greek king, Amyntas, is spelt A-Mi-Ta in Kharosthi and may fit in.

Therefore, Menander remains the likeliest candidate for any advance east of Punjab.

[edit] Consolidation

Eucratides I toppled the Greco-Bactrian Euthydemid dynasty, and attacked the Indo-Greeks from the west.

The important Bactrian king Eucratides seems to have attacked the Indo-Greek kingdom during the mid 2nd century BC. A Demetrius, called "King of the Indians", seems to have confronted Eucratides in a four month siege, reported by Justin, but he ultimately lost.^[90]

In any case, Eucratides seems to have occupied territory as far as the Indus, between ca. 170 BC and 150 BC.^[91] His advances were ultimately checked by the Indo-Greek king Menander I,^[92]

Menander is considered to have been probably the most successful Indo-Greek king, and the conqueror of the largest territory.^[93] The finds of his coins are the most numerous and the most widespread of all the Indo-Greek kings. Menander is also remembered in Buddhist literature, where he called Milinda, and is described in the Milinda Panha as a convert to Buddhism:^[94] he became an arhat^[95] whose relics were enshrined in a manner reminiscent of the Buddha.^[96][97] He also introduced a new coin type, with Athena Alkidemos ("Protector of the people") on the reverse, which was adopted by most of his successors in the East.^[98]

[edit] The fall of Bactria and death of Menander

From the mid-2nd century BC, the Scythians and then the Yuezhi, following a long migration from the border of China, started to invade Bactria from the north.^[99] Around 130 BC the last Greco-Bactrian king Heliocles was probably killed during the invasion and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom proper ceased to exist. The Parthians also probably played a role in the downfall of the Bactrian kingdom.

Coin of Philoxenus (c.100 BC), unarmed, making a blessing gesture with the right hand.

The Indo-Greek states, shielded by the Hindu Kush range, were saved from the invasions, but the civil wars which had weakened the Greeks continued. Menander I, died around the same time, and even though the king himself seems to have been popular among his subjects, his dynasty was at least partially dethroned (see discussion under Menander I). Probable members of the dynasty of Menander include the ruling queen Agathokleia, her son Strato I, and Nicias, though it is uncertain whether they ruled directly after Menander.^[100] Other kings emerged, usually in the western part of the Indo-Greek realm, such as Zoilos I, Lysias, Antialcidas and Philoxenos.^[101] These rulers may have been relatives of either the Eucratid or the Euthydemid dynasties. The names of later kings were often new (members of Hellenistic dynasties usually inherited family names) but old reverses and titles were frequently repeated by the later rulers.

While all Indo-Greek kings after Apollodotus I mainly issued bilingual (Greek and Kharoshti) coins for circulation in their own territories, several of them also struck rare Greek coins which have been found in Bactria. The later kings probably struck these coins as some kind of payment to the Scythian or Yuezhi tribes who now ruled there, though if as tribute or payment for mercenaries remains unknown.^[102] For some decades after the Bactrian invasion, relationships seem to have been peaceful between the Indo-Greeks and these relatively hellenised nomad tribes.

There are however no historical recordings of events in the Indo-Greek kingdom after Menander's death around 130 BC, since the Indo-Greeks had now become very isolated from the rest of the Graeco-Roman world. The later history of the Indo-Greek states, which lasted to around the shift BC/AD, is reconstructed almost entirely from archaeological and numismatical analyses.^[103]

[edit] Later History

Throughout the 1st century BC, the Indo-Greeks progressively lost ground to the Indians in the east, and the Scythians, the Yuezhi, and the Parthians in the West. About 20 Indo-Greek king are known during this period,^[104] down to the last known Indo-Greek ruler, a king named Strato II, who ruled in the Punjab region until around 55 BC.^[105] Other sources, however, place the end of Strato II's reign as late as 10 AD - see below in the list of coins.

[edit] Loss of Mathura and eastern territories (circa 100 BC)

Coin of the Yaudheyas.

The Indo-Greeks may have ruled as far as the area of Mathura until sometime in the 1st century BC: the Maghera inscription, from a village near Mathura, records the dedication of a well "in the one hundred and sixteenth year of the reign of the Yavanas", which could be as late as 70 BC.^[106] Soon however Indian kings recovered the area of Mathura and south-eastern Punjab, west of the Yamuna River, and started to mint their own coins. The Arjunayanas (area of Mathura) and Yaudheyas mention military victories on their coins ("Victory of the Arjunayanas", "Victory of the Yaudheyas"). During the 1st century BC, the Trigartas, Audumbaras^[107] and finally the Kunindas^[108] also started to mint their own coins, usually in a style highly reminiscent of Indo-Greek coinage.^{[109][110][111][112]}

The Western king Philoxenus briefly occupied the whole remaining Greek territory from the Paropamisadae to Western Punjab between 100 to 95 BC, after what the territories fragmented again. The western kings regained their territory as far west as Arachosia, and eastern kings continued to rule on and off until the beginning of our era.

[edit] Scythian invasions (80 BC-20 AD)

Main article: Indo-Scythians

Asia in 1 AD, showing last kingdom of the Indo-Greeks.

Tetradrachm of Hippostratos, reigned circa 65-55 BC.

Silver coin of the Indo-Scythian king Azes II (r.c. 35-12 BC).

Around 80 BC, an Indo-Scythian king named Maues, possibly a general in the service of the Indo-Greeks, ruled for a few years in northwestern India before the Indo-Greeks again took control. He seems to have been married to an Indo-Greek princess.^[113] King Hippostratos (65-55 BC) seems to have been one of the most successful subsequent Indo-Greek kings until he lost to the Indo-Scythian Azes I, who established an Indo-Scythian dynasty.^[114] Various coins seem to suggest that some sort of alliance may have taken place between the Indo-Greeks and the Scythians.^[115]

Although the Indo-Scythians clearly ruled militarily and politically, they remained surprisingly respectful of Greek and Indian cultures. Their coins were minted in Greek mints, continued using proper Greek and Kharoshthi legends, and incorporated depictions of Greek deities, particularly Zeus.^[116] The Mathura lion capital inscription attests that they adopted the Buddhist faith, as do the depictions of deities forming the vitarka mudra on their coins. Greek communities, far from being exterminated, probably persisted under Indo-Scythian rule. There is a possibility that a fusion, rather than a confrontation, occurred between the Greeks and the Indo-Scythians: in a recently published coin, Artemidoros presents himself as "son of Maues",^[117] and the Buner reliefs show Indo-Greeks and Indo-Scythians reveling in a Buddhist context.

The Indo-Greeks continued to rule a territory in the eastern Punjab, until the kingdom of the last Indo-Greek king Strato was taken over by the Indo-Scythian ruler Rajuvula around 10 AD.^[118]

[edit] Western Yuezhi or Saka expansion (70 BC-)

Main article: Yuezhi

Silver bilingual drachm of Hermaeus (ruled 90-70 BC) with his wife Kalliope. King on horse, equipped with the recurve bow of the steppes.

Around eight "western" Indo-Greek kings are known; most of them are distinguished by their issues of Attic coins for circulation in the neighbouring.

One of the last important kings in the Paropamisadae was Hermaeus, who ruled until around 80 BC; soon after his death the Yuezhi or Sakas took over his areas from neighbouring Bactria. When Hermaeus is depicted on his coins riding a horse, he is equipped with the recurve bow and bow-case of the steppes and RC Senior believes him to be of partly nomad origin. The later king Hippostratus may however also have held territories in the Paropamisadae.

After the death of Hermaeus, the Yuezhi or Saka nomads became the new rulers of the Paropamisadae, and minted vast quantities of posthumous issues of Hermaeus up to around 40 AD, when they blend with the coinage of the Kushan king Kujula Kadphises.^[119] The first documented Yuezhi prince, Sapadbizes, ruled around 20 BC, and minted in Greek and in the same style as the western Indo-Greek kings, probably depending on Greek mints and celators.

The last known mention of an Indo-Greek ruler is suggested by an inscription on a signet ring of the 1st century AD in the name of a king Theodamas, from the Bajaur area of Gandhara, in modern Pakistan. No coins of him are known, but the signet bears in kharoshthi script the inscription "Su Theodamasa", "Su" being explained as the Greek transliteration of the ubiquitous Kushan royal title "Shau" ("Shah", "King").^[120]

[edit] Ideology

Bilingual silver drachm of Menander I (160-135 BC). With obverse in Greek "BASILEOS SOTĒROS MENANDROY" and reverse in Kharosthi "MAHARAJA TRATASA MENADRASA": "Of The Saviour King Menander". Reverse shows Athena advancing left, with thunderbolt and shield.

Indian-standard coin of Apollodotus I (180–160 BC).

Buddhism flourished under the Indo-Greek kings, and their rule, especially that of Menander, has been remembered as benevolent. It has been suggested, although direct evidence is lacking, that their invasion of India was intended to show their support for the Mauryan empire which may have had a long history of marital alliances,^[121] exchange of presents,^[122] demonstrations of friendship,^[123] exchange of ambassadors^[124] and religious missions^[125] with the Greeks. The historian Diodorus even wrote that the king of Pataliputra had "great love for the Greeks".^[126][127]

The Greek expansion into Indian territory may have been intended to protect Greek populations in India,^[128] and to protect the Buddhist faith from the religious persecutions of the Sungas.^[129] The city of Sirkap founded by Demetrius combines Greek and Indian influences without signs of segregation between the two cultures.

The first Greek coins to be minted in India, those of Menander I and Appolodotus I bear the mention "Saviour king" (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ), a title with high value in the Greek world which indicated an important deflective victory. For instance, Ptolemy I had been Soter (saviour) because he had helped save Rhodes from Demetrius the Besieger, and Antiochus I because he had saved Asia Minor from the Gauls. The title was also inscribed in Pali as ("Tratarasa") on the reverse of their coins. Menander and Apollodotus may indeed have been saviours to the Greek populations residing in India, and to some of the Indians as well.^[130]

Also, most of the coins of the Greek kings in India were bilingual, written in Greek on the front and in Pali on the back (in the Kharoshthi script, derived from Aramaic, rather than the more eastern Brahmi, which was used only once on coins of Agathocles of Bactria), a tremendous concession to another culture never before made in the Hellenic world.^[131] From the reign of Apollodotus II, around 80 BC, Kharoshthi letters started to be used as mintmarks on coins in combination with Greek monograms and mintmarks, suggesting the participation of local technicians to the minting process.^[132] Incidentally, these bilingual coins of the Indo-Greeks were the key in the decipherment of the Kharoshthi script by James Prinsep (1799–1840).^[133] Kharoshthi became extinct around the 3rd century AD.

In Indian literature, the Indo-Greeks are described as Yavanas (in Sanskrit),^{[134][135][136]} or Yonas (in Pali)^[137] both thought to be transliterations of "Ionians". In the Harivamsa the "Yavana" Indo-Greeks are qualified, together with the Sakas, Kambojas, Pahlavas and Paradas as Kshatriya-pungava i.e. foremost among the Warrior caste, or Kshatriyas. The Majjhima Nikaya explains that in the lands of the Yavanas and Kambojas, in contrast with the numerous Indian castes, there were only two classes of people, Aryas and Dasas (masters and slaves).

[edit] Religion

Main article: Religions of the Indo-Greeks

Indian-standard coinage of Menander I with a Buddhist eight-spoked wheel,^[138] and a palm of victory on the reverse (British Museum).

In addition to the worship of the Classical pantheon of the Greek deities found on their coins (Zeus, Herakles, Athena, Apollo...), the Indo-Greeks were involved with local faiths, particularly with Buddhism, but also with Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.^[139]

After the Greco-Bactrians militarily occupied parts of northern India from around 180 BC, numerous instances of interaction between Greeks and Buddhism are recorded. Menander I, the "Saviour king", seems to have converted to Buddhism,^[140] and is described as a great benefactor of the religion, on a par with Ashoka or the future Kushan emperor Kanishka.^[141] The wheel he represented on some of his coins was probably Buddhist,^[138] and he is famous for his dialogues with the Buddhist monk Nagasena, transmitted to us in the Milinda Panha, which explain that he became a Buddhist arhat:

"And afterwards, taking delight in the wisdom of the Elder, he (Menander) handed over his kingdom to his son, and abandoning the household life for the house-less state, grew great in insight, and himself attained to Arahatship!"

—The Questions of King Milinda, Translation by T. W. Rhys Davids.

Another Indian text, the Stupavadana of Ksemendra, mentions in the form of a prophecy that Menander will build a stupa in Pataliputra.^[142]

Plutarch also presents Menander as an example of benevolent rule, and explains that upon his death, the honour of sharing his remains was claimed by the various cities under his rule, and they were enshrined in "monuments" (μνημεία, probably stupas), in a parallel with the historic Buddha:^[143]

"But when one Menander, who had reigned graciously over the Bactrians, died afterwards in the camp, the cities indeed by common consent celebrated his funerals; but coming to a contest about his relics, they were difficultly at last brought to this agreement, that his ashes being distributed, everyone should carry away an equal share, and they should all erect monuments to him."

—Plutarch, "Political Precepts" Praec. reip. ger. 28, 6).^[144]

[edit] Art

Main article: Art of the Indo-Greeks

Greek Buddhist devotees, holding plantain leaves, in purely Hellenistic style, inside Corinthian columns, Buner relief, Victoria and Albert Museum.

In general, the art of the Indo-Greeks is poorly documented, and few works of art (apart from their coins and a few stone palettes) are directly attributed to them. The coinage of the Indo-Greeks however is generally considered as some of the most artistically brilliant of Antiquity.^[145] The Hellenistic heritage (Ai-Khanoum) and artistic proficiency of the Indo-Greek world would suggest a rich sculptural tradition as well, but traditionally very few sculptural remains have been attributed to them. On the contrary, most Gandharan Hellenistic works of art are usually attributed to the direct successors of the Indo-Greeks in India in 1st century AD, such as the nomadic Indo-Scythians, the Indo-Parthians and, in an already decadent state, the Kushans^[146] In general, Gandharan sculpture cannot be dated exactly, leaving the exact chronology open to interpretation.

Hellenistic culture in the Indian subcontinent: Greek clothes, amphoras, wine and music (Detail of Chakhil-i-Ghoundi stupa, Hadda, Gandhara, 1st century AD).

The possibility of a direct connection between the Indo-Greeks and Greco-Buddhist art has been reaffirmed recently as the dating of the rule of Indo-Greek kings has been extended to the first decades of the 1st century AD, with the reign of Strato II in the Punjab.^[147] Also, Foucher, Tarn, and more recently, Boardman, Bussagli and McEvilley have taken the view that some of the most purely Hellenistic works of northwestern India and Afghanistan, may actually be wrongly attributed to later centuries, and instead belong to a period one or two centuries earlier, to the time of the Indo-Greeks in the 2nd-1st century BC:^[148]

Indo-Greek princes may have been the models for the Bodhisattvas of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara.^[149]

This also seems to be corroborated by Ranajit Pal's suggestion that the Indo-Greek king Diodotus_I was the great Ashoka.[3].^[150]

This is particularly the case of some purely Hellenistic works in Hadda, Afghanistan, an area which "might indeed be the cradle of incipient Buddhist sculpture in Indo-Greek style".^[151] Referring to one of the Buddha triads in Hadda, in which the Buddha is sided by very Classical depictions of Herakles/Vajrapani and Tyche/Hariti, Boardman explains that both figures "might at first (and even second) glance, pass as, say, from Asia Minor or Syria of the first or second century BC (...) these are essentially Greek figures, executed by artists fully conversant with far more than the externals of the Classical style".^[152]

Alternatively, it has been suggested that these works of art may have been executed by itinerant Greek artists during the time of maritime contacts with the West from the 1st to the 3rd century AD.^[153]

The Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, beyond the omnipresence of Greek style and stylistic elements which might be simply considered as an enduring artistic tradition,^[154] offers numerous depictions of people in Greek Classical realistic style, attitudes and fashion (clothes such as the chiton and the himation, similar in form and style to the 2nd century BC Greco-Bactrian statues of Ai-Khanoum, hairstyle), holding contraptions which are characteristic of Greek culture (amphoras, "kantaros" Greek drinking cups), in situations which can range from festive (such as Bacchanalian scenes) to Buddhist-devotional.^[155][156]

Seated Boddhisatva, Gandhara, 2nd century (Ostasiatische Museum, Berlin)

Uncertainties in dating make it unclear whether these works of art actually depict Greeks of the period of Indo-Greek rule up to the 1st century BC, or remaining Greek communities under the rule of the Indo-Parthians or Kushans in the 1st and 2nd century AD. Benjamin Rowland thinks that the Indo-Greeks, rather than the Indo-Scythians or the Kushans, may have been the models for the Bodhisattva statues of Gandhara^[157]

[edit] Economy

Very little is known about the economy of the Indo-Greeks, although it seems to have been rather vibrant.^[158][159] The abundance of their coins would tend to suggest large mining operations, particularly in the mountainous area of the Hindu-Kush, and an important monetary economy. The Indo-Greek did strike bilingual coins both in the Greek "round" standard and in the Indian "square" standard,^[160] suggesting that monetary circulation extended to all parts of society. The adoption of Indo-Greek monetary conventions by neighbouring kingdoms, such as the Kunindas to the east and the Satavahanas to the south,^[161] would also suggest that Indo-Greek coins were used extensively for cross-border trade.

[edit] Tribute payments

Stone palette depicting a mythological scene, 2nd-1st century BC.

It would also seem that some of the coins emitted by the Indo-Greek kings, particularly those in the monolingual Attic standard, may have been used to pay some form of tribute to the Yuezhi tribes north of the Hindu-Kush.^[102] This is indicated by the coins finds of the Qunduz hoard in northern Afghanistan, which have yielded quantities of Indo-Greek coins in the Hellenistic standard (Greek weights, Greek language), although none of the kings represented in the hoard are known to have ruled so far north.^[162] Conversely, none of these coins have ever been found south of the Hindu-Kush.^[163]

[edit] Trade with China

An indirect testimony by the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian, who visited Bactria around 128 BC, suggests that intense trade with Southern China was going through northern India. Zhang Qian explains that he found Chinese products in the Bactrian markets, and that they were transiting through northwestern India, which he incidentally describes as a civilization similar to that of Bactria:

"When I was in Bactria," Zhang Qian reported, "I saw bamboo canes from Qiong and cloth (silk?) made in the province of Shu. When I asked the people how they had gotten such articles, they replied: "Our merchants go buy them in the markets of Shendu (northwestern India). Shendu, they told me, lies several thousand li southeast of Bactria. The people cultivate land, and live much like the people of Bactria".

—Sima Qian, "Records of the Great Historian", trans. Burton Watson, p. 236.

[edit] Indian Ocean trade

Maritime relations across the Indian ocean started in the 3rd century BC, and further developed during the time of the Indo-Greeks together with their territorial expansion along the western coast of India. The first contacts started when the Ptolemies constructed the Red Sea ports of Myos Hormos and Berenike, with destination the Indus delta, the Kathiawar peninsula or Muziris. Around 130 BC, Eudoxus of Cyzicus is reported (Strabo, Geog.  II.3.4)^[164] to have made a successful voyage to India and returned with a cargo of perfumes and gemstones. By the time Indo-Greek rule was ending, up to 120 ships were setting sail every year from Myos Hormos to India (Strabo Geog. II.5.12).^[165]

[edit] Armed forces

The coins of the Indo-Greeks provide rich clues on their uniforms and weapons. Typical Hellenistic uniforms are depicted, with helmets being either round in the Greco-Bactrian style, or the flat kausia of the Macedonians (coins of Apollodotus I).

[edit] Military technology

Their weapons were spears, swords, longbow (on the coins of Agathokleia) and arrows. Interestingly, around 130 BC the Central Asian recurve bow of the steppes with its gorytos box starts to appear for the first time on the coins of Zoilos I, suggesting strong interactions (and apparently an alliance) with nomadic peoples, either Yuezhi or Scythian.^[166] The recurve bow becomes a standard feature of Indo-Greek horsemen by 90 BC, as seen on some of the coins of Hermaeus.

Generally, Indo-Greek kings are often represented riding horses, as early as the reign of Antimachus II around 160 BC. The equestrian tradition probably goes back to the Greco-Bactrians, who are said by Polybius to have faced a Seleucid invasion in 210 BC with 10,000 horsemen.^[167] Although war elephants are never represented on coins, a harness plate (phalera) dated to the 3-2nd century BC, today in the Hermitage Museum, depicts a helmetted Greek combatant on an Indian war elephant.

Indo-Greek officer (on a coin of Menander II), circa 90 BC. He is equipped with a cuirass, lamellar armour for the thighs, and leg protections (cnemids).^[168]

The Milinda Panha, in the questions of Nagasena to king Menander, provides a rare glimpse of the military methods of the period:

"(Nagasena) Has it ever happened to you, O king, that rival kings rose up against you as enemies and opponents?

-(Menander) Yes, certainly.

-Then you set to work, I suppose, to have moats dug, and ramparts thrown up, and watch towers erected, and strongholds built, and stores of food collected?

-Not at all. All that had been prepared beforehand.

-Or you had yourself trained in the management of war elephants, and in horsemanship, and in the use of the war chariot, and in archery and fencing?

-Not at all. I had learnt all that before.

-But why?

-With the object of warding off future danger."

(Milinda Panha, Book III, Chap 7)

The Milinda Panha also describes the structure of Menander's army:

"Now one day Milinda the king proceeded forth out of the city to pass in review the innumerable host of his mighty army in its fourfold array (of elephants, cavalry, bowmen, and soldiers on foot)." (Milinda Panha, Book I)

[edit] Size of Indo-Greek armies

The Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides (171-145 BC) is said to have vanquished 60,000 Indo-Greeks, before being himself defeated by Menander.

The armed forces of the Indo-Greeks engaged in important battles with local Indian forces. The ruler of Kalinga, Kharavela, claims in the Hathigumpha inscription that he led a "large army" in the direction of Demetrius' own "army" and "transports", and that he induced him to retreat from Pataliputra to Mathura. The Greek ambassador Megasthenes took special note of the military strength of Kalinga in his Indica in the middle of the 3rd century BC:

"The royal city of the Calingae (Kalinga) is called Parthalis. Over their king 60,000-foot-soldiers, 1,000 horsemen, 700 elephants keep watch and ward in "procinct of war."

—Megasthenes fragm. LVI. in Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 8–23. 11.^[169]

An account by the Roman writer Justin gives another hint of the size of Indo-Greek armies, which, in the case of the conflict between the Greco-Bactrian Eucratides and the Indo-Greek Demetrius II, he numbers at 60,000 (although they allegedly lost to 300 Greco-Bactrians):

"Eucratides led many wars with great courage, and, while weakened by them, was put under siege by Demetrius, king of the Indians. He made numerous sorties, and managed to vanquish 60,000 enemies with 300 soldiers, and thus liberated after four months, he put India under his rule"

—Justin, XLI,6^[170]

These are considerable numbers, as large armies during the Hellenistic period typically numbered between 20,000 to 30,000.^[171]

The Indo-Greeks were later confronted by the nomadic tribes from Central Asia (Yuezhi and Scythians). According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi represented a considerable force of between 100,000 and 200,000 mounted archer warriors,^[172] with customs identical to those of the Xiongnu.

[edit] Legacy of the Indo-Greeks

Main article: Legacy of the Indo-Greeks

The Indo-Scythian Taxila copper plate uses the Macedonian month of "Panemos" for calendrical purposes (British Museum).^[173]

From the 1st century AD, the Greek communities of central Asia and northwestern India lived under the control of the Kushan branch of the Yuezhi, apart from a short-lived invasion of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom.^[174] The Kushans founded the Kushan Empire, which was to prosper for several centuries. In the south, the Greeks were under the rule of the Western Kshatrapas.

It is unclear how much longer the Greeks managed to maintain a distinct presence in the Indian sub-continent. The legacy of the Indo-Greeks was felt however for several centuries, from the usage of the Greek language and calendrical methods,^[175] to the influences on the numismatics of the Indian subcontinent, tracable down to the period of the Gupta Empire in the 4th century.^[176]

The Indo-Greeks may also have had some influence on the religious plan as well, especially in relation to the developing Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism has been described as "the form of Buddhism which (regardless of how Hinduized its later forms became) seems to have originated in the Greco-Buddhist communities of India, through a conflation of the Greek Democritean-Sophistic-Skeptical tradition with the rudimentary and unformalized empirical and skeptical elements already present in early Buddhism".^[177]

[edit] List of the Indo-Greek kings and their territories

Today 36 Indo-Greek kings are known. Several of them are also recorded in Western and Indian historical sources, but the majority are known through numismatic evidence only. The exact chronology and sequencing of their rule is still a matter of scholarly inquiry, with adjustments regular being made with new analysis and coin finds (overstrikes of one king over another's coins being the most critical element in establishing chronological sequences). The system used here is adapted from Osmund Bopearachchi, supplemented by the views of R C Senior and occasionally other authorities.^[178]

INDO-GREEK KINGS AND THEIR TERRITORIES Based on Bopearachchi (1991)
Territories/ Dates	PAROPAMISADE	ARACHOSIA	GANDHARA	WESTERN PUNJAB	EASTERN PUNJAB
200-190 BCE	Demetrius I
190-180 BCE	Agathocles	Pantaleon
185-170 BCE	Antimachus I
180-160 BCE	Apollodotus I
175-170 BCE	Demetrius II
160-155 BCE	Antimachus II
170-145 BCE	Eucratides
155-130 BCE	Menander I
130-120 BCE	Zoilos I		Agathokleia
120-110 BCE	Lysias		Strato I
110-100 BCE	Antialcidas		Heliokles II
100 BCE	Polyxenios		Demetrius III
100-95 BCE	Philoxenus
95-90 BCE	Diomedes	Amyntas		Epander
90 BCE	Theophilos	Peukolaos		Thraso
90-85 BCE	Nicias	Menander II		Artemidoros
90-70 BCE	Hermaeus	Archebios
	Yuezhi tribes		Maues (Indo-Scythian)
75-70 BCE			Telephos	Apollodotus II
65-55 BCE				Hippostratos	Dionysios
55-35 BCE				Azes I (Indo-Scythian)	Zoilos II
55-35 BCE					Apollophanes
25 BCE- 10 CE					Strato II
					Rajuvula (Indo-Scythian)

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ As in other compounds such as "French-Canadian", "African-American" , "Indo-European" etc..., the area of origin usually comes first, and the area of arrival comes second, so that "Greco-Indian" is normally a more accurate nomenclature than "Indo-Greek". The latter however has become the general usage, especially since the publication of Narain's book "The Indo-Greeks".
2. ^ Euthydemus I was, according to Polybius11.34, a Magnesian Greek. His son, Demetrius I, founder of the Indo-Greek kingdom, was therefore of Greek ethnicity at least by his father. A marriage treaty was arranged for the same Demetrius with a daughter of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III (who had some Persian descent). Polybius 11.34. The ethnicity of later Indo-Greek rulers is less clear ("Notes on Hellenism in Bactria and India". W. W. Tarn. Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 22 (1902), pages 268–293). For example, Artemidoros (80 BC) may have been of Indo-Scythian ascendency. Some level of inter-marriage may also have occurred, as exemplified by Alexander III of Macedon (who married Roxana of Bactria) or Seleucus (who married Apama).
3. ^ Mortimer Wheeler Flames over Persepolis (London, 1968). Pp. 112 ff. It is unclear whether the Hellenistic street plan found by Sir John Marshall's excavations dates from the Indo-Greeks or from the Kushans, who would have encountered it in Bactria; Tarn (1951, pp. 137, 179) ascribes the initial move of Taxila to the hill of Sirkap to Demetrius I, but sees this as "not a Greek city but an Indian one"; not a polis or with a Hippodamian plan.
4. ^ "Menander had his capital in Sagala" Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.83. McEvilley supports Tarn on both points, citing Woodcock: "Menander was a Bactrian Greek king of the Euthydemid dysnasty. His capital (was) at Sagala (Sialkot) in the Punjab, "in the country of the Yonakas (Greeks)"." McEvilley, p.377. However, "Even if Sagala proves to be Sialkot, it does not seem to be Menander's capital for the Milindapanha states that Menander came down to Sagala to meet Nagasena, just as the Ganges flows to the sea."
5. ^ "A vast hoard of coins, with a mixture of Greek profiles and Indian symbols, along with interesting sculptures and some monumental remains from Taxila, Sirkap and Sirsukh, point to a rich fusion of Indian and Hellenistic influences", India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.130
6. ^ "When the Greeks of Bactria and India lost their kingdom they were not all killed, nor did they return to Greece. They merged with the people of the area and worked for the new masters; contributing considerably to the culture and civilization in southern and central Asia." Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.278
7. ^ India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.92-93
8. ^ :"To the colonies settled in India, Python, the son of Agenor, was sent." Justin XIII.4
9. ^ India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.106-107
10. ^ "Strabo 15.2.1(9)". http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239&query=head%3D%23120. 
11. ^ India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.108-109
12. ^ "Three Greek ambassadors are known by name: Megasthenes, ambassador to Chandragupta; Deimachus, ambassador to Chandragupta's son Bindusara; and Dyonisius, whom Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to the court of Ashoka, Bindusara's son", McEvilley, p.367
13. ^ Classical sources have recorded that following their treaty, Chandragupta and Seleucus exchanged presents, such as when Chandragupta sent various aphrodisiacs to Seleucus: "And Theophrastus says that some contrivances are of wondrous efficacy in such matters as to make people more amorous. And Phylarchus confirms him, by reference to some of the presents which Sandrakottus, the king of the Indians, sent to Seleucus; which were to act like charms in producing a wonderful degree of affection, while some, on the contrary, were to banish love" Athenaeus of Naucratis, "The deipnosophists" Book I, chapter 32 Ath. Deip. I.32. Mentioned in McEvilley, p.367
14. ^ "The very fact that both Megasthenes and Kautilya refer to a state department run and maintained specifically for the purpose of looking after foreigners, who were mostly Yavanas and Persians, testifies to the impact created by these contacts.", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks", p.363
15. ^ "It also explains (...) random finds from the Sarnath, Basarth, and Patna regions of terra-cotta pieces of distinctive Hellenistic or with definite Hellenistic motifs and designs", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.363
16. ^ "A minor rock edict, recently discovered at Kandahar, was inscribed in two scripts, Greek and Aramaic", India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.112
17. ^ "The second Kandahar edict (the purely Greek one) of Asoka is a part of the "corpus" known as the "Fourteen-Rock-Edicts"" Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.452
18. ^ "It is also in Kandahar that were found the fragments of a Greek translation of Edicts XII and XIII, as well as the Aramean translation of another edict of Ashoka", Bussagli, p.89
19. ^ "Within Ashoka's domain Greeks may have had special privileges, perhaps ones established by the terms of the Seleucid alliance. Rock Edict Thirteen indicates the existence of a Greek principality in the northwest of Ashoka's empire -perhaps Kandahar, or Alexandria-of-the-Arachosians- which was not ruled by him and for which he troubled to send Buddhist missionaries and published at least some of his edicts in Greek", McEvilley, p.368
20. ^ "Thirteen, the longest and most important of the edicts, contains the claim, seemingly outlandish t first glance, that Ashoka had sent missions to the lands of the Greek monarchs -not only those of Asia, such as the Seleucids, but those back in the Mediterranean also", McEvilley, p.368
21. ^ "When Ashoka was converted to Buddhism, his first thought was to despatch missionaries to his friends, the Greek monarchs of Egypt, Syria, and Macedonia", Rawlinson, Intercourse between India and the Western world, p.39, quoted in McEvilley, p.368
22. ^ "In Rock Edict Two Ashoka even claims to have established hospitals for men and beasts in the Hellenistic kingdoms", McEvilley, p.368
23. ^ "One of the most famous of these emissaries, Dharmaraksita, who was said to have converted thousands, was a Greek (Mhv.XII.5 and 34)", McEvilley, p.370
24. ^ "The Mahavamsa tells that "the celebrated Greek teacher Mahadharmaraksita in the second century BC led a delegation of 30,000 monks from Alexandria-of-the-Caucasus Alexandra-of-the-Yonas, or of-the-Greeks, the Ceylonese text actually says to the opening of the great Ruanvalli Stupa at Anuradhapura"", McEvilley, p.370, quoting Woodcock, "The Greeks in India", p.55
25. ^ Full text of the Mahavamsa Click chapter XII
26. ^ "The finest of the pillars were executed by Greek or Perso-Greek sculptors; others by local craftsmen, with or without foreign supervision" Marshall, "The Buddhist art of Gandhara", p4
27. ^ "A number of foreign artisans, such as the Persians or even the Greeks, worked alongside the local craftsmen, and some of their skills were copied with avidity" Burjor Avari, "India, The ancient past", p118
28. ^ "Antiochos III, after having made peace with Euthydemus I after the aborted siege of Bactra, renewed with Sophagasenus the alliance concluded by his ancestor Seleucos I", Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.52
29. ^ "Polybius 11.39". http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234&query=head%3D%23717. 
30. ^ "So far, in Bactria, a theater has been identified at Ai Khanoum", McEvilley, p.386
31. ^ "The discovery of the Bactrian Greek city of Ai-Khanoum is surely one of the most significant gifts archaeology has given to history during the last thirty years", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.426
32. ^ "Bactria, as part of the Persian conquests of Alexander the Great, had become part of the Seleucid kingdom run from Syria. In the middle of the third century BC Bactria, along with another Persian province, Parthia, revolted against the Seleucids. (...) These Greco-Bactrian kings clashed with the Mauryans during their forays into northwest India", India, the Ancient Past, Burjor Avari, p.130
33. ^ "General Pusyamitra, who is at the origin of the Sunga dynasty. He was supported by the Brahmins and even became the symbol of the Brahmanical turnover against the Buddhism of the Mauryas. The capital was then transferred to Pataliputra (today's Patna)", Bussagli, p.99
34. ^ Pushyamitra is described as a "senapati" (Commander-in-chief) of Brhadrata in the Puranas
35. ^ E. Lamotte: History of Indian Buddhism, Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988 (1958), p. 109.
36. ^ Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas by Romila Thapar, Oxford University Press, 1960 P200
37. ^ See Polybius, Arrian, Livy, Cassius Dio, and Diodorus. Justin, who will be discussed shortly, provides a summary of the histories of Hellenistic Macedonia, Egypt, Asia, and Parthia.
38. ^ For the date of Trogus, see the OCD on "Trogus" and Yardley/Develin, p. 2; since Trogus' father was in charge of Julius Caesar's diplomatic missions before the history was written (Justin 43.5.11), Senior's date in the following quotation is too early: "The Western sources for accounts of Bactrian and Indo-Greek history are: Polybius, a Greek born c.200 BC; Strabo, a Roman who drew on the lost history of Apollodoros of Artemita (c.130-87 BC9, and Justin, who drew on Trogus, a post 87 BC writer", Senior, Indo-Scythian coins IV, p.x; the extent to which Strabo is citing Apollodorus is disputed, beyond the three places he names Apollodorus (and he may have those through Eratosthenes). Polybius speaks of Bactria, not of India.
39. ^ Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus translated by J. C. Yardley, notes and introduction by Robert Develin. (Atlanta 1994). The source for these paragraphs, and the next insofar as it is not Justin, is the Introduction pp. 1-11. See also Tarn (1951) p.50.
40. ^ Justin, 41.4.5, 41.4.8-9, 41.6.1-5, ed. cit.; The names of Theodotus I and II; Eucratides and his unnamed parricidal son; and "Demetrius, king of the Indians" (so Yardley: Indorum rex, Develin's note implies this is Demetrius II, but suggests that Demetrius I and II may be the same person.) Theodotus in Justin's text is clearly an error for Diodotus; the two prefixes both mean "God", no coins support his existence, and Trogus' tables of contents (the so-called prologues) survive (Develin and Yardley, p.284) saying Diodotus; they also include Indicae quoque res additae, gestae per Apollodotum et Menandrum, reges eorum "some Indian matters, namely the achievements of the Indian kings, Apollodotus and Menander.", although Justin does not mention Apollodotus. Tarn, Narain, and Bopearchchi all correct to Diodotus.
41. ^ Strabo, Geographia 11.11.1 p.516 Casaubon. 15.1.2, p. 686 Casaubon, "tribes" is Jones' version of ethne (Loeb)
42. ^ For a list of classical testimonia, see Tarn's Index II; but this covers India, Bactria, and several sources for the Hellenstic East as a whole.
43. ^ Tarn, App. 20; Narain (1957) pp. 136, 156 et alii.
44. ^ "The Besnagar Garuda pillar inscription witnesses to the presence of the Yavana Heliodorus son of Dion in Vidisa as an envoy from Taxila of king Antialkidas around 140 BC", Mitchener, The Yuga Purana, p.64
45. ^ Tarn and Narain postulate two Demetrii; the former thinks the Demetrius Anicetus coins describe Demetrius I, although actually made by Demetrius II; the latter that they are entirely by Demetrius II, and have nothing to do with Demetrius I. Bopearachchi ascribes one more recent find to Agathocles, but depicting Demetrius I; he postulates a much later Demetrius III for the previously known coins; this result is now fairly widely accepted by numismatists. The possibility of one Demetrius is attested by Develin and Brill's New Pauly, "Demetrius 4"
46. ^ This reconstruction is adapted mainly from the works of Bopearachchi. Bopearachchi (1991,1998)
47. ^ Senior, Indo-Scythian coins, p.xii
48. ^ Polybius 11.34
49. ^ The first conquests of Demetrius have usually been held to be during his father's lifetime; the difference has been over the actual date. Tarn and Narain agreed on having them begin around 180; Bopearachchi moved this back to 200, and has been followed by much of the more recent literature, but see Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World (Boston, 2006) "Demetrius" §10, which places the invasion "probably in 184". D.H. MacDowall, "The Role of Demetrius in Arachosia and the Kabul Valley," published in the volume: O. Bopearachchi, Landes (ed), Afghanistan Ancien Carrefour Entre L'Est Et L'Ouest, (Brepols 2005) discusses an inscription dedicated to Euthydemus, "Greatest of all kings" and his son Demetrius, who is not called king but "Victorious" (Kallinikos). This is taken to indicate that Demetrius was his father's general during the first conquests. It is uncertain whether the Kabul valley or Arachosia were conquered first, and whether the latter province was taken from the Seleucids after their defeat by the Romans in 190 BC. Peculiar enough, more coins of Euthydemus I than of Demetrius I have been found in the mentioned provinces. The calendar of the "Yonas" is proven by an inscription giving a triple synchronism to have begun in 186/5 BC; what event is commemorated is itself uncertain. Richard Salomon "The Indo-Greek era of 186/5 B.C. in a Buddhist reliquary inscription", in Afghanistan, Ancien Carrefour cited.
50. ^ "Demetrius occupied a large part of the Indus delta, Saurashtra and Kutch", Burjor Avari, p.130
51. ^ "It would be impossible to explain otherwise why in all his portraits Demetrios is crowned with an elephant scalp", Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.53
52. ^ "We think that the conquests of these regions south of the Hindu Kush brought to Demetrius I the title of "King of India" given to him by Apollodorus of Artemita." Bopearachchi, p.52
53. ^ For Heracles, see Lillian B. Lawler "Orchesis Kallinikos" Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 79. (1948), pp. 254-267, p. 262; for Artemidorus, see K. Walton Dobbins "The Commerce of Kapisene and Gandhāra after the Fall of Indo-Greek Rule" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Dec., 1971), pp. 286-302 (Both JSTOR). Tarn, p.132, argues that Alexander did not assume as a title, but was only hailed by it, but see Peter Green, The Hellenistic Age, p.7; see also Senior, Indo-Scythian coins, p.xii. No undisputed coins of Demetrius I himself use this title, but it is employed on one of the pedigree coins issued by Agathocles, which bear on the reverse the classical profile of Demetrius crowned by the elephant scalp, with the legend DEMETRIOS ANIKETOS, and on the reverse Herakles crowning himself, with the legend "Of king Agathocles" (Boppearachchi, "Monnaies", p.179 and Pl 8). Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, Chap IV.
54. ^ "It now seeems most likely that Demetrios was the founder of the newly discovered Greek Era of 186/5", Senior, Indo-Scythian coins IV
55. ^ Davies, Cuthbert Collin (1959). An Historical Atlas of the Indian Peninsula. Oxford University Press. 
56. ^ Narain, A.K. (1976). The Coin Types of the Indo-Greek Kings. Ares. ISBN 0890051097. 
57. ^ Hans Erich Stier, Georg Westermann Verlag, Ernst Kirsten, and Ekkehard Aner. Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte: Vorzeit. Altertum. Mittelalter. Neuzeit. Westermann, 1978, ISBN 3141009198.
58. ^ MacDowall, 2004
59. ^ "The only thing that seems reasonnably sure is that Taxila was part of the domain of Agathocles", Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.59
60. ^ Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.63
61. ^ "There is certainly some truth in Apollodorus and Strabo when they attribute to Menander the advances made by the Greeks of Bactria beyond the Hypanis and even as far as the Ganges and Palibothra (...) That the Yavanas advanced even beyond in the east, to the Ganges-Jamuna valley, about the middle of the second century BC is supported by the cumulative evidence provided by Indian sources", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" p.267.
62. ^ "The Greeks... took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis." Strabo 11.11.1 (Strabo 11.11.1)
63. ^ "The combination of textual and numismatic evidence allows to see what was the conflict between Eucratides and Menander. When Menander was engaged in a bloody conquest of the Ganges valley, Eucratides I would have taken advantage of this opportunity to invade his kingdom. This would be the "civil war" mentioned in the Yuga Purana; this would explain that Menander had to stop his conquest of the Ganges valley, and had to return hastily to face the aggressor", Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.85
64. ^ In the 1st century BC, the geographer Isidorus of Charax mentions Parthians ruling over Greek populations and cities in Arachosia: "Beyond is Arachosia. And the Parthians call this White India; there are the city of Biyt and the city of Pharsana and the city of Chorochoad and the city of Demetrias; then Alexandropolis, the metropolis of Arachosia; it is Greek, and by it flows the river Arachotus. As far as this place the land is under the rule of the Parthians." "Parthians stations", 1st century BC. Mentioned in Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Greco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p52. Original text in paragraph 19 of Parthian stations
65. ^ Pompeius Trogus, Prologue to Book XLI.
66. ^ "When Strabo mentions that "Those who after Alexander advanced beyond the Hypanis to the Ganges and Polibothra (Pataliputra)" this can only refer to the conquests of Menander.", Senior, Indo-Scythian coins and history, p.XIV
67. ^ Mitchener, The Yuga Purana, 2000, p.65: "In line with the above discussion, therefore, we may infer that such an event (the incursions to Pataliputra) took place, after the reign of Salisuka Maurya (c.200 BC) and before that of Pusyamitra Sunga (187 BC). This would accordingly place the Yavana incursions during the reign of the Indo-Greek kings Euthydemus (c.230-190 BC) or Demetrios (c.205-190 as co-regent, and 190-171 BC as supreme ruler".
68. ^ According to Tarn, the word used for "advance" (Proelonthes) can only mean a military expedition. The word generally means "going forward"; according to the LSJ this can, but need not, imply a military expedition. See LSJ, sub προέρχομαι. Strabo 15-1-27
69. ^ A.K. Narain and Keay 2000
70. ^ "Menander became the ruler of a kingdom extending along the coast of western India, including the whole of Saurashtra and the harbour Barukaccha. His territory also included Mathura, the Punjab, Gandhara and the Kabul Valley", Bussagli p101)
71. ^ Tarn, p.147-149
72. ^ Strabo on the extent of the conquests of the Greco-Bactrians/Indo-Greeks: "They took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis. In short, Apollodorus says that Bactriana is the ornament of Ariana as a whole; and, more than that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni." Strabo 11.11.1 (Strabo 11.11.1)
73. ^ "Numismats and historians all consider that Menander was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, and the most illustrious of the Indo-Greek kings", Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.76
74. ^ "the account of the Periplus is just a sailor's story", Narain (p.118-119)
75. ^ "A distinctive series of Indo-Greek coins has been found at several places in central India: including at Dewas, some 22 miles to the east of Ujjain. These therefore add further definite support to the likelihood of an Indo-Greek presence in Malwa" Mitchener, "The Yuga Purana", p.64
76. ^ "Because the Ionians were either the first ot the most dominant group among the Greeks with whom people in the east came in contact, the Persians called all of them Yauna, and the Indians used Yona and Yavana for them", Narain, The Indo-Greeks, p.249
77. ^ "The term (Yavana) had a precise meaning until well into the Christian era, when gradually its original meaning was lost and, like the word Mleccha, it degenerated into a general term for a foreigner" Narain, p.18
78. ^ "Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian institution", Bopearachchi, p16.
79. ^ Tarn, p.145-146
80. ^ "But the real story of the Indo-Greek invasion becomes clear only on the analysis of the material contained in the historical section of the Gargi Samhita, the Yuga Purana" Narain, p110, The Indo-Greeks. Also "The text of the Yuga Purana, as we have shown, gives an explicit clue to the period and nature of the invasion of Pataliputra in which the Indo-Greeks took part, for it says that the Pancalas and the Mathuras were the other powers who attacked Saketa and destroyed Pataliputra", Narain, p.112
81. ^ "For any scholar engaged in the study of the presence of the Indo-Greeks or Indo-Scythians before the Christian Era, the Yuga Purana is an important source material" Dilip Coomer Ghose, General Secretary, The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, 2002
82. ^ "..further weight to the likelihood that this account of a Yavana incursion to Saketa and Pataliputra-in alliance with the Pancalas and the Mathuras- is indeed historical" Mitchener, The Yuga Purana, p.65
83. ^ "The advance of the Greek to Pataliputra is recorded from the Indian side in the Yuga-purana", Tarn, p.145
84. ^ "The greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians ... Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570 towers and had four-and-sixty gates." Arr. Ind. 10. "Of Pataliputra and the Manners of the Indians.", quoting Megasthenes Text
85. ^ "The text of the Yuga Purana, as we have shown, gives an explicit clue to the period and nature of the invasion of Pataliputra in which the Indo-Greeks took part, for it says that the Pancalas and the Mathuras were the other powers who attacked Saketa and destroyed Pataliputra", Narain, The Indo-Greeks, p.112
86. ^ Tarn, p. "[132-133 INSERT TITLE]". 132-133. 
87. ^ "The name Dimita is almost certainly an adaptation of "Demetrios", and the inscription thus indicates a Yavana presence in Magadha, probably around the middle of the 1st century BC." Mitchener, The Yuga Purana, p.65
88. ^ "The Hathigumpha inscription seems to have nothing to do with the history of the Indo-Greeks; certainly it has nothing to do with Demetrius I", Narain, The Indo-Greeks, p.50
89. ^ P.L.Gupta: Kushâna Coins and History, D.K.Printworld, 1994, p.184, note 5
90. ^ "Justin refers to an incident in which Eucratides with a small force of 300 was besieged for four months by "Demetrius, king of the Indians" with a large army of 60,000. The numbers are obviously an exageration. Eucratides managed to break out and went on to conquer India.", It is uncertain who this Demetrius was, and when the siege happened. Some scholars believe that it was Demetrius I."(Demetrius I) was probably the Demetrius who besieged Eucratides for four months", D.W. Mac Dowall, p.201-202, Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'est et l'ouest. This analysis goes against Bopearachchi, who has suggested that Demetrius I died long before Eucratides came to power.
91. ^ Bopearachchi, p.72
92. ^ "As Bopearachchi has shown, Menander was able to regroup and take back the territory that Eucratides I had conquered, perhaps after Eucratides had died (1991, pp. 84-6). Bopearachchi demonstrates that the transition in Menander's coin designs were in response to changes introduced by Eucratides".
93. ^ "Numismats and historians are unanimous in considering that Menander was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, and the most famous of the Indo-Greek kings. The coins to the name of Menander are incomparably more abundant than those of any other Indo-Greek king" Bopearachchi, "Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques", p76.
94. ^ "Menander, the probable conqueror of Pataliputra, seems to have been a Buddhist, and his name belongs in the list of important royal patrons of Buddhism along with Ashoka and Kanishka", McEvilley, p.375
95. ^ "(In the Milindapanha) Menander is declared an arhat", McEvilley, p.378
96. ^ "Plutarch, who talks of the burial of Menander's relics under monuments or stupas, had obviously read or heard some Buddhist account of the Greek king's death", McEvilley, p.377
97. ^ "The statement of Plutarch that when Menander died "the cities celebrated (...) agreeing that they should divide ashes equally and go away and should erect monuments to him in all their cities", is significant and reminds one of the story of the Buddha", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.123, "This is unmistakably Buddhist and recalls the similar situation at the time of the Buddha's passing away", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.269
98. ^ Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.86
99. ^ "By about 130 BC nomadic people from the Jaxartes region had overrun the northern boundary of Bactria itself", McEvilley, p.372
100. ^ Bopearachchi, Monnaies, p.88
101. ^ Senior, Indo-Scythian coins and history IV, p.xi
102. ^ ^{a b} "P.Bernard thinks that these emissions were destined to commercial exchanges with Bactria, then controled by the Yuezhi, and were post-Greek coins remained faithful to Greco-Bactrian coinage. In a slightly different perspective (...) G. Le Rider considers that these emission were used to pay tribute to the nomads of the north, who were thus incentivized not to pursue their forays in the direction of the Indo-Greek realm", Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.76.
103. ^ Senior, Indo-Scythian coins and history IV, p.xxxiii
104. ^ "During the century that followed Menander more than twenty rulers are known to have struck coins", Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.270
105. ^ Bernard (1994), p. 126.
106. ^ The Sanskrit inscription reads "Yavanarajyasya sodasuttare varsasate 100 10 6". R.Salomon, "The Indo-Greek era of 186/5 B.C. in a Buddhist reliquary inscription", in "Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'est et l'ouest", p373
107. ^ "The coinage of the former (the Audumbaras) to whom their trade was of importance, starts somewhere in the first century BC; they occasionally imitate the types of Demetrius and Apollodotus I", Tarn, p.325
108. ^ The Kunindas must have been included in the Greek empire, not only because of their geographical position, but because they started coining at the time which saw the end of Greek rule and the establishment of their independence", Tarn, p.238
109. ^ "Further evidence of the commercial success of the Greek drachms is seen in the fact that they influenced the coinage of the Audumbaras and the Kunindas", Narain The Indo-Greeks, p.114
110. ^ "The wealthy Audumbaras (...) some of their coins after Greek rule ended imitated Greek types", Tarn, p.239
111. ^ "Most of the people east of the Ravi already noticed as within Menander's empire -Audumbaras, Trigartas, Kunindas, Yaudheyas, Arjunayanas- began to coins in the first century BC, which means that they had become independent kingdoms or republics.", Tarn, p.324
112. ^ "Later, in the first century a ruler of the Kunindas, Amogabhuti, issued a silver coinage "which would compete in the market with the later Indo-Greek silver"", Tarn, p.325
113. ^ "Maues himself issued joint coins with Machene, (...) probably a daughter of one of the Indo-Greek houses" Senior, Indo-Scythians, p.xxxvi
114. ^ G.K. Jenkins, using overstrikes and monograms, showed that, contrary to what Narai would write two years later, Apoloodotus II and Hippostratus were posterior, by far, to Maues. (...) He reveals an overstike if Azes I over Hippostratus. (...) Apollodotus and Hippostratus are thus posterior to Maues and anterior to Azes I, whose era we now starts in 57 BC." Bopearachchi, p.126-127.
115. ^ "It is curious that on his copper Zoilos used a Bow and quiver as a type. A quiver was a badge used by the Parthians (Scythians) and had been used previously by Diodotos, who we know had made a treaty with them. Did Zoilos use Scythian mercenaries in his quest against Menander perhaps?" Senior, Indo-Scythian coins, p.xxvii
116. ^ "The Indo-Scythian conquerors, who, also they adopted the greek types, minted money with their own names". Bopearachchci, "Monnaies", p.121
117. ^ Described in R.C. Senior "The Decline of the Indo-Greeks" [1]. See also this source.
118. ^ "Around 10 AD, with the joint rule of Straton II and his son Straton in the area of Sagala, le last Greek kingdom succumbed to the attacks of Rajuvula, the Indo-Scythian satrap of Mathura.", Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.125
119. ^ "Kujula Kadphises, founder of the Kushan Empire, succeeded there (in the Paropamisadae) to the nomads who minted imitations of Hermaeus" Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.117
120. ^ "We get two Greeks of the Parthian period, the first half of the first century AD, who used the Indian form of their names, King Theodamas on his signet-ring found in Bajaur, and Thedorus son of Theoros on two silver bowls from Taxila." Tarn, p.389
121. ^ Marital alliances:
     • Discussion on the dynastic alliance in Tarn, pp. 152–153: "It has been recently suggested that Asoka was grandson of the Seleucid princess, whom Seleucus gave in marriage to Chandragupta. Should this far-reaching suggestion be well founded, it would not only throw light on the good relations between the Seleucid and Maurya dynasties, but would mean that the Maurya dynasty was descended from, or anyhow connected with, Seleucus... when the Mauryan line became extinct, he (Demetrius) may well have regarded himself, if not as the next heir, at any rate as the heir nearest at hand". Also: "The Seleucid and Maurya lines were connected by the marriage of Seleucus' daughter (or niece) either to Chandragupta or his son Bindusara" John Marshall, Taxila, p20. This thesis originally appeared in "The Cambridge Shorter History of India": "If the usual oriental practice was followed and if we regard Chandragupta as the victor, then it would mean that a daughter or other female relative of Seleucus was given to the Indian ruler or to one of his sons, so that Asoka may have had Greek blood in his veins." The Cambridge Shorter History of India, J. Allan, H. H. Dodwell, T. Wolseley Haig, p33 Source.
     • Description of the 302 BC marital alliance in Strabo 15.2.1(9): "The Indians occupy in part some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants." The ambassador Megasthenes was also sent to the Mauryan court on this occasion.
122. ^ Exchange of presents:
     • Classical sources have recorded that Chandragupta sent various aphrodisiacs to Seleucus: "And Theophrastus says that some contrivances are of wondrous efficacy in such matters as to make people more amourous. And Phylarchus confirms him, by reference to some of the presents which Sandrakottus, the king of the Indians, sent to Seleucus; which were to act like charms in producing a wonderful degree of affection, while some, on the contrary, were to banish love" Athenaeus of Naucratis, "The deipnosophists" Book I, chapter 32 Ath. Deip. I.32
     • Ashoka claims he introduced herbal medicine in the territories of the Greeks, for the welfare of humans and animals (Edict No2).
     • Bindusara asked Antiochus I to send him some sweet wine, dried figs and a sophist: "But dried figs were so very much sought after by all men (for really, as Aristophanes says, "There's really nothing nicer than dried figs"), that even Amitrochates, the king of the Indians, wrote to Antiochus, entreating him (it is Hegesander who tells this story) to buy and send him some sweet wine, and some dried figs, and a sophist; and that Antiochus wrote to him in answer, "The dry figs and the sweet wine we will send you; but it is not lawful for a sophist to be sold in Greece" Athenaeus, "Deipnosophistae" XIV.67Athenaeus, "Deipnosophistae" XIV.67
123. ^ Treaties of friendship:
     • When Antiochos III, after having made peace with Euthydemus, went to India in 209 BC, he is said to have renewed his friendship with the Indian king there and received presents from him: "He crossed the Caucasus (Hindu Kush) and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had a hundred and fifty altogether; and having once more provisioned his troops, set out again personally with his army: leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him."Polybius 11.39
124. ^ Ambassadors:
     • Known ambassadors to India are Megasthenes, Deimakos and Dionysius.
125. ^ Religious missions:
     • In the Edicts of Ashoka, king Ashoka claims to have sent Buddhist emissaries to the Hellenistic west around 250 BC.
126. ^ The historian Diodorus wrote that the king of Pataliputra, apparently a Mauryan king, "loved the Greeks": "Iambulus, having found his way to a certain village, was then brought by the natives into the presence of the king of Palibothra, a city which was distant a journey of many days from the sea. And since the king loved the Greeks ("Philhellenos") and devoted to learning he considered Iambulus worthy of cordial welcome; and at length, upon receiving a permission of safe-conduct, he passed over first of all into Persia and later arrived safe in Greece" Diodorus ii,60.
127. ^ "Diodorus testifies to the great love of the king of Palibothra, apparently a Mauryan king, for the Greeks" Narain, "The Indo-Greeks", p362
128. ^ "Obviously, for the Greeks who survived in India and suffered from the oppression of the Sunga (for whom they were aliens and heretics), Demetrios must have appeared as a saviour" Mario Bussagli, p. 101
129. ^ "We can now, I think, see what the Greek 'conquest' meant and how the Greeks were able to traverse such extraordinary distances. To parts of India, perhaps to large parts, they came, not as conquerors, but as friends or 'saviors'; to the Buddhist world in particular they appeared to be its champions" (Tarn, p. 180)
130. ^ Tarn p. 175. Also: "The people to be 'saved' were in fact usually Buddhists, and the common enimity of Greek and Buddhists to the Sunga king threw them into each other's arms", Tarn p. 175. "Menander was coming to save them from the oppression of the Sunga kings",Tarn p. 178
131. ^ Whitehead, "Indo-Greek coins", p 3-8
132. ^ Bopearachchi p. 138
133. ^ Whitehead, p.vi
134. ^ "These Indo-Greeks were called Yavanas in ancient Indian litterature" p.9 + note 1 "The term had a precise meaning until well into the Christian era, when gradually its original meaning was lost and, like the word Mleccha, it degenerated into a general term for a foreigner" p.18, Narain "The Indo-Greeks"
135. ^ "All Greeks in India were however known as Yavanas", Burjor Avari, "India, the ancient past", p.130
136. ^ "The term Yavana may well have been first applied by the Indians to the Greeks of various cities of Asia Minor who were settled in the areas contiguous to north-west India" Narain "The Indo-Greeks", p.227
137. ^ "Of the Sanskrit Yavana, there are other forms and derivatives, viz. Yona, Yonaka, Javana, Yavana, Jonon or Jononka, Ya-ba-na etc... Yona is a normal Prakrit form from Yavana", Narain "The Indo-Greeks", p.228
138. ^ ^{a b} "It is probable that the wheel on some coins of Menander is connected with Buddhism", Narain, The Indo-Greeks, p.122
139. ^ Tarn, p.391: "Somewhere I have met with the zhole-hearted statement that every Greek in India ended by becoming a Buddhist (...) Heliodorus the ambassador was a Bhagavatta, a worshiper of Vshnu-Krishna as the supreme deity (...) Theodorus the meridrarch, who established some relics of the Buddha "for the purpose of the security of many people", was undoubtedly Buddhist". Images of the Zoroastrian divinity Mithra - depicted with a radiated phrygian cap - appear extensively on the Indo-Greek coinage of the Western kings. This Zeus-Mithra is also the one represented seated (with the gloriole around the head, and a small protrusion on the top of the head representing the cap) on many coins of Hermaeus, Antialcidas or Heliokles II.
140. ^ "It is not unlikely that "Dikaios", which is translated Dhramaika in the Kharosthi legend, may be connected with his adoption of the Buddhist faith." Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.124
141. ^ "Menander, the probable conqueror of Pataliputra, seems to have been a Buddhist, and his name belongs in the list of important royal patrons of Buddhism along with Asoka and Kanishka", McEvilley, p.375
142. ^ Stupavadana, Chapter 57, v15. Quotes in E.Seldeslachts.
143. ^ McEvilley, p.377
144. ^ Plutarch "Political precepts", p147–148 Full text
145. ^ "The extraordinary realism of their portraiture. The portraits of Demetrius, Antimachus and of Eucratides are among the most remarkable that have come down to us from antiquity" Hellenism in Ancient India, Banerjee, p134
146. ^ "Just as the Frank Clovis had no part in the development of Gallo-Roman art, the Indo-Scythian Kanishka had no direct influence on that of Indo-Greek Art; and besides, we have now the certain proofs that during his reign this art was already stereotyped, of not decadent" Hellenism in Ancient India, Banerjee, p147
147. ^ "The survival into the 1st century AD of a Greek administration and presumably some elements of Greek culture in the Punjab has now to be taken into account in any discussion of the role of Greek influence in the development of Gandharan sculpture", The Crossroads of Asia, p14
148. ^ On the Indo-Greeks and the Gandhara school:
     • 1) "It is necessary to considerably push back the start of Gandharan art, to the first half of the first century BC, or even, very probably, to the preceding century.(...) The origins of Gandharan art... go back to the Greek presence. (...) Gandharan iconography was already fully formed before, or at least at the very beginning of our era" Mario Bussagli "L'art du Gandhara", p331–332
     • 2) "The beginnings of the Gandhara school have been dated everywhere from the first century B.C. (which was M.Foucher's view) to the Kushan period and even after it" (Tarn, p394). Foucher's views can be found in "La vieille route de l'Inde, de Bactres a Taxila", pp340–341). The view is also supported by Sir John Marshall ("The Buddhist art of Gandhara", pp5–6).
     • 3) Also the recent discoveries at Ai-Khanoum confirm that "Gandharan art descended directly from Hellenized Bactrian art" (Chaibi Nustamandy, "Crossroads of Asia", 1992).
     • 4) On the Indo-Greeks and Greco-Buddhist art: "It was about this time (100 BC) that something took place which is without parallel in Hellenistic history: Greeks of themselves placed their artistic skill at the service of a foreign religion, and created for it a new form of expression in art" (Tarn, p393). "We have to look for the beginnings of Gandharan Buddhist art in the residual Indo-Greek tradition, and in the early Buddhist stone sculpture to the South (Bharhut etc...)" (Boardman, 1993, p124). "Depending on how the dates are worked out, the spread of Gandhari Buddhism to the north may have been stimulated by Menander's royal patronage, as may the development and spread of the Gandharan sculpture, which seems to have accompanied it" McEvilley, 2002, "The shape of ancient thought", p378.
149. ^ Benjamin Rowland JR, foreword to "The Dyasntic art of the Kushan", John Rosenfield, 1967
150. ^ Ranajit Pal, "An Altar of Alexander Now Standing Near Delhi", Scholia, vol. 15, pp.78-101
151. ^ Boardman, p141
152. ^ Boardman, p143
153. ^ "Others, dating the work to the first two centuries A.D., after the waning of Greek autonomy on the Northwest, connect it instead with the Roman Imperial trade, which was just then getting a foothold at sites like Barbaricum (modern Karachi) at the Indus-mouth. It has been proposed that one of the embassies from Indian kings to Roman emperors may have brought back a master sculptorto oversee work in the emerging Mahayana Buddhist sensibility (in which the Buddha came to be seen as a kind of deity), and that "bands of foreign workmen from the eastern centers of the Roman Empire" were brought to India" (Mc Evilley "The shape of ancient thought", quoting Benjamin Rowland "The art and architecture of India" p121 and A.C. Soper "The Roman Style in Gandhara" American Journal of Archaeology 55 (1951) pp301–319)
154. ^ Boardman, p.115
155. ^ McEvilley, p.388-390
156. ^ Boardman, 109-153
157. ^ "It is noteworthy that the dress of the Gandharan Bodhisattva statues has no resemblance whatever to that of the Kushan royal portrait statues, which has many affiliations with Parthian costume. The finery of the Gandhara images must be modeled on the dress of local native nobility, princes of Indian or Indo-Greek race, who had no blood connection with the Scythian rulers. It is also evident that the facial types are unrelated to the features of the Kushans as we know them from their coins and fragmentary portrait statues.", Benjamin Rowland JR, foreword to "The Dyasntic art of the Kushan", John Rosenfield, 1967
158. ^ "Those tiny territories of the Indo-Greek kings must have been lively and commercially flourishing places", India: The ancient past, Burjor Avari, p.130
159. ^ "No doubt the Greeks of Bactria and India presided over a flourishing economy. This is clearly indicated by their coinage and the monetary exchange they had established with other currencies." Narain, "The Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.275
160. ^ Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.27
161. ^ Rapson, clxxxvi-
162. ^ Bopearachchi, "Monnaies", p.75
163. ^ Fussman, JA 1993, p127 and Bopearachchi, "Graeco-Bactrian issues of the later Indo-Greek kings", Num. Chron.1990, pp79–104)
164. ^ "Strabo II.3.4‑5 on Eudoxus". http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/2C*.html#3.4. 
165. ^ "Since the merchants of Alexandria are already sailing with fleets by way of the Nile and of the Persian Gulf as far as India, these regions also have become far better known to us of today than to our predecessors. At any rate, when Gallus was prefect of Egypt, I accompanied him and ascended the Nile as far as Syene and the frontiers of Ethiopia, and I learned that as many as one hundred and twenty vessels were sailing from Myos Hormos for India, whereas formerly, under the Ptolemies, only a very few ventured to undertake the voyage and to carry on traffic in Indian merchandise." Strabo II.5.12
166. ^ "It is curious that on his copper Zoilos used a Bow and quiver as a type. A quiver was a badge used by the Parthians (Scythians) and had been used previously by Diodotos, who we know had made a treaty with them. Did Zoilos use Scythian mercenaries in his quest against Menander perhaps?" Senior, Indo-Scythian coins, p.xxvii
167. ^ "Polybius 10.49, Battle of the Arius". http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plb.+10.49. 
168. ^ Photographic reference on a coin of Menander II, circa 90 BC: Image:MenanderIIQ.jpg
169. ^ "Megasthenes Indica". http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/Foreign_Views/GreekRoman/Megasthenes-Indika.htm. 
170. ^ "Justin XLI". http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/texte41.html. 
171. ^ On the size of Hellenistic armies, see accounts of Hellenistic battles by Diodorus, books XVIII and XIX
172. ^ "They are a nation of nomads, moving from place to place with their herds, and their customs are like those of the Xiongnu. They have some 100,000 or 200,000 archer warriors... The Yuezhi originally lived in the area between the Qilian or Heavenly mountains and Dunhuang, but after they were defeated by the Xiongnu they moved far away to the west, beyond Dayuan, where they attacked and conquered the people of Daxia (Bactria) and set up the court of their king on the northern bank of the Gui (Oxus) river" ("Records of the Great Historian", Sima Qian, trans. Burton Watson, p234)
173. ^ Tarn, p.494
174. ^ "Though the Indo-Greek monarchies seem to have ended in the first century BC, the Greek presence in India and Bactria remained strong", McEvilley, p.379
175. ^ "The use of the Greek months by the Sakas and later rulers points to the conclusion that they employed a system of dating started by their predecessors." Narain, "Indo-Greeks" 2003, p.190
176. ^ "Evidence of the conquest of Saurastra during the reign of Chandragupta II is to be seen in his rare silver coins which are more directly imitated from those of the Western Satraps... they retain some traces of the old inscriptions in Greek characters, while on the reverse, they substitute the Gupta type (a peacock) for the chaitya with crescent and star." in Rapson "A catalogue of Indian coins in the British Museum. The Andhras etc...", p.cli
177. ^ McEvilley, "The Shape of Ancient Thought", p503.
178. ^ Under each king, information from Bopearachchi is taken from Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné (1991) or occasionally SNG9 (1998). Senior's chronology is from The Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian king sequences in the second and first centuries BC, ONS179 Supplement (2004), whereas the comments (down to the time of Hippostratos) are from The decline of the Indo-Greeks (1998).

[edit] References

• Avari, Burjor (2007). India: The ancient past. A history of the Indian sub-continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge. ISBN 0415356164. 
• Banerjee, Gauranga Nath (1961). Hellenism in ancient India. Delhi: Munshi Ram Manohar Lal.. OCLC 1837954 ISBN 0-8364-2910-9. 
• Bernard, Paul (1994). "The Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia." In: History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations: 700 B.C. to A.D. 250, pp. 99-129. Harmatta, János, ed., 1994. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 92-3-102846-4.
• Boardman, John (1994). The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03680-2. 
• Bopearachchi, Osmund (1991) (in French). Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Catalogue Raisonné. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. ISBN 2-7177-1825-7. 
• Bopearachchi, Osmund (1998). SNG 9. New York: American Numismatic Society. ISBN 0-89722-273-3. 
• Bopearachchi, Osmund (2003) (in French). De l'Indus à l'Oxus, Archéologie de l'Asie Centrale. Lattes: Association imago-musée de Lattes. ISBN 2-9516679-2-2. 
• Bopearachchi, Osmund; Smithsonian Institution; National Numismatic Collection (U.S.) (1993). Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian and Indo-Parthian coins in the Smithsonian Institution. Washington: National Numismatic Collection, Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 36240864. 
• Bussagli, Mario; Francine Tissot; Béatrice Arnal (1996) (in French). L'art du Gandhara. Paris: Librairie générale française. ISBN 2-253-13055-9. 
• Cambon, Pierre (2007) (in French). Afghanistan, les trésors retrouvés. Musée Guimet. ISBN 9782711852185. 
• Errington, Elizabeth; Joe Cribb; Maggie Claringbull; Ancient India and Iran Trust; Fitzwilliam Museum (1992). The Crossroads of Asia: transformation in image and symbol in the art of ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cambridge: Ancient India and Iran Trust. ISBN 0-9518399-1-8. 
• Faccenna, Domenico (1980) (in English). Butkara I (Swāt, Pakistan) 1956–1962, Volume III 1. Rome: IsMEO (Istituto Italiano Per Il Medio Ed Estremo Oriente). 
• Foltz, Richard (2000). Religions of the Silk Road: overland trade and cultural exchange from antiquity to the fifteenth century. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-23338-8. 
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• Lowenstein, Tom (2002). The vision of the Buddha: Buddhism, the path to spiritual enlightenment. London: Duncan Baird. ISBN 1-903296-91-9. 
• Marshall, Sir John Hubert (2000). The Buddhist art of Gandhara: the story of the early school, its birth, growth, and decline. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. ISBN 81-215-0967-X. 
• Marshall, John (1956) (in English). Taxila. An illustrated account of archaeological excavations carried out at Taxila (3 volumes). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 
• McEvilley, Thomas (2002). The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts. ISBN 1-58115-203-5. 
• Mitchiner, John E.; Garga (1986). The Yuga Purana: critically edited, with an English translation and a detailed introduction. Calcutta, India: Asiatic Society. OCLC 15211914 ISBN 81-7236-124-6. 
• Narain, A.K. (1957) (in English). The Indo-Greeks. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
  • reprinted by Oxford, 1962, 1967, 1980; reissued (2003), "revised and supplemented," by B. R. Publishing Corporation, New Delhi.
• Narain, A.K. (1976) (in English). The coin types of the Indo-Greeks kings. Chicago, USA: Ares Publishing. ISBN 0-89005-109-7. 
• Puri, Baij Nath (2000). Buddhism in Central Asia. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 81-208-0372-8. 
• Rosenfield, John (1967) (in English). The Dynastic art of the Kushans. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 81-215-0-579-9. 
• Salomon, Richard. The "Avaca" Inscription and the Origin of the Vikrama Era. Vol. 102. 
• Seldeslachts, E. (2003) (in English). The end of the road for the Indo-Greeks?. (Also available online): Iranica Antica, Vol XXXIX, 2004. 
• Senior, R.C. (2006) (in English). Indo-Scythian coins and history. Volume IV.. Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.. ISBN 0-9709268-6-3. 
• Tarn, W. W. (1938). The Greeks in Bactria and India. Cambridge University Press. 
  • Second edition, with addenda and corrigenda, (1951). Reissued, with updating preface by Frank Lee Holt (1985), Ares Press, Chicago ISBN 0-89005-524-6
• (in French/English) "Afghanistan, ancien carrefour entre l'est et l'ouest". Belgium: Brepols. 2005. ISBN 2503516815. 
• 東京国立博物館 (Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan); 兵庫県立美術館 (Hyogo Kenritsu Bijutsukan) (2003). Alexander the Great: East-West cultural contacts from Greece to Japan. Tokyo: 東京国立博物館 (Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan). OCLC 53886263. 

[edit] See also

Classical Civilisation portal

• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
• Seleucid Empire
• Greco-Buddhism
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• Kushan Empire
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