The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c8.21

c8.21

In the first place, I shall mention only by way of reminder Alexander's forced entrance into India in the spring of the year 326 before our era. We too much forget that it was on his part a notable folly to venture during the hottest months of the year on the burning plains of the Panjâb; that he was soon forced to retire, and that his retreat across the deserts of Gedrosia (the present Beluchistan) ended disastrously — so that this expedition into India, if only we replace the cold by the heat, the snow by the sands, was, as it were, the Russian campaign of the Macedonian conqueror. Much more fruitful of results was the constitution of the Greek kingdom of Bactria, on the confines of the north-west of India, about 250 B. C., in open revolt against the Seleucides. The beautiful coin of Alexander, son of Philip, which you see in pl. XIV, 2, was struck not by Alexander himself, but in imitation of his by king Agathokles, whose name and titles you read on the reverse, encircling the image of Zeus. Everything in this medal is still purely Greek.