Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c6.16

c6.16

The end of the reign of Eucratides is not fixed with certainty: it is believed to be about B.C. 155.² For the two Baktrian-Greek kings Menander and Apollodotus who ruled in Káthiáwáḍa after Eucratides, better sources of information are available. As already noticed Strabo (A.D. 20) mentions that Menander's conquests (B.C. 120) included Cutch and Suráshtra.³ And the author of the Periplus (A.D. 240) writes: 'Up to the present day old drachmæ bearing the Greek inscriptions of Apollodotus and Menander are current in Barugaza (Broach).⁴ Menander's silver drachmæ have been found in Káthiáwáḍa and Southern Gujarát.⁵ Though their number is small. Menander's coins are comparatively less scarce than those of the earliest. Kshatrapás Nahapána and Chashtana (A.D. 100 - 140). The distribution of Menander's coins suggests he was the first Baktrian-Greek king who resided in these parts and that the monuments of Alexander's times, camps temples and wells, mentioned by the author of the Periplus⁶ were camps of Menander in Suráshtra. Wilson and Rochette have supposed Apollodotus to be the son and successor of Menander,⁷ while General Cunningham believes Apollodotus to be the predecessor of Menander.⁸ Inferences from the coins of these two kings found in Gujarát and Káthiáwáḍa support the view that Apollodotus was the successor of Menander. The coins of Apollodotus are found in much larger numbers than those of Menander and the workmanship of Apollodotus' coins appears to be of a gradually declining style. In the later coins the legend is at times undecipherable. It appears from this that for some time after Apollodotus until Nahapána's (A.D. 100) coins came into use, the chief local currency was debased coins struck after the type of the coins of Apollodotus. Their use as the type of coinage generally happens to the coins of the last king of a dynasty. The statement by the author of the Periplus that in his time (A.D. 240) the old drachmæ of Apollodotus and Menander were current in Barugaza, seems to show that these drachmæ continued to circulate in Gujarát along with the coins of the Western Kshatrapas. The mention of Apollodotus before Menander by the author of the Periplus may either be accidental, or it may be due to the fact that when the author wrote fewer coins of Menander than of Apollodotus were in circulation.