The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.258

v1.c26.258

It is natural to suppose that such intimate diplomatic relations would rest on a solid foundation of mutual commercial interest. And corroborative testimony is not altogether wanting. Strabo, speaking of the Oxus (Amu Daria), states (XI, 509) that it formed a link in an important chain along which Indian goods were carried to Europe by way of the Caspian and the Black Sea. He cites as one of his authorities Patrocles, who was an admiral in the service of Antiochus I, and thus makes it clear that the route was a popular one early in the third century B.C. Evidence of the prosperity of Central Asia at this period is also furnished by the coins. There need be no hesitation about associating with that region a well-known series of silver pieces, of Attic weight, having on the obverse a laureate head of Zeus, and on the reverse Athena fighting in a quadriga drawn by elephants. The inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ shows that they must be later than 306, when the royal title was first assumed. The denomination of most common occurrence is the tetradrachm; but drachms, hemidrachms, and obols are not infrequent. We are safe in assuming with Imhoof-Blumer that the majority of them were minted at Babylon or at Seleucia on the Tigris. A minority, which are of a quite distinctive and somewhat coarser fabric, appear to hail from even farther east; the specimens in the British Museum have nearly all been purchased at Rāwalpindi, or obtained from collections formed in India. Generally, though not invariably, these latter have been struck from regularly adjusted dies (↑↓), while a few have monograms on the obverse (Pl. I, 15), features that at once recall certain of the Athenian imitations spoken of in an earlier chapter as coming from the same district (*supra*, p. 388). One small group of tetradrachms and drachms, from regularly adjusted dies, bears the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ (Pl. II, 2), indicating probably, as Six and Imhoof have suggested¹, that the coins were minted during the viceroyalty of Seleucus, son of Antiochus I. The omission of the father’s kingly title has thus a sinister significance. Unlike the rest, they are not of Attic weight, but follow the lighter standard already met with above in another connexion (*supra*, p. 387); the average weight of five tetradrachms is only 212·3 grains (13·82 grammes). The monogram ⍺ is placed on the reverse. Very rare drachms, reading ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΣΕΛΕΥΚΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ, which are also struck on the lighter standard and show the same monogram (Pl. II, 1), are plainly of kindred origin. At the same time their superior style, coupled with the fact that they are struck from unadjusted dies, proves them to be somewhat earlier. In all likelihood they date from the period when Antiochus I himself was acting as his father’s viceroy.