The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.275

v1.c26.275

In addition to what the 'find-spots' teach, there is something to be learned from a review of the coins themselves, or at all events of the gold and silver. It has already been indicated that Euthydemus on his accession discarded the characteristic type of Diodotus, and substituted for it one which may have been familiar to him in the city where he was born and bred. Zeus the thunderer was replaced by Heracles seated to left on a rock, leaning with his right hand on his club. The device was apparently borrowed from a set of silver tetradrachms struck at the cities of Cyme, Myrina, and Phocaea, in Western Asia Minor, during the reigns of Antiochus I and II (*J.H.S.*, 1907, pp. 145 ff.). It is universal on the gold and silver of Euthydemus, but two varieties of it are readily distinguishable. On the gold and on much of the silver the rock upon which Heracles sits is bare, while the lower end of his club is supported by a short and somewhat unnatural-looking column of stone (Pl. III, 1). On the remainder of the silver the rock is covered with a lion-skin, and the lower end of the club is apparently resting on the god's thigh (Pl. III, 2). The whole of the coins belonging to the second class bear the monogram ☧, and have their dies adjusted ↑ ↑. The first class, on the other hand, comprises three or four different groups, each having a characteristic letter or monogram other than ☧. The rule here is for the dies to be adjusted ↑ ↓, but there are a considerable number of exceptions (↑ ↑) which may fairly be presumed to be later, seeing that ↑ ↑ is invariable in subsequent reigns. The appearance of these particular monograms is a new phenomenon on the Bactrian coinage. As they usually persist through a long series of years, they cannot be interpreted as magistrates' names. They should rather be regarded as the names of mints, a view which is confirmed by occasional minor variations of type and by certain subtle peculiarities of style, such as the thin 'spread' fabric which is characteristic of many of the ☧ coins of the earlier kings.