The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s3: The House of Eucratides
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c30.s3
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The House of Eucratides
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From such notices of the history of Bactria and Parthia as have been preserved by Greek and Latin writers, a few main facts in the career of Eucratides may be gathered. He deposed Demetrius from the throne of Bactria (c. 175 B.C.); he invaded the countries to the south of the Hindu Kush, and wrested from Demetrius and the princes of his house their dominions in the Kābul valley, in Ariāna (Arachosia and Aria), and in N.W. India at some date before 162 B.C.; he was deprived by Mithradates I of his recently conquered possessions in Ariāna at some time between 162 and c. 155; and, while returning in triumph from an Indian expedition, he was slain by his son, c. 155. None of the princes of the royal house which he founded are named in ancient literature; all that can be known of them must be inferred from the numerous coinages which they issued and from a single Indian inscription.
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The coins show that Heliocles, the successor of Eucratides, also ruled both in Bactria and in India, and that after his reign Greek power in Bactria ceased. Henceforth Yavāna princes are found only in kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush, and they are divided into two rival dynasties—the successors of Eucratides in the Kābul valley and in N.W. India, and the successors of Euthydemus in the eastern region of the Punjab.
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Some stages in the conflict between the two houses are reflected in the types of their coins; and especially valuable is the evidence which is sometimes supplied by restrikings. Thus certain copper coins of Apollodotus I Soter, with the usual types ‘Apollo: Tripod’ (Pl. VI, 4) have been restruck by Eucratides (Pl. VII, 36). This must surely indicate that territory once occupied by Apollodotus had passed into the hands of Eucratides, and that consequently Eucratides must have been either contemporary with Apollodotus or later in date. Other evidence shows that these two kings were contemporary, for each of them was the predecessor of Heliocles (p. 557). This inevitable conclusion is perfectly in agreement with the style of the coins; for the Indian issues of Eucratides appear to be at least as late in style as those of Apollodotus. The comparatively early date of Apollodotus is moreover proved by his use of the Attic weight-standard.
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But these restruck coins not only show that the two monarchs represent the two rival houses: they also give the name of the kingdom which had been lost and won. The reverse type is ‘Zeus enthroned,’ and it is accompanied by two symbols, a mountain and the head of an elephant; and the Kharoshṭhī legend describes the type as ‘the divinity of the city of Kāpiçī’ (Pl. VII, 36).
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Kāpiçī, the Κάπισα (MSS. Κάτισα) of Ptolemy (VI, 18, 4), was a city of the Paropanisadae; and, according to Pliny (VI, 23 (25)), it had been destroyed by Cyrus. It is mentioned by Pāṇini (IV, 2, 99); and from his time onwards it is best known in Sanskrit literature as giving its name to a spirituous liquor distilled from the flowers of the Mādhavī creeper. But our chief knowledge of Kāpiça, as the kingdom may be called in distinction from its capital, Kāpiçī, comes from Chinese sources. For the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims it was the frontier country on their long journey to Northern India. It was a fruitful land of alpine valleys surrounded by mountains on every side. It was here that the Chinese princes who were detained as hostages in Kanishka’s court spent the summer, while they passed the spring and autumn in Gandhāra and the winter in India. When Hiuen Tsiang visited Kāpiça in 630 A.D., it was a powerful kingdom, which, according to his description as interpreted by Cunningham, ‘must have included the whole of Kāfiristān, as well as the two large valleys of Ghorband and Panjshir’ (*Geog.* p. 18); and on it at that period were dependent the neighbouring kingdoms of Lampāka (Laghmān), Nagara (probably Jalālābād), and Gandhāra.
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Hiuen Tsiang's account includes a notice which furnishes an interesting explanation of the coin-type:
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To the south-west of the capital was the Pi-lo-sho-lo Mountain. This name was given to the mountain from its presiding genius who had the form of an elephant and was therefore called *Pi-lo-sho-lo*. (Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, I, p. 129.)
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The name is explained as meaning 'solid as an elephant,' and its Indian form has been restored as *Pīlu-sāra*, the first part of the compound being supposed to be of Persian derivation (*bīl* = elephant).
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In this case, as also in others recorded by the historians of Alexander, the Greeks sought to identify the Indian divinities with their own. They evidently regarded the tutelary deity of the city of Kāpiçī as Zeus. The coin-type thus inaugurated became characteristic of the house of Eucratides in the Kābul valley. It continued to be used by his successors until all Yavana rule in India came to an end. It is found on the coins of Heliocles, Antialcidas, Amyntas (*Summary*, p. 591), and Hermaeus (Pl. VII, 37).
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The conquests which Eucratides carried beyond the Kābul valley into the region of eastern Gandhāra (Takshaçilā) seem to be represented by the coins bearing the type 'Dioscuri' (Pl. VIII, 39), which was continued by Diomedes (Pl. VIII, 40). One of its varieties which shows the pointed caps (*pilei*) of these deities (Pl. VIII, 41) was certainly imitated by Liaka Kusūlaka, the Çaka satrap of the districts of Chahara and Chukhsa in the neighbourhood of Takshaçilā (Pl. VIII, 42). The 'Pilei' appear also on coins of Antialcidas (Pl. VIII, 43), Lysias and Antialcidas (*Summary*, p. 591), and Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44). Whether the type 'Victory' (Pl. VI, 13) denotes that Eucratides was at some time in possession of Nicaea on the Jhelum must remain doubtful (p. 551).
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Although the evidence for the very existence of Heliocles is purely numismatic, it is almost certain that he was the son of Eucratides, and quite certain that he succeeded Eucratides both in Bactria and in India. That he was the last Yavana king to rule in Bactria is shown by the fact that after his reign coins of Greek workmanship cease entirely in that region, and are replaced by the rude imitations of his coins which supplied the currency of the barbarous Çaka conquerors. That he extended the conquests of Eucratides in India is shown by his restrikings of coins originally issued by rulers belonging to the house of Euthydemus (p. 553).
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In the Kābul valley he continued to issue coins bearing the type ‘Zeus enthroned,’ with which Eucratides had restruck the coins of Apollodotus (*Summary*, p. 590), and others bearing the types ‘Elephant : Bull’ which are identical with those of Apollodotus himself (Pl. VI, 8). The type ‘Elephant’ occurs frequently both on the purely Indian, and on the Graeco-Indian, coinages of the Kābul valley and N.W. India. The various mints which it denotes cannot be identified more precisely; but it may be suggested that the type, like the ‘Zeus enthroned,’ derived its origin from the elephant-deity of Kāpiça. The ‘Bull,’ on the other hand, can be shown to have been the distinctive badge of Pushkalāvatī (Peucelaotis) in the lower Kābul valley, the capital of western Gandhāra. The evidence which makes this identification certain is supplied by the gold piece illustrated in Pl. VI, 10. On the obverse is seen the goddess wearing a mural crown, the emblem of a Greek civic divinity, and holding in her right hand a lotus as the tutelary deity of ‘the City of Lotuses.’ The accompanying Kharoshṭhī legend describes her as ‘the goddess of Pushkalāvatī’: and it is quite possible that her name may lie hidden in the three illegible Kharoshṭhī characters on the left. On the reverse is the figure of a humped bull; and above and below are the Greek and Kharoshṭhī equivalents for ‘bull.’ As in the case of the city divinity of Kāpiçī, the Greek artist has represented in accordance with Greek ideas an Indian deity who was supposed to bear the form of a bull. Here once again we are indebted to Hiuen Tsiang, who, in his description of Pushkalāvatī, says:
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Outside the west gate of the city was a Deva-Temple and a marvel-working image of the Deva. (Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, I, p. 214.)
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The bull, like the elephant, is a common emblem in Indian mythology, and is associated with the deities worshipped by various sects; but in this case it would seem undoubtedly to be the bull of Çiva; for the coin-type passed from the Yavanas and their successors, the Çakas, to the Kushāṇa kings who added to it the figure of the god himself. The bull continued to appear on the coins of this region for many centuries. It is seen on the ‘Bull and Horseman’ coins of the Shāhis of Gandhāra as late as the eleventh century A.D., and from them it is borrowed by the early Muhammadan conquerors.
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The successors of Heliocles who from such numismatic evidence are known to have ruled over the kingdom of Pushkalāvatī are—Diomedes (Pl. VI, 11), Epander, Philoxenus, Artemidorus, and Peucolaus (*Summary*, p. 587).
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The figure of Artemis, which occurs on the coins of Artemidorus, bears an evident allusion to the king's name; and, since it is found also on the coins of Peucolaus, it shows that the Greeks identified the city goddess with Artemis. The association of Peucolaus with Pushkalāvatī is proclaimed by his name, which is simply the adjective of Peucolaïtis, an alternative form of the Greek Peucelaotis.
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The kingdom of Pushkalāvatī was wrested from the Yavanas by the first Çaka king, Maues, who imitates the types of Artemidorus, 'Artemis: Indian bull' (Pl. VI, 12); and the date of this event was probably about 75 B.C.¹
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¹ Chapter XXIII, p. 570.
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The only Yavana king whose name has yet been found on a purely Indian monument is Antialcidas. The inscription on a stone column at Besnagar, near Bhīlsa in the Gwalior State, records that the column was erected in honour of Kṛishṇa (Vāsudeva) by the Yavana ambassador Heliodorus, son of Dio, an inhabitant of Takshaçilā, who had come from the Great King Antialcidas to King Kāçīputra Bhāgabhadra then in the fourteenth year of his reign. The inscription is full of interest. It testifies to the existence of diplomatic relations between the Yavana king of Takshaçilā and the king of Vidiçā (Bhīlsa); and it proves that already at this period some of the Yavanas had adopted Indian faiths, for Heliodorus is styled 'a follower of Vishṇu' (*bhāgavata*)².
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² For the inscription see *J.R.A.S.* for the years 1909–10. For the kingdom of Vidiçā see Chapter XXI, pp. 522 f.
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The coins of Antialcidas with the type 'Pilei' also indicate that he was king of Takshaçilā (Pl. VIII, 43 and p. 556). As all the types connected with the worship of the Dioscuri are ultimately derived from the Bactrian coins of Eucratides (Pl. IV, 4–6), there can be no doubt that Antialcidas reigned after Eucratides.
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Hitherto numismatists have assumed that Antialcidas was the predecessor of Eucratides; but the assumption, so far as it has any support, rests on an observation of von Sallet which may well have been mistaken; and what was originally a diffident suggestion on the part of von Sallet has been treated by each succeeding writer on the subject as a statement of fact³.
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³ *Zeit. f. Num.*, 1879, pp. 298, 305. The coin on which von Sallet very doubtfully read three syllables of the Kharoshṭhī legend—*a li ki*—was probably one of Apollodotus restruck by Eucratides (see Pll. VI, 4; VII, 36).
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That Antialcidas succeeded Eucratides also in the kingdom of Kāpiça appears from his coins with the type of the city divinity of Kāpiçī with which Eucratides restruck the coins of Apollodotus (*Summary*, p. 591). Some connexion between Antialcidas and Heliocles is indicated by their common use of the types ‘Bust of king : Elephant,’ with which Heliocles restruck the coins of Agathocleia and Strato (*Summary*, p. 590). Heliocles was no doubt the elder, for no Bactrian coinage of Antialcidas is known; but, even if these two kings were father and son, their reigns in India may have been to some extent contemporary. The dominions of the house of Eucratides included a number of kingdoms, of which some, as, for instance, Kāpiça, Pushkalāvatī, and Takshaçilā, can be identified by the types of their coins; and its seems probable that the government of some of these kingdoms was entrusted to the heir apparent and other members of the royal family. It is possible, therefore, that some of the princes whose coins we possess may have been ruling at the same time in different provinces.
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On certain coins struck in the district of Takshaçilā (type ‘Pilei,’ *Summary*, p. 591), Antialcidas is associated with Lysias; but there is nothing to explain the relation which one bore to the other, or even to show clearly to which of the two royal houses of Yavanas Lysias belonged. Indeed, since one class of the coins which Lysias strikes as sole ruler bears types, ‘Bust of king wearing elephant’s scalp : Heracles standing,’ which are identical with those of Demetrius, it is usually assumed that the two kings belong to the same family. But in this case, as so frequently, numismatic evidence is ambiguous. It is perhaps equally probable that the types introduced into India by Demetrius had become characteristic of a particular district, and therefore continued to be used in that district after it had passed from the house of Euthydemus to the house of Eucratides.
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The type ‘Pilei’ is continued by Archebius (Pl. VIII, 44) after whose reign it is no longer found on any coins issued by a Yavana king. It next appears on the small silver coins which the Çaka satrap, Liaka Kusūlaka, struck in imitation of those of Eucratides with the same type (Pl. VIII, 42, 41). The evidence of coins thus shows that after the reign of Archebius the region of Takshaçilā passed from the Yavanas to the Çakas; and the evidence of the Takshaçilā copper plate indicates that Takshaçilā was conquered by the first Çaka king, Maues, who was reigning there in the year 78 of an unspecified era, a date which, until the era can be determined, may be regarded provisionally as the equivalent of about 72 B.C.¹
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¹ Chapter XXIII, p. 570.
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The two great kingdoms of Gandhāra, Pushkalāvatī to the west of the Indus (p. 557) and Takshaçilā to the east, thus passed under the sway of the Çakas during the reign of Maues. The Çaka conquerors, moving up the valley of the Indus from their Indian base in Indo-Scythia (Sind), had come in like a wedge, which for a time separated the remnants of the two Yavana houses. The descendants of Euthydemus, the families of Apollodotus and Menander, still continued to rule in the eastern districts of the Punjab (p. 552), and the descendants of Eucratides in the upper Kābul valley (the province of the Paropanisadae).
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The house of Eucratides was now reduced to the possession of the region which represented its earliest conquest to the south of the Hindu Kush. In the city of Kāpiçī on the most northern extremity of this region Eucratides had first used the type ‘Zeus enthroned’ to restrike the coins of the defeated Apollodotus; and this type, deprived of the special emblems of the tutelary divinity of Kāpiçī, ‘Elephant and mountain,’ remained characteristic of the coinages of the upper Kābul valley until the chapter of Yavana rule in India was closed. It was continued after the time of Eucratides by Heliocles, Antialcidas¹, Amyntas, and Hermaeus (*Summary*, p. 591, and Pl. VII, 37).
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¹ Coins bearing this type no doubt circulated beyond the limits of the region which seems to have been their home. The type as it appears on coins of Antialcidas was imitated by Maues, who was never in possession of the upper Kābul valley (*Summary*, p. 591).
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On some of his silver coins Hermaeus is associated with his queen, Calliope, who, like Agathocleia, must have been a princess in her own right. In the *obv.* type which represents the jugate busts of the king and queen, both of them wear the diadem; and their names are associated in the Greek and Kharoshṭhī legends. These joint coins are distinguished from the other issues of Hermaeus by the *rev.* type ‘King on prancing horse’; and, as this type is characteristic of Antimachus and his successors, it is probable, as Cunningham suggested, that Calliope was a princess of this family (p. 546 f., and *Summary*, pp. 586).
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With the conquest by the Çakas of the kingdoms held by the last successors of Euthydemus in the eastern Punjab, Yavana rule had already ceased in the north-western region of the sub-continent which is now known as India, that is to say, the N.W. Frontier Province and the Punjab; and Hermaeus was the last king of his race to reign in India in its more extended historical and geographical sense, which includes the southern half of the present Afghānistān. His kingdom in the upper Kābul valley was the last survival of the Yavana dominions; and it was hemmed in on every side by actual or possible foes—on the east and on the south-west by the Çakas and Pahlavas of Peshāwar and Kandahār, and on the north by the Yueh-chi, who, since their settlement in the rich land of Bactria, had become a great power under the leadership of their chief tribe, the Kushāṇas. From one or other of these three possible sources—over the mountain region which is now traversed by the Khyber Pass, over the belt of highland country varying from 12,000 to 18,000 feet which lies between Ghazni and Kābul on the route from Kandahār, or over the Paropanisus—must have come the conquerors who put an end to the kingdom of Hermaeus. It was formerly held by the present writer that these hostile invaders were the Kushāṇas who came over the Paropanisus from Bactria; and the testimony of coins, on which the names of the last Yavana king, Hermaeus, and the first Kushāṇa conqueror, Kujūla Kadphises, are found in association, seemed to justify this conclusion¹. But a fuller consideration of all the available evidence shows that the opinion of Dr F. W. Thomas is almost certainly correct, viz. that there was an intermediate period during which the Pahlavas were in possession of Kābul².
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¹ Rapson, *Indian Coins*, p. 16.
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² *J.R.A.S.*, 1906, p. 194, note 1.
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The coins which bear the name of Hermaeus must, if we may judge from their style and fabric, extend over a long period; and those which were mechanically copied by Kujūla Kadphises to supply his first issues in the Kābul valley are themselves barbarous. They are of copper and very far removed from the silver coins which were their prototypes (Pl. VII, 37 and *Summary*, p. 591). The earliest coins are of good style and of good metal; and they belong to the period before any of the squared Greek letters had been introduced. Later issues are of coarser workmanship; the silver is alloyed, and the square ☐ appears in the Greek legend. So far, the deterioration of art and the debasement of the coinage are such as might well be expected to have taken place during the reign of a king who was menaced by enemies on every side. But further stages of degradation can only be explained as the result of a complete change in the character of the civilisation of this region. The alloyed coins are succeeded by barbarous issues which are undisguisedly of copper, and finally by others in which the word ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ, 'the saviour,' in the king's title appears as ΣΤΗΡΟΣΣΥ and is rendered in the corresponding Kharoṣṭhī legend by the word *mahatasa* (*mahantassa*), 'great'³. It is clear that the Greek language was no longer properly understood by the die-engravers. These last are the coins which are imitated by Kujūla Kadphises (Pl. VII, 28 and *Summary*, p. 589), whose date can scarcely be earlier than 50 A.D., since, according to Sir John Marshall’s observations, the evidence of the discoveries at Takshaçilā shows that he was rather later than Gondopharnes, who is known to have reigned during the period from 19 A.D. to 45 A.D.¹
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³ Rapson, *J.R.A.S.*, 1897, p. 319.
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¹ The four stages in the currency which bears the name of Hermaeus are shown in the B.M. *Cat.*: (1) pp. 62–3, nos. 1–4, Pl. XV, 1, 2; (2) p. 63, nos. 20–1, Pl. XV, 4; (3) pp. 64–5, nos. 25–40, Pl. XV, 6; (4) p. 65, nos. 45–50.
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It would appear then that, while Hermaeus may have been reigning for some time before and after c. 40 B.C., as would seem to be indicated by the square □ in his later Greek coin-legends², a coinage bearing his name and his types was issued by his conquerors until a much later date, in the same way and for the same reasons that the East India Company continued for many years to strike rupees bearing the name of the Mughal Emperor, Shāh ’Alam. That these conquerors were not Kushāṇas may, from chronological considerations, be regarded as certain. That they were the Pahlavas of Kandahār is made probable by the evidence of the coins which were struck by Spalirises with the characteristic type of the Yavana kings of Kābul, ‘Zeus enthroned’ (Pl. VII, 38)³. It was probably not until at least seventy years after the death of its last Yavana king that the Kābul valley passed from the Pahlavas to the Kushāṇas, the next suzerain power in Afghānistān and N.W. India.
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² Chapter XXIII, pp. 571–2.
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³ Chapter XXIII, p. 574.
Linked texts (2)
- Aṣṭādhyāyī — Pāṇini, Sanskrit
- Nicaea