The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.25

v1.c31.25

On a few of their coins, generally imitated from those of their Yavana predecessors (e.g. B.M. Cat., Pll. XVI, 1; XVII, 7; XIX, 12) the Çaka and Pahlava kings repeat the Greek royal title ‘King’ or ‘Great King’; but their normal style is ‘Great King of Kings,’ a title which is distinctively Persian. It has a long history from the *Kshāyathiyānām Kshāyathiya* of the inscriptions of Darius down to the *Shāhān Shāh* of the present day. Like the Indian *Chakravartin*, ‘the wielder of the discus,’ the Persian ‘King of Kings’ was the supreme monarch to whom other kings paid homage. In the Parthian empire the title was probably first assumed by Mithradates II the Great (123–88 B.C.) in imitation of his predecessors, the Achaemenids¹. It was in his reign that the struggle between the kings of Parthia and their Scythian subjects in eastern Irān was brought to a close and the suzerainty of Parthia over the ruling powers of Seistān and Kandahār confirmed. In these subordinate governments Parthians (Pahlavas) and Scythians (Çakas) were so closely associated that it is not always possible to distinguish between them: the same family includes both Parthian and Scythian names. It is therefore little more than a convenient nomenclature which labels the princes of the family of Maues, who invaded the lower Indus valley, as Çakas, and those of the family of Vonones, who ruled over Drangiāna (Seistān) and Arachosia (Kandahār), as Pahlavas. The relation between Maues and Vonones is uncertain; but it is clear that their families were associated in a later generation.