Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c9.28

c9.28

The Greek kingdom south of the Hindu Kush, did not, however, long remain intact. Even Eukratides had found it impossible to govern his extensive dominions single-handed, and had delegated part of his powers to his son¹. Of the petty princes who split up the Panjāb among them, we know nothing except what we like to infer from the coins which have been unearthed from time to time. Many of these are extraordinarily fine, but they shed little light upon their strikers' history. If we may rely at all upon similarity of types and legends², we may infer that some of these princelets belonged to the house of Eukratides, and others to that of Euthydemus. About others we are quite uncertain. Thus we know that Agathokles and Antimachus claim descent from Euthydemus and Diodotus respectively³. Plato's coin is dated 165 B.C.⁴, which makes him an early contemporary, probably a viceroy, of Eukratides. Apollodotus II, Strato, and Menander, employ the figure of Athene hurling the bolt, which first appears on the coins of Euthydemus. Hence we infer that they belong to his family. Heliokles, supposed to be the son and murderer of Eukratides, restrikes the coins of Strato, probably because he conquered territory belonging to the rival house. Antialkidas, on the other hand, restrikes coins of Eukratides. Diomedes¹ reproduces in a barbarous fashion the charging Dioskuri of Eukratides; hence we may suppose that he is a scion of that house. These problems, however, belong to the province of the numismatist rather than the historian, and these petty rulers are unknown to us except for their coins. About forty of them divided Sind and the Panjāb between them during the two centuries before and after the birth of Christ, and the epithet " fiercely fighting," applied to them by the Hindu writers, indicates fairly correctly, no doubt, the extent of their achievements. The "fierce fighting" was, doubtless between the rival houses. At first the family of Eukratides was successful. Eukratides beat Apollodotus II, and wrested from him the Kāpiśa district; Heliokles won territories from Strato. But with Antialkidas and Menander the tide turned in favour of the house of Euthydemus, though the family of Eukratides retained the Gandhāra and Kābul districts till the coming of the Sakae.