[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c28.53 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.53 The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.53 - **Language:** English ### [c28.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28.53) ¹ For weights and assays of Kushān coins, see Cunningham (\*Coins Med. India\*, p. 16). The opinions expressed by Von Sallet (\*Nachfolger Alexanders\*, pp. 56, 81) that the close resemblance between the heads of Kadphises I and Augustus is due to fortuitous coincidence, and that there is no reason to connect the weight of the Kushān coins with that of the imperial \*aurei\*, can only be regarded as strange aberrations of that distinguished numismatist. The one silver coin of Kadphises II which is known weighs 56½ grains, and thus agrees in weight, as Cunningham observed, with a Roman silver \*denarius\*. A silver coin of Huvishka, \*oкро\* type, now in the museum of the Bombay Branch R. A. S., agrees in weight with the Indo-Parthian silver (\*Prog. Rep. A. S. W. Circle\*, 1915–16, p. 59). For an account of large finds of Roman coins in India, see Thurston, \*Coin Catal. No. 2 of Madras Museum\*; and, more fully, Sewell, ‘Roman Coins found in India’, \*J. R. A. S.\*, 1904, p. 591. The testimony of Pliny (\*Hist. Nat.\* xii, 18) to the drain of Roman gold in exchange for Indian, Arabian, and Chinese luxuries is well known:—‘Minimaque computatione milies centena milia sestertiûm annis omnibus India et Seres peninsulaque illa imperio nostro adimunt. Tanto nobis deliciae et feminae constant. Quota enim portio ex illis ad deos quaeso iam uti ad inferos pertinet ?’ The Roman coins in circulation in North-western India were not however all gold. ‘As many as 69 Roman coins were found in Mrs. Howell's collection, most of which were silver and belonged to the various officers of the Roman Republic.’ These coins were all collected from Kohat and the neighbouring regions and must have been in circulation there for the purposes of commerce. Seventeen of them belong to the Roman emperors, four to the ‘coinage of Italy’, and one to the ‘coinage of Spain’. Forty-one pertain to the various officers of the Roman Republic, and one is unidentifiable. The remaining five, which are copper, belong to both republican and imperial times (\*Prog. Rep. A. S. W. I.\*, 1916–17, p. 51). - [Previous: c28.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28.52) - [Next: c28.54](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28.54) - [Up: c28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28) ## Linked texts (1) - [Naturalis historia](https://indike.org/pramana/inf.la.imperial.pliny-elder) — C. Plinius Secundus, Latin --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c28.53) · Pramāṇa