The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s2.9

c10.s2.9

That Demetrius was quite consciously (up to a point) copying Alexander—that he regarded Alexander not merely as his supposed ancestor (App. 3) but as his model—comes out clearly from his coins, and is of the first importance for the story. On his own coins¹ he wears the elephant-scalp. As elephants live in India, it was inevitable that the elephant-scalp should have been taken to refer to his Indian conquests; but it is certain that it does not, for not only does it appear on his Bactrian coinage from the beginning of his reign, but it had been used as a head-dress for Alexander on early coins of both Ptolemy I² and Seleucus I;³ yet Ptolemy I had no connection of any kind with India—he neither ruled it nor aspired to rule it—and Seleucus had ceded all his Indian possessions to Chandragupta. The tradition behind this portrayal of Alexander is unknown, but the elephant-scalp itself must be a symbol of power—power far extended, as his had been; for both Ptolemy and Seleucus had every object in representing themselves as successors of the man who had reached the summit of human greatness. The representation of Demetrius in the elephant-scalp then means that he had himself portrayed in the guise of Alexander;⁴ and in fact, apart from the general resemblance of his portrait (features excepted) to that of Alexander on Ptolemy’s coins, the elephant-scalp on the two is identically treated,⁵ as opposed to its later treatment in art. There will be more to say about the elephant-scalp later (pp. 189, 206); but meanwhile this suffices. Again, Demetrius, presumably after crossing the Indus, took the title ἀνίκητος, ‘the Invincible’; it has already been mentioned that he is so called on the bilingual Indian tetradrachm of Demetrius II and on the Demetrius coin of Agathocles’ pedigree series, and the same title occurs on those rare bilingual copper coins of ‘King Demetrius the Invincible’ which have been supposed to be his copper coinage for India.¹ No king anywhere before him had assumed this title. It is a poetical word, known in Hesiod and the tragedians, but it is occasionally used in prose and was so used in a famous story: when Alexander visited the oracle of Delphi, the Pythia hailed him ἀνίκητος,² and this story must be the origin of Demetrius’ title. He wore then the symbol of Alexander’s power and used the title conferred upon him by Apollo; he was to be a second Alexander.