The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.103

c10.s3.103

Eucratides’ position with regard to Antiochus can be deduced from his coins. It seems fairly certain now that what used to be called his first series, with the type of the Seleucid Apollo, belongs to a later Eucratides (pp. 271 sq.); his first series was really the coins with the Dioscuri type and the simple legend ‘Of King Eucratides’.¹ His second series, on which he is ‘Great King’, can be dated, for one of the pieces was copied by Plato’s dated coin of 165, and Eucratides’ second series therefore began to be issued in 166 after his victory, contemporaneously with the third series of Antiochus on which he is ‘The Victorious’. The first series of Eucratides, then, is earlier than 166; that is, he began coining as soon as he reached the East. Antiochus then had conferred upon him *before he started* the royal title in the provinces he should conquer. But he was not joint-king. The Seleucid realm had been familiar with joint-kings who governed the eastern provinces from Seleuceia; but they had always been sons or brothers of the reigning Seleucid, and though in fact they governed the East, in theory they were joint-rulers of the whole empire, and Babylon always dated by both names, those of the reigning Seleucid and of the joint-king. But Babylon did not date by Eucratides; after the death of the boy who was joint-king with Antiochus IV till 170–69 she dated by Antiochus IV alone.² Eucratides then was Antiochus’ sub-king; Antiochus was copying the Euthydemids, just as Parthia did later when Mithridates II appointed the Suren to take charge in the East (p. 499), with all the consequences which followed. Antiochus’ action meant that, in plain English, there were in future going to be *two* Seleucid realms, with himself ruler of one and suzerain of the other; doubtless he intended to supervise both from his seat in Babylon. Again Parthia copied. The Parthians were the supreme imitators of the ancient world; except in warfare, where they could be original enough, they never invented anything themselves but always copied from the Greeks, whether of the West or the East; Parthian analogies, therefore, are legitimate illustrations, and in the first century B.C. there were similarly two Parthian realms, one in the west governed by the Arsacids which Romans knew and called Parthia, and one in the east governed by the Surens,¹ at first nominally vassals of the Arsacid, with its centre originally in Seistan and subsequently on the Indus. It is obvious that Antiochus’ innovation was a dangerous one, as the conferring of special powers on a general usually was; but Antiochus had no grown son or brother to employ, Eucratides was his first cousin, and to give him the royal title meant at least that he would not revolt in order to seize it, like Achaeus. The amount of risk in fact depended on Eucratides’ character, about which Antiochus knew more than we do.