The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.112

c10.s3.112

All this is straightforward; and hardly less straightforward would be the suggestion that Eucratides adopted the Dioscuri not merely because they were saviours, but because they were *twin saviours*—Antiochus and himself. For the Dioscuri, besides being saviours, were patrons of φιλία, of a close friendship between two men.¹ They appear on some tetradrachms of Eumenes II of Pergamum, where they symbolise the close relationship between himself and his brother Attalus (Attalus II),² two princes who came to typify brotherly love no less than the Dioscuri themselves;³ but the idea could certainly be extended to other relatives (Antiochus and Eucratides were first cousins), for it appears later as extended to two men who were no relations at all: on a coin of Alexandria the Emperor Hadrian and Antinous appear in the guise of the Dioscuri.⁴