The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.174

c10.s3.174

Antiochus’ death meant that Eucratides henceforth considered himself to be the independent king of his eastern kingdom and worked for his own hand. How far exactly he penetrated into India cannot be said. He must have conquered Apollodotus’ kingdom of Gandhāra, or anyhow part of it, for some of his ‘Kapisi’ coins are overstruck on bronze money of Apollodotus.⁴ For one king to overstrike the money of another is normally a proof of victory; it does not of course necessarily mean that the defeated king was killed, but Apollodotus cannot have lived much longer in any case. For a sufficient length of time (p. 149) has to be allowed after his death for Menander’s money to become well established in Barygaza,¹ and as Menander died between 150 and 145 (p. 226), Apollodotus’ death cannot be later than 160, and it would be better to put it about 163 or 162; he almost certainly therefore died fighting against Eucratides. In about seven years Eucratides had disposed of at least four Euthydemid kings; it must have looked as though he would exterminate the race altogether, which may have been his intention; to him they were just rebels. It has been mentioned that this period resembles the wars of the Successors; one may recall the number of prominent personalities—Perdiccas and Leonnatus, Craterus and Eumenes, Olympias and Eurydice, satraps without number—who came to a violent end within seven years of Alexander’s death.