The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.177

c10.s3.177

As Eucratides struck no coins with the humped bull of Pushkalāvatī, and as he overstruck Apollodotus’ money with his ‘Kapisi’ issue, he must have governed all his Indian possessions from Alexandria-Kapisa; his measures in India were naturally only temporary. Strabo shows that he never crossed the Jhelum,² and it is quite uncertain if he even crossed the Indus; a few of his coins have been found in the Punjab,³ but with his large coinage that means nothing; coins of Diodotus, for example, have been found in Seistan⁴ and Taxila,⁵ places where he never ruled and never even was. It is an inevitable deduction that Eucratides’ further advance eastward was checked by Menander, most probably somewhere in the Indus district; indeed Menander must have recovered Gandhāra or most of it (p. 229). Every step took Eucratides farther from his base in Bactria, and he could no longer call on the Greeks in Antiochus’ name, for he was outside the Seleucid empire and Antiochus was dead, while Menander was near his own base and must, if his legend has any meaning at all, have had the support of large elements among the Indian population. It has been pointed out that the resemblances between some of the bronze coins of Eucratides and some of those of Menander are so strong that they must have been issued in the same district at about the same time,¹ which may indicate a condition of stalemate between the two kings; certainly Menander was not damaged. All that is known of the end is that Eucratides returned to Bactria.² He must have made a treaty with Menander; Menander is subsequently found ruling Gandhāra (p. 229), but there is no real evidence that he ruled the Paropamisadae. It, like the rest of Iran, was probably left to Eucratides, for he almost certainly retained Alexandria-Kapisa: Masson found his coins about Begram in such quantities³ that they must have continued to be struck after his death.⁴