The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.73

c10.s3.73

Who exactly then was Eucratides? On his Bactrian coins⁷ of c. 165 B.C., whose portraiture can be trusted, he appears as a man in the prime of life, say about 40 to 45; he was therefore born somewhere round about 210–205. As his mother Laodice was married to a commoner, she can hardly have been married till well over twenty, till it was certain that she was not needed for a marriage of high policy; she was therefore born round about 235–225—not later—with a preference for the earlier part of the period. This makes her a daughter of Seleucus II; Seleucus III (226–223 B.C.) is just possible, but as he only reigned three years and is not known either to have married or to have left children, Seleucus II is practically certain, and this is confirmed by the fact that Eucratides on his coinage adopted, though he modified, one of the types of Seleucus II, the Dioscuri.¹ Laodice was therefore a sister of Antiochus III, and Eucratides was first cousin of Antiochus IV. Heliocles must have been general of some satrapy; Antiochus III could hardly have given his sister to a lesser man, and there is the precedent of Diodotus. It would be most natural to suppose that he was, not merely the general of a satrapy, but governor of the upper (eastern) satrapies; but though he might have been so after 193, down to 193 that office must have been filled, in accordance with Seleucid custom, by Antiochus, eldest son of Antiochus III and joint-king with him till his death that year. That Eucratides was governor of the upper satrapies under Antiochus IV goes without saying in view of his selection to reduce the East to obedience; for that was that official’s business, if the king was not going to command in person.