The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s3.91

c10.s3.91

I come to the explanation of how it was done, which is furnished by the ‘memorial’ coin-series of Agathocles and Antimachus. These coin-series are the pedigrees of these two kings, *i.e.* of the Euthydemid house (see App. 3); they show that the Euthydemid kings were Seleucids and (by means of the fictitious pedigree) claimed to descend from Alexander. They are propaganda against Eucratides,¹ or rather they are the dead bones of what was once propaganda, and they were therefore issued in 168 or possibly 167;² the matter was naturally made plain by manifestos and speeches, but we can still see the central fact, that when the blow fell it seemed to the Euthydemid princes a vital matter to prove to their people that they were Seleucids.³ The other kings north of the Hindu Kush did the same thing. A strange coin exists which seems to be all that now remains of a similar pedigree series issued by Demetrius himself;⁴ his last coins also have the Seleucid bead and reel edging,⁵ and one of the two Bactrian tetradrachms in the British Museum struck by his son Demetrius II, his joint-king in Bactria itself, also has the bead and reel edging,⁶ the proof that he was joint-king when Eucratides came. Eucratides’ answer was simple; it was the coin figuring his parents, already noticed, which showed that his mother was the Seleucid princess Laodice; naturally he would issue proclamations also.