The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.149

c10.s4.149

Fortunately we possess another word from a poem, presumably the same poem, which does not depend on Ptolemy. The legend on the coins¹ struck by Menander’s widow Agathocleia when regent after his death is βασιλίσσης θεοτρόπου ᾿Αγαθοκλείας, ‘Of the godlike Queen Agathocleia’. θεοτρόπος is another unique² poetical coinage suitable for an hexameter verse, and the reason that the lady used this extraordinary word was that she had been so described in a poem and liked the phrase, which moreover exactly fitted her position (p. 265).³ The poem in question might only have been some metrical dedication, like the Susa elegiacs, and the description of Agathocleia might be paralleled by the description of Phraates IV in those elegiacs as παγκράτωρ; but as both Menander’s capital and his queen came into it the poem might also have been a regular Praise of Menander on the lines of Theocritus’ Praise of Ptolemy; it is possible that Plutarch’s allusion to the equity of Menander’s rule ultimately goes back to this poem, though through the medium of ‘Trogus’ source’ (p. 47).