The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.13

c10.s5.13

The question was long ago raised whether there was not also a second Heliocles, to whom the bronze bilingual coins struck in India would belong.⁴ Certainly the face on the Indian coins is not much like that of Heliocles;⁵ but little reliance can be placed on the portraiture upon coins struck in India, the types are those of Heliocles, and no one but himself can have been the conqueror of Gandhāra and Taxila. What would be conceivable, however, is that Heliocles was doing exactly what Demetrius had done; when he invaded India he might have left his eldest son Eucratides II to govern Bactria and then left his second son, another Heliocles, to govern the Paropamisadae, and the younger Heliocles might have coined for his father precisely as Demetrius II had coined for Demetrius, striking coins with his father’s types and legend but with his own head. The difficulties in the way of believing this are however considerable. Heliocles’ invasion of Gandhāra cannot be later than about 145, if as late, and it is unlikely (see p. 218) that he himself can have been old enough at that time to have had two sons of an age to govern; and even were he older than I have supposed, the head on the Indian coins is not that of a particularly youthful man.