The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.104

c10.s6.104

Nicias can only have been a minor king, since, except for his unique drachm, he only strikes square bronze coins;³ some have the round omicron, some the square form and in addition the square sigma⁴ and an intermediate form of omega,⁵ which do not appear on any other Indo-Greek coins. The square forms of these three letters together with a square phi appear regularly on the coins of Gondophares, whose rule began in A.D. 19⁶ and whose huge realm had its capital at Taxila; his coinage is the most extreme example in India of the square lettering,⁷ which died out as Greek ceased to be a living tongue in India and is entirely absent from the more conventional forms on the Kushan coinage after Kadphises I. But, in spite of the square letters, one cannot put Nicias later than Hippostratus, because of the round omicron; and the two are closely associated both by their naval symbolism, which points to similar circumstances, and by their common use of the type of Antimachus II, ‘King on prancing horse’; they should therefore be his descendants. Hippostratus’ coinage shows that he was the more important; they may have been father and son, with Nicias his father’s sub-king or associate. If it was known that Alexander’s Nicaea still existed—there is no evidence¹—one would emphasise the possibility that Nicias was ‘king Nicaea’ (with the name adapted to the common Greek form) and ruled Bucephala’s bridge-head on the Saca bank of the Jhelum, an outpost of Hippostratus’ kingdom, and also the possibility that the square letters other than the omicron were especially favoured in the country between the Indus and the Jhelum which was dominated by Taxila. In any case, Nicias’ coins are usually found in the Jhelum district and his kingdom was somewhere on that river; his coins are of poor style, which may point to an improvised mint. There is a third king, Theophilus (p. 164), whose extremely rare coins show a square theta² and who might therefore belong to the same group; he uses Demetrius’ type of Heracles standing³ and was therefore probably a Euthydemid, but it is impossible to say where he ruled.