The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.125

c10.s6.125

The notable thing about Hippostratus’ reign is the appearance of his tetradrachms in considerable abundance.² Tetradrachms in India are supposed to have been issued for the use of the Greek rather than the Indian community;³ and this must be right, for the Kushans, with masses of Indian subjects, got on quite well without any silver coinage at all except such punch-marked and Greek pieces as might still be in circulation. After Menander, tetradrachms of the kings west of the Jhelum are not common,⁴ and of the kings east of the Jhelum none are known at all⁵ except a few of Agathocleia and of Strato I;⁶ then at the very end of Greek rule come a large number of those of Hippostratus and a still larger number of those of his contemporary Hermaeus in the Paropamisadae. As Greeks in India were certainly not increasing—they may have been considerably diminished by the Saca war, and had certainly lost a great deal of territory—the phenomenon can only mean an increased trade with the western world, and that in turn must mean that both kings for a time enjoyed an interval of peace, which must primarily have been due to Maues’ death. We have seen how the flourishing period of Greek rule in India coincided exactly with a great outburst of prosperity in Seleuceia on the Tigris (p. 261); one is inclined to ask whether a new increase in the Indian trade may have been one cause of the increase of coining in Parthia about this time—of drachms after Phraates III had re-unified the empire (66 B.C.) and of tetradrachms from the middle of the reign of Orodes II (57–38/7 B.C.).¹ The matter is too obscure to be considered here. But it is of interest that these last fractions of the Greek empire in India should not only have been still trading with the West but should have been able to increase that trade, and that a new symbol should have reached India from the Phoenician world, and a new letter-form from Susa (p. 328 n. 2). It is known that Hermaeus and Hippostratus were in touch (p. 337); and though no doubt they could have maintained communication through the hills northward of the Saca kingdom, still the Sacas held the great road and for effective trade purposes Hippostratus could only reach Hermaeus and the West across Saca territory, which again shows that there must have been an interval of peace (I shall come back to this): Hippostratus would not have coined tetradrachms in quantities had he not been in communication with the West through the Alexandria-Kapisa gateway, and it is worth notice that in a collection of coins recently formed in the Paropamisadae he and Nicias are the only kings east of the Jhelum after Menander who are represented,² save for a solitary coin of Strato.