The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.138

c10.s6.138

Telephus, who for a little while ruled in Kapisa (App. 16), adds to the general obscurity. His extraordinary coin-types¹ may suggest that he was not even a Greek, in spite of his name; he does figure one Greek god, the ‘Zeus enthroned’ which had become the type of Kapisa, but he does not use the types of any known Greek king, a fact which might indicate a usurper.² It is a commonplace that the coinages of the Greek kings in India down to the end show Greek sobriety in the types used—Greek gods and the old types of the rival houses—but that on the Saca and still more on the Kushan coinages there appears a great multiplicity of types and that the Greek or semi-Greek artists who worked for these foreign kings let their imaginations run riot. They have run riot on Telephus’ scanty coinage; among the types on his bronze are an Indian fakir squatting,³ and his silver issue (p. 496 n. 8) shows on the obverse a serpent-footed giant and on the reverse a radiate king or god facing a male figure with horns, a group which might belong to Iranian mythology.⁴ The giant suggests that the artist of the coin had seen the Pergamene frieze, another sign that intercourse with the West was maintained till the end; if we knew why the giant occupies the place on the coin normally filled by the king’s head we might know who and what Telephus was.⁵ Later, in the art of the Roman empire, the serpent-footed giant figures as the opponent of the Sun-god or of Juppiter and is thought to symbolise the Powers of Darkness;⁶ but even a barbarian usurper could hardly put the symbol of the Powers of Darkness on a coin where his own head should be. Probably Telephus preceded Maues: in the confusion of the times he seized Kapisa for a little while and Maues dethroned him.