The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.206

c10.s6.206

We must therefore look a little more closely at this period of peace, and that will entail the examination of an obscure class of coins which bear the name Vonones¹ and which show that a Vonones, called Great King of Kings, was suzerain of the Saca (Parsii) rulers of Kabul—Spalyris (Spalahores), Spalagadames, and Spalirises.² There can be no certainty as to what these coins mean, and any theory must entail difficulties;³ I must give what seems to me the probable solution, though I am aware that it presents difficulties in turn. It seems certain from his name that Vonones was a Parthian. The Parthian survey reproduced by Isidore shows that, after the defeat of the Saca invasion, Mithridates II claimed that the Sacas of Sacastene and the Parsii of Arachosia were vassals of the Parthian realm, which means that with the virtual establishment of two Parthian realms they became vassals of the Suren in Seistan, if he could enforce his authority. He may have continued to enforce it over the Parsii of Arachosia and Kabul; and even though the Saca kingdom of Maues in India was completely independent, the Surens must have preserved a claim that that kingdom was only an offshoot of Sacastene and that consequently they were its rightful overlords, for that claim was fully enforced later when in A.D. 19 the then Suren Gondophares⁴ brought the Saca domains in India under his direct personal rule.