The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.8

c10.s6.8

In the western group, Heliocles was succeeded by Antialcidas, who must have begun to reign, or reign alone, not later than *c.* 130. He was a king of some power: he certainly ruled from the Hindu Kush to the Jhelum, as his silver coins show the full type of Alexandria-Kapisa³ and the inscription on the Besnagar column⁴ in Vidisā proves that he reigned in Taxila; the possibility that he still retained some footing north of the Hindu Kush has already been noticed (p. 273) in connection with his title 'the Victorious', and on the Besnagar column he is 'the Great King'. His known rule in Taxila, and the *pilei* of the Dioscuri on his copper coins, furnish the reason for the belief that henceforth the *pilei* were the type of Taxila. He was evidently related to Heliocles,⁵ but how is unknown. His date depends largely on the Besnagar inscription, which shows him sending an ambassador, Heliodorus son of Dion, to a Sunga king Bhāgabhadra in Vidisā, then in the fourteenth year of his reign. This inscription is very important for another matter, to be noticed later; here it need only be said that the list of Sunga kings in the Purāṇas⁶ knows no Bhāgabhadra, and he is generally identified with the last king but one of that list, Bhāga or Bhāgavata, whose fourteenth year is supposed to fall round about 90 B.C.,⁷ though it has been put much earlier.⁸ A reign of some forty years is possible enough, but there are considerable difficulties, which we shall come to later, in taking Antialcidas down to *c.* 90 B.C.; for five kings in Gandhāra have to come in between Antialcidas and Maues, and the Saca (Parsii) occupation of Kabul, which was definitely before 87, was almost certainly after Antialcidas' death (see p. 472); it might therefore be better either to identify Bhāgabhadra with some earlier king or to suppose that Bhāga was earlier than the Purāna chronology makes him, and date the inscription not later than *c.* 100 B.C.