The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s7.287

c10.s7.287

First, the cushion. The object supporting the Maues figure is not a cushion, for it does not go down in the middle and up at the ends as a real cushion does if a man sits on it;¹ it is solid, that is, it is a pedestal or throne of some kind. Then as the sword. The plates and coins accessible to me² show clearly that Longworth Dames was right about the line: it does not go across the figure as a sword would, but there is a line on the figure’s left (our right) and apparently a tiny bit of line on the figure’s right;³ the figure interrupts the line and there is no trace of a sword-hilt. It is therefore the back of the throne, and the figure is seated on one of the thrones with a back which occur so frequently as supports of statues of Buddha.⁴ It is material here that the latest numismatist to describe the coin, Mr Whitehead in the Lahore Catalogue, does not mention a sword or any other object across the knees of the figure; in fact it has its hands folded in its lap in a well-known attitude of seated Buddhas, and I do not envisage a Greek artist giving a king a sword for him to fold his hands meekly over it. It hardly needs to be added that a sword is a most unlikely object for a Saca king to hold, seeing that the weapons of the steppes were bow and spear. This can be illustrated from another Saca king, Azes I. The horseman on the obverse of one series of his coins, who can only be himself, carries a couched spear;⁵ and another coin-series shows on the obverse a king, undoubtedly Azes himself, seated cross-legged⁶ and holding across his knees the butt end of the great spear of the cataphracts, the κοντός⁷—