The Greeks in Bactria and India c13.14

c13.14

One reason alleged for the belief that the Bactrian and Indian monograms represent mint-cities must be noticed—that certain monograms appear over such long periods of time that they cannot be moneyers.³ There is nothing in this. None of the mint-cities possessed an overflowing population of Greeks, and no doubt the office of mint-master was often hereditary,⁴ as was the office of *strategos* at Doura.¹ Let me give an instance from a city which had a numerous Greek population, Athens. During a large part of the third and part of the second centuries B.C. the office of *paidotribes* at Athens was hereditary in the family of Hermodorus of Acharnae; the inscriptions show the name Hermodorus as *paidotribes* spread out over about a century, whether there were two or three men of the name, *i.e.* whether we are dealing with three or five generations.² Suppose that that family, instead of being hereditary *paidotribai* in Athens, had been hereditary mint-masters in Alexandria-Kapisa; we should get the Hermodorus monogram spread out over about a century, and we might get it over the whole century and a half of Greek rule in that city.