The Greeks in Bactria and India c13.6

c13.6

Why it was ever supposed that the Greek kings in the East would make such a radical breach with Seleucid custom I cannot imagine;³ the continuity between the eastern Greek kingdoms and the Seleucid realm is as marked as that of other Seleucid Succession states, indeed in many ways more so; this book has, I trust, shown the trouble taken by both houses, that of Euthydemus and that of Eucratides, to prove that they were Seleucids. No one seems ever to have doubted that the Seleucid monograms represent moneyers,⁴ and the Seleucid system of monograms at the Antioch mint has been elucidated by Mr E. T. Newell;⁵ the monograms are those of continuing mint-masters and changing city magistrates. There is literary evidence for mint-masters in one kingdom, Antigonid Macedonia;⁶ and it is admitted that the monograms on the coinage of Parthia, the principal Seleucid Succession state, are usually those of moneyers.¹ That the Bactrian and Indian monograms must also be, anyhow as a general rule, those of moneyers—mint-masters or city magistrates—seems to me almost too clear for argument; the Kharoshthi letters (instead of monograms) on some of the later Greek coins in India (p. 356) should alone be conclusive. The contrary belief would mean that some princelets were operating as many mints as Alexander ever did; that the Saca Azes, whose monograms and letters are very numerous, was operating several times as many; and that Eucratides’ twenty-stater gold piece, of finest Bactrian work, was struck in the same mint as some of the very inferior coins of his bitter enemy Menander in the eastern Punjab.