The Greeks in Bactria and India c20: Appendix 8. A Sealing from Seleuceia

The Greeks in Bactria and India c20

Language: English

Appendix 8. A Sealing from Seleuceia

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Among the seal-impressions found in excavating Seleuceia on the Tigris is one which differs considerably from the ordinary run of impressions made by seals of local or western manufacture;¹ it is the head of a man, between youth and middle age, who wears the flat kausia of the Euthydemids known from the coins of Antimachus and Demetrius II,² and the portraiture is so strong and vivid that to my mind there can be little doubt that the seal was engraved in Bactria by one of the good artists.³ Mr McDowell, in publishing it, called it Timarchus,⁴ but I see no possibility of it being Timarchus; the head is not diademed, and bears not the least resemblance to the head of Timarchus on his coins,⁵ quite apart from the Bactrian kausia. If, after the death of Antiochus IV, Eucratides, as seems certain enough, acknowledged no allegiance to the Seleucid Demetrius I and stood with the rebel Timarchus (p. 218), Demetrius I cannot have been badly disposed towards Eucratides’ enemies; and it might therefore be conceivable that the portrait in question was that of some member of one of the Euthydemid families who had escaped the slaughter of his house by Eucratides and found refuge in Seleuceia after the accession of the Seleucid Demetrius I.

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¹ McDowell, *Stamped objects*, Pl. I, 10 and p. 46.

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² Two coins of a ‘King Antiochus’, with a head-covering something like a kausia, have been found at Seleuceia: McDowell, *Coins from Seleucia* pp. 17, 18 nos. 39, 40; but it cannot be said that it is the same as the Euthydemid kausia. There is also a head of ‘King Diodotus’ in a flat kausia, *Lahore Cat.* p. 10 no. 4. But these earlier instances are not really material, for I am going on the portraiture, not the kausia.

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³ McDowell, *Stamped objects* p. 218, thought of some connection with Bactrian art, but did not draw the obvious conclusion.

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⁴ *Ib.* pp. 214 sqq.

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⁵ *BMC Sel.* p. 50. McDowell *ib.* p. 217 sought to meet this objection by saying that the head on Timarchus’ coins is not himself but Antiochus V. But the head is that of a middle-aged man, while Antiochus V at his death in 162-1 cannot have been over twelve, the earliest possible year for his birth being 174.

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It was common enough for Hellenistic kings to give asylum to other states’ exiles, who might one day have their uses; one need only recall the number of the dispossessed who had found shelter in their time at the courts of Lysimachus and Ptolemy II. But if some Euthydemid prince did escape in 167, his natural refuge would not have been Seleuceia, which was closed to him and was to remain closed for another four years till Antiochus IV died, but Apollodotus or Menander in India; and the discovery of the Bajaur hoard has made it more than probable that a son of Antimachus, afterwards Antimachus II Nikephoros, did escape to Menander (p. 229). As both Menander and the Seleucid Demetrius I were natural enemies of Eucratides, it is therefore conceivable that Menander, during his struggle with Eucratides, sent this Antimachus (not yet his sub-king) to Seleuceia as his envoy to Demetrius I and that he is the prince of the seal-impression who wears the flat kausia of the elder Antimachus; the portrait of Antimachus II happens to be unknown, as when king he did not put his head on his coins.¹ If so, another similar Seleuceia sealing, an excellent portrait of an older man whom McDowell calls Heracleides,² would be some official who accompanied Antimachus on his mission.

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¹ No doubt his coin-type, ‘king on prancing horse’ (*BMC* Pl. XIII, 3), is meant for himself. On *ib.* p. 55 this king’s head-dress is called a kausia; but nothing on the plate suggests that it was the flat kausia.

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² *Op. cit.* Pl. I, 11.

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This theory would imply that the prince of a rude coin-mould found at Seleuceia,³ who wears both kausia and diadem, is not identical with the prince of the seal-impression, with whom McDowell was inclined to identify him.⁴ The identity seems to me more than questionable; so far as can be judged by the coin-mould as illustrated, the features of the two men bear little resemblance, and the half-obliterated type of the coin-mould is certainly not the well-known type of Demetrius, Heracles standing upright and crowning himself, as McDowell thought;⁵ the club over the left shoulder is absent, and the figure is not standing upright at all but *leaning* on some object (? a pillar) as large as itself; it is no known Graeco-Bactrian type. The prince of the coin-mould might be some refugee to whom some Seleucid gave a little principality for his living, as Ptolemy II did to Ptolemy ‘the Telmessian’⁶ or Antony to Monaeses;⁷ but it is entirely obscure.