The Greeks in Bactria and India c28: Appendix 16. The Era of the Moga Copperplate from Taxila
The Greeks in Bactria and India c28
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Appendix 16. The Era of the Moga Copperplate from Taxila
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The copperplate inscription from Taxila¹ which mentions ‘the Great King, the Great Moga’ (i.e. Maues (p. 496), subsequently Great King of Kings), is dated on the 5th day of the Macedonian month Panemos in the year 78 of some unknown Era. That Era has been the subject of many theories;² but I have to treat it afresh, for there is a definite piece of evidence which has not been utilised, and the date of Maues is vital to any understanding of the first century B.C. in India, including the problem of the Buddha-statue (Chap. IX). It is obvious that the inscription must come very soon after the Saca occupation of Taxila, for Maues was not yet Great King of Kings, as on the majority of his coins. It is possible to clear the ground somewhat at the start.
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¹ *CII* p. 23 no. XIII.
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² Some are discussed by de la Vallée-Poussin, pp. 267 *sqq.*, 272 *sqq.*, 367 *sqq.*
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First, the Era was used by a Saca king and was therefore a Saca Era; theories like that of Mr Banerji³ which make it a Parthian Era can be ruled out. Certainly it was for long believed that in India Sacas and Parthians (Pahlavas) were so closely associated that they could not be distinguished; but they *must* be distinguished, for they were perpetual antagonists,⁴ and it is incredible that a Saca king would have used a Parthian Era. This also puts out of court the view of M. A. Foucher,⁵ that this Era was the Arsacid Era with the hundreds omitted; moreover, apart from systems with omitted hundreds being open to damaging criticism,⁶ the Arsacid Era is not known to have been used by the Pahlava kings in India, which means that it was not used in the east Parthian realm of the Surens of Seistan.
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³ *Ind. Ant.* XXXVIII, 1908, p. 67.
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⁴ I heartily agree with Konow as to this, *JRAS* 1932 p. 955. I trust that this book has brought it out.
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⁵ Foucher II p. 488.
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⁶ See *CII* p. lxxxiv.
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The Vikrama Era of 58 B.C.⁷ can be ruled out; for, apart from the impossibility of a Saca king using an Era established through a Saca defeat, it would make Maues king in Taxila in A.D. 20, while it is a fixed point that Gondophares’ reign there began in A.D. 19.
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⁷ H. K. Deb, *JRAS* 1922 p. 42.
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The suggestion that the Era might be that of Demetrius’ conquest of India⁸ may be ruled out. Such an Era would have started somewhere about 180 B.C., which would make Maues king in Taxila somewhere about 102 B.C., and would leave no room for Ptolemy’s kingdom of ‘Indo-Scythia’. Few would defend so early a date;⁹ but the point, ‘Indo-Scythia’ apart, is that, looking at the trouble the Euthydemids took to prove to the world that they were Seleucids (Chap. v), Demetrius could not possibly have used any Era but the Seleucid, while Maues would not have used an Era of the conquered Greeks.
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⁸ J. Charpentier in a review, *Ind. Ant.* 1931 p. 78.
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⁹ For A. Herrmann’s theory about Maues, which mixes up the first and second centuries B.C., see p. 340 n. 1.
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Sir John Marshall once thought it was an Era of Maues himself and dated the inscription to 17 B.C.,¹ but he has now abandoned that view for the one advocated by Rapson (p. 496).² There is no real doubt that it means an Era used by Maues.³
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¹ ASI 1912–13 p. 7; JRAS 1914 p. 986. Konow in CII p. xxxii said that Marshall took this date ‘from archaeological reasons’, which might have been important; but a reference to the passages I have cited shows that this was apparently a mistake, and anyhow Marshall has abandoned the dating. An Era of Maues was also advocated by Ramprasad Chanda, JRAS 1920 p. 319.
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² ASI 1929–30 (pub. 1935) p. 63, cf. p. 72.
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³ First pointed out, I think, by Senart: de la Vallée-Poussin pp. 272–3.
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We come therefore to the group of theories which connect the Era with the Sacas of Seistan. Dr Sten Konow in the Corpus took the view that the Era celebrated Saca independence obtained on the death of Mithridates II in 88 B.C. (really 87) and that the date of the inscription was therefore 10 B.C.;⁴ but the discovery of the Kalawān inscription⁵ has led him to abandon this view and (substantially) to adopt that of Rapson,⁶ which has also entailed abandoning the chronology of the Corpus for a number of other inscriptions dated in the old Saca Era.⁷ There is in fact no reason for supposing that the Sacas of Seistan did obtain independence on the death of Mithridates II, though the Suren whose immediate vassals they were may have done so.
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⁴ CII p. xxxii.
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⁵ Text, JRAS 1932 p. 949; ASI 1930–4 (pub. 1936) p. 163.
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⁶ JRAS 1932 pp. 957, 964; JIH XII, 1933, p. 4.
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⁷ JIH XII, 1933, p. 4.
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Dr K. P. Jayaswal⁸ made the Era c. 120 B.C., which he took as the date of a revolt by the Sacas of Seistan against Mithridates II, and dated the inscription therefore c. 42 B.C. The legend he cites, if based on fact, certainly shows that they were at enmity with Mithridates; but the Saca invasion of Parthia was quite certainly in 129,⁹ and if one can speak of a revolt in Seistan (I doubt it myself, see p. 500) it was probably then. As Mithridates was completely victorious, it does not seem a hopeful point for the start of a continuing Saca Era; but this dating will be considered later.
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⁸ JBORS XVI, 1930, pp. 231, 240.
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⁹ Tarn, SP Stud. p. 14; CAH IX pp. 581–2.
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Professor E. Herzfeld¹⁰ in 1932, after a long criticism, concluded with truth that there were only theories and no firm ground, but suggested that the date of the Taxila copperplate might be about 32 B.C. (arrived at by estimating the time required for the coins known prior to Gondophares) and the Era consequently about 110. This also will be considered later.
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¹⁰ Sakastan pp. 98–100.
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The dominant theory to-day is that of the late E. J. Rapson in 1922;¹ both Sir John Marshall and Dr Sten Konow have abandoned their own late datings in its favour. It makes the Era *c.* 150 B.C.; what he says is that it ‘may possibly mark the establishment of the new kingdom in Seistan after its incorporation into the empire by Mithridates I’ and is ‘probably of Parthian origin’. This makes the Taxila copperplate *c.* 72 B.C., and is very close to the dating arrived at in this Appendix. But, though I agree that the Era marks the date of the establishment of a new kingdom in Seistan, I cannot myself accept a Parthian origin for an Era used by a Saca king, apart from the fact that an inscription now calls a date in that Era ‘Saka’;² so I must attempt both to date the Era and to find an occasion when it could have been established by Sacas.
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¹ *CHI* p. 570; cf. *JRAS* 1930 pp. 186, 193. ² In the Jihonika inscription, *CII* p. 81 no. xxx (see p. 500), Konow says that F. W. Thomas and himself have now read ‘Saka’ before the number, 191: *JIH* 1933 p. 3. ³ His coins: *BMC* pp. 68 *sqq.*; Cunningham *NC* 1890 pp. 130 *sqq.* ⁴ J. F. Fleet, *JRAS* 1914 p. 797; and see now p. 502. ⁵ Leader of the Sacas at Gaugamela, Arr. III, 8, 3. ⁶ King of Ta-yuan in 101 B.C., Hirth pp. 109 *sqq.*; see p. 308. ⁷ F. W. Thomas, *JRAS* 1906 p. 208; Herzfeld, *Sakastan* pp. 93, 97; Konow, *CII* pp. xxxix *sq.* This does not necessarily mean that Azes and Azilises were the same king (p. 498 n. 5 ); kings of the same name succeeding one another were as familiar to the ancient as to the modern world. ⁸ His coins: Whitehead *NC* p. 337 nos. 58, 59 (four bronze pieces), cf. Whitehead, *JASB* VI, 1910, Num. Supp. XIV p. 561 no. 12, and another specimen, *ASI* 1912–13 p. 46 no. 7; and four specimens of the silver coin, *BMC* p. 171 Pl. XXXII, 7, *ASI* 1929–30 p. 74 no. 46 = p. 88 no. 21, and the two in Berlin, O. Stein, *Telephos* (4) in PW, 1934.
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I must however first notice the name Moga of the inscription, generally supposed (as I believe myself) to be the king of the abundant coinage³ whose name is given in Greek as Maues and in Kharoshthi as Moa, though doubts have occasionally been expressed.⁴ I take it that the full form of the name sounded as Mauakes⁵ to Greek ears, just as it sounded to Chinese ears as Mu-ku’a;⁶ this would easily represent Moga. But I do not see how to equate Moga with Moa; there must therefore have been two forms of the name in Saca, a long and a short one. Greek writers record such double name-forms from other languages, *e.g.* Kynna-Kynane, daughter of Philip II and an Illyrian mother (? from Illyrian); Sabba-Sambethe, the ‘Chaldean Sibyl’ (presumably Anatolian); and Phraates-Phraatakes (from Parthian Pahlavi), an exact parallel in another North-Iranian tongue to Maues-Mauakes. Indeed there might be a parallel from Saca itself, if it be correct that Azes-Azilises are only short and long forms of the same name,⁷ and if the language be Saca.
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The point I want to make myself is one of which no theory has yet taken account, the close connection between Maues and an obscure Indo-Greek king called Telephus. Telephus’ coins are very rare,⁸ only nine specimens being actually known, but one of them gives a tiny picture of Mt Pilusāra¹ like the well-known one on the ‘Kapisi’ coins of Eucratides (p. 213); that, and the type ‘Zeus enthroned’ on his bronze money, show that he ruled and coined in Kapisa. His coins show two peculiar monograms, which can only be those of his moneyers in that city (see App. 1); and these two monograms also occur on coins of Maues and are said to occur nowhere else.² Maues then not only coined in Kapisa—that could be deduced from his coins which show the ‘Zeus enthroned’ type of Kapisa³—but coined there with the same two moneyers as Telephus, and therefore either directly before or after him; as the extreme rarity of Telephus’ coins points to a very short reign, Maues’ date at Kapisa in either case is substantially the date of Telephus. What is that date?⁴ Telephus’ coins all show the round omicron alone, which *prima facie* puts him before c. 50 B.C. if not before 50 B.C. (p. 326); in fact no numismatist, on numismatic grounds, has ever classed him with the really late kings like Hippostratus, Nicias, Hermaeus. Now the round and the square omicron (p. 326) afford a good test for comparative dating in the *same locality*; and this makes it impossible to put Telephus after Hermaeus, who also ruled and coined in Kapisa. For Hermaeus’ coins show both the round and the square omicron, and their abundance postulates a reign of some length; and on this ground alone he cannot well have come to the throne later than c. 50 B.C. or died before 30 B.C. (see generally Chap. VIII). Indeed if, as seems almost certain, he was Yin-mo-fu of the Ch’ien-han-shu (p. 340), then there is evidence that he came to the throne before 48 B.C. and was alive at some date after 32 B.C.; the end of Greek rule in the Paropamisadae, *i.e.* his death, falls about or soon after 30 B.C. (p. 350). But immediately before Hermaeus comes the reign of his father Amyntas (p. 331), of unknown length; keeping everything as late as possible, that still puts Telephus, and consequently Maues, not later than about 60 B.C. at latest.¹
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¹ No. 59 in Whitehead *NC* = Pl. VIII no. 640 in *Lahore Cat.*
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² Whitehead’s discovery in *JASB* 1910 (for reference see p. 496 n. 8); I rely on him for the fact of non-occurrence elsewhere. He pointed out (*NC* p. 337) that it implies a close bond in time between Telephus and Maues. The Telephus monogram on Whitehead no. 58 occurs on several coins of Maues given in *BMC*; that on no. 59 is on two coins of Maues in *Lahore Cat.* Pls. X, 20 and XV, 1.
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³ *Lahore Cat.* p. 99 no. 15; Cunningham, *NC* 1890 p. 134 no. 21, and p. 136 no. 27 = *BMC* p. 70 no. 14. This last is unmistakable: Zeus holds Nike on his hand and before him is the forepart of a small elephant, as on Eucratides’ ‘Kapisi’ coins (p. 213). Cunningham *ib.* p. 104 says that Maues’ coins are never found in the Kabul valley; but in fact some come in to dealers at Jalalabad (J. Hackin, *JA* 226, 1935, p. 290), and in any case the evidence of the type last mentioned, and of the monograms, is much too explicit to be overruled by any consideration of find-spots (see App. 1).
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⁴ O. Stein *op. cit.* only says first century B.C. He puts Maues before Hippostratus (which is right, but he gives no reasons) and Telephus before Maues, because Maues, he thinks, copied his coins. His date-sequence therefore is substantially mine, but it is done in a few lines.
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¹ In Chapter VIII reason is given for putting Maues’ death and Amyntas’ accession in the year 58. But, as that chapter presupposes and draws deductions from this Appendix, this Appendix has to be argued as though, as regards the dating of Telephus and Maues, those deductions did not yet exist; otherwise one would be arguing in a circle. But there is no need to repeat here what I have said in that chapter about the square omicron and the Chinese evidence; that could have come in either place. ² *CHI* pp. 560-1. ³ *CHI* p. 576; Herzfeld, *Sakastan* p. 101. ⁴ *CHI* p. 577; Herzfeld, *Sakastan* pp. 96-7. ⁵ Herzfeld, *Sakastan* pp. 97-8, made all three the same man. But the *same engraver on the same coin* could not use the two forms Azes and Azilises for the same man; also the stratification at Taxila, where the coins of Azes II have generally been found nearer the surface, is regarded by Marshall as conclusive for two kings named Azes; see *JRAS* 1914 p. 979, *ASI* 1929-30 p.
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This should suffice; but other things bear it out. Debased or barbarous imitations of Hermaeus’ money continued to be struck after his death² and down to the advent of Kujula Kadphises by those, whether Sacas or Pahlavas, who then ruled in Kapisa; this makes it almost impossible to postulate another Greek king in Kapisa after him, and in fact he has always been considered to be the last Greek king; and Kujula Kadphises, who was in a position to know, certainly treated him as the last Greek king in the Paropamisadae (App. 17). While these considerations forbid us to put Telephus after Hermaeus, an additional reason arises in the case of Maues, even leaving out of account the fairly good style of his coins and the absence from them of the square omicron. The accession of the Parthian Gondophares is fixed by an inscription to A.D. 19,³ and there is good proof that his predecessor was named Azes.⁴ Between Maues and Gondophares therefore must come in the coins of the three members of the Azes dynasty—Azes, Azilises, Azes II⁵—and also those of another Saca Great King of Kings, Azes’ father Spalirises (p. 346), who is later than Maues, as his coins after he was Great King of Kings show the square omicron, while those of Maues have the round form only. Azes’ large coinage, and still more the great number of letters and monograms on his coins, indicate a reign of substantial length; and this alone suffices to exclude the idea that Maues can be anywhere near the Christian Era.
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On the other hand, even if Antialcidas be brought down as late as 90 B.C., which is very improbable (p. 314), there is still a time-gap of about a generation between Antialcidas and Amyntas, with no Greek king except Telephus who can be placed there; is seems obvious that the rule at Kapisa of Telephus and Maues must come somewhere in this gap, which cannot begin later than *c.* 90 or end later than *c.* 60. The monograms then are fatal to any attempt to date Maues in the latter part of the first century B.C., like Herzfeld’s 32 B.C. or Jayaswal’s 42 B.C.; and they show, therefore, that the Era of the Taxila copperplate cannot be later than the reign of Mithridates I of Parthia.
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⁷² N. G. Majumdar, *ASI* 1928-9 pp. 169, 171, has drawn the same deduction from Kharoshthi palaeography. See also p. 348 and n. 1.
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There is still one other consideration which seems to exclude the dates of Herzfeld and Jayaswal. The Era must be a Saca Era; and this cannot be reconciled with any dating of it in the reign of Mithridates II. For Herzfeld has brilliantly shown that Sacastene became the domain of the Suren¹—a vassal state of one who was himself a vassal of the Arsacid; and he is certainly right in dating this event to the reign of Mithridates II. While he was showing this, I was showing that Mithridates II had entrusted the liquidation of the Saca invasion, in the countries east of the Persian desert, to some one whom I could not identify but who was needed to explain certain coins and whom I called the ‘king of the campaign coins’. ² If the two things be placed side by side, it will be seen at once that Herzfeld and myself were approaching the same thing from different points of view and that my ‘king of the campaign coins’ (‘king’ was a mistaken word to use) is his Suren. This makes the matter very plain. Mithridates II entrusted the campaign against the Saca invaders to the Suren (as Orodes II entrusted that against the Roman invaders to a later Suren), and after his success rewarded him with the conquered Sacastene as his fief. The ‘campaign coins’,³ which as I pointed out were no part of the Parthian royal coinage, were struck by the Suren, or struck for him, to pay his army; the head is his, but the Arsaces of the coins is Mithridates II,⁴ just as on the bilingual tetradrachm of Demetrius II the head and type are his but the name and legend are his father’s (p. 78). This agrees with the fact brought out by Herzfeld, that prior to Gondophares the Surens had, so far as is known, no regular coinage.⁵ The Suren then got Sacastene early in the reign of Mithridates II, and would certainly have kept it while that king lived. But an Era implies independence, and the Sacas of Sacastene would hardly have started one to celebrate the fact that they had been put under the rule of the Suren; we need a Saca, not a Parthian, Era. This bears out the conclusion from the monograms that we must look to the reign of Mithridates I and not to that of Mithridates II.
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¹ Sakastan pp. 70–80.
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² Tarn, SP Stud. pp. 16–18. McDowell, in assigning these coins to Sinatruces (Coins of Seleucia p. 211), has not considered Herzfeld on the Surens.
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³ The five coins with legends καταστράτεια (twice), Areia, Traxiane, Margiane.
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⁴ The legend on these coins, βασιλέως βασιλέων ᾿Αρσάκου θεοπάτορος εὐεργέτου ἐπιφανοῦς φιλέλληνος, is not one of those which Wroth in BMC Parthia assigned to Mithridates II, though that king employed the last three titles; θεοπάτορος (which need mean no more than the Kushan devaputra, ‘Son of Heaven’) is taken from the legend of his father Artabanus II (Artabanus I, Wroth). It means that Mithridates’ titles were not yet settled and that the Suren’s Greek engraver in the Far East gave him a good selection. On the confusion of the Parthian legends of this period and the gradual formation of the later stereotyped legend see Herzfeld, Sakastan pp. 46–8.
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⁵ Sakastan p. 98.
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We are therefore compelled—there seems no alternative—to seek an occasion in the reign of Mithridates I which some Sacas, who must be connected with the Saca invaders of India, could have found opportune for establishing an Era. I have given elsewhere (p. 223) the reasons which seem to necessitate a supposition that Mithridates I settled some Saca allies or mercenaries in Sacastene, or that they settled themselves; the process must have been similar to the ‘settlement’ of the Galatae in northern Phrygia by Nicomedes of Bithynia and Mithridates of Pontus,¹ and Mithridates of Parthia may have had as little option in the matter as had his namesake; if there were already some Sacas in Seistan² (on which I express no opinion) that would help to explain their choice of that district. The newcomers need not have been very numerous; Isidore’s Sacastene is not a large province, and the Galatae held up Asia Minor for years with only 20,000 men. The settlement can be roughly dated, by means of the date of Eucratides’ death in 159, to *c.* 155 (p. 223)—a couple of years margin either way. Then the question arises, did these Sacas assert a *de facto* independence from the start, as did the Galatae, or not until Mithridates I died, leaving a minor to succeed him: that is, does the Era date from *c.* 155 or from 138-7? The former date would put the Moga inscription *c.* 77 B.C., the latter would date it 60-59. This latter date might perhaps be fitted in with Telephus; but, though no chronological argument can be drawn (as has sometimes been done) from Maues’ title Great King of Kings, the earlier date is almost certainly correct. For there was one important difference between the settlement of the Galatae and that of Mithridates’ Sacas. The Galatae only got, in Galatia, a poor country; but the Sacas got one of the richest, and safest, districts in Mithridates’ empire. This proves that they virtually settled themselves; had he been able to settle them as subjects, he would have followed the usual course of settling them on a frontier to guard it. They can only therefore have dated their Era from their acquisition of a good new country; they were doubtless independent, or virtually so, till the Suren conquered them for Mithridates II. This does not necessarily mean that they *instituted* their Era *c.* 155; they may have done that much later, just as nobody knows when either the Seleucid or the Arsacid Era was actually instituted.
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¹ *CAH* vii pp. 104-6.
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² F. W. Thomas, *JRAS* 1906 p. 181. Konow, who disagrees, points out that Darius does not mention Sacas in Zranka (Drangiana), *CII* pp. xviii *sq*. Neither do the Alexander-historians.
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One other dating must be considered, that of the Taxila duck vase inscription (*CII* p. 81 no. xxx), which as already mentioned is dated under the satrap Jihonika (Zeionises) in ‘Saka’ 191. The vase was undoubtedly buried when the Kushans took Sirkap, an event now dated with fair certainty to A.D. 60-64;³ but it is much worn, and Konow considers that it had had 20 to 25 years of usage before it was buried.⁴ If the Saca Era be rightly put c. 155 B.C., the vase was made c. A.D. 36, in the reign of Gondophares, some 24 to 28 years before it was buried, which confirms the dating I have come to. The inscription shows that, though Zeionises was a Parthian, a nephew of Gondophares, Gondophares’ Saca subjects still dated by their own Era.
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³ Sir J. Marshall, *ASI* 1929-30 (pub. 1935) p. 55, where he gives his reasons.
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⁴ Konow, *JRAS* 1932 p. 957, *JIH* 1933 p. 3.
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This makes the first Saca Era c. 155, arising out of events for which definite reasons are given in Chapter v, and the date of the Moga inscription c. 77; as Maues naturally conquered Taxila before he could reach Kapisa, this agrees very well with the deduction already made that Telephus cannot be later than about 70–60. It agrees very well too with the history. The Saca state in Sacastene must have acted as a magnet to the Sacas of the North when they invaded Parthia in 129. The invasion was finally liquidated by the Suren somewhere between 124 (the accession of Mithridates II) and 115, by which date the Parthians were in possession of Merv (p. 281). The Saca invasion of Sind may then have begun any time after about 120; there was a halt after the conquest of the provinces between Abiria on the middle Indus and Surastrene, of unknown duration but long enough to find its way into tradition (p. 320); this was followed by a fresh move up the Indus from Abiria under Maues, which put Taxila into his hands by or shortly before c. 77.¹ Mithridates II rewarded the Suren, and tried to provide against Sacastene being again a danger point, by putting him and his house in charge of Sacastene and the East; if we neglect *names* (he was not yet a ‘king’) and look at *things*, it was one more offshoot of the Seleucid system of a joint-king governing the East. The ultimate result was a second Parthian realm in the East (Indo-Parthian or Pahlava of the numismatists) which for a time under Gondophares may have been more powerful than the Parthia of the Arsacids.
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¹ Konow suggested that the Kharoshthi inscription from Maira in the Salt Range, *CII* p. 11 no. VIII, might belong to a year 58 of the same Era as the Moga inscription and might mention Moa (Maues), and might mark the progress of the Sacas up the Indus. But date and name seem to be really conjectural, and he said (p. xxxii) that it is ‘too defaced to be utilised with confidence’. More recently however (*JIH* 1933 p. 19) he *has* utilised it with confidence, dating it c. 86 B.C. and using it as evidence that Maues began to reign about 90 B.C.
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It only remains to notice two possible objections to the view here put forward. One is Herzfeld’s: as the Saca Era of A.D. 78 is certain, a second Saca Era is improbable.² There is really nothing in this. The first Saca kingdom in India ended by everything that remained after the loss of Malva and Ujjain coming under the rule of the Parthian Suren Gondophares in A.D. 19; this put an end to the use for official purposes of the first Saca Era of c. 155 B.C., even if Gondophares’ Saca subjects continued to use it. Malva and Ujjain had been lost in 58 B.C. to the Indian king Vikramāditya (whatever this name represents), who commemorated this by the establishment of the Vikrama Era; and when the Western Saca Satraps retook Ujjain in A.D. 78 they may have set up a new Era of their own (see further, p. 335).
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² Sakastan p. 99.
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Both the Eras of *c.* 155 B.C. and A.D. 78, though set up in different kingdoms, would naturally be called ‘Saca’. Suppose the Angles who invaded Britain had used Eras; there would have been a Northumbrian Era, and then when Mercia rose to power a Mercian Era; but both would have been ‘Anglian’.
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It also might be asked, if the Sacas were independent enough *c.* 155 to institute an Era like the Arsacids (Parni), why did they not also coin, as the Arsacids apparently did from an early period? There was a good reason for this. Neither Parni nor Sacas could at first coin for themselves; they depended on getting control of a Greek mint, or anyhow of a Greek city. The Parthians early secured Hekatompylos, which would explain the coins of the kings before Mithridates I (if the ‘beardless’ coins really belong to them). But in Sacastene the Sacas, as Isidore shows, did not control any Greek city; indeed there is no trace that there ever was a Greek mint at all in Seistan, which had continued to be served by Euthydemus’ money (pp. 95, 164 n. 1). The Sacas did their best; they produced some barbarous imitations of Euthydemus’ coins.¹ But they probably had no chance of instituting a proper coinage till Maues got control of the mint at Taxila; their first kingdom on the Indus, comprising Patalene and Abiria, seems to have left no numismatic record (pp. 321 *sq.*).
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¹ Rapson in *JRAS* 1904 p. 675 no. 5.
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It will be seen that my date of *c.* 155 for the Era of the Moga inscription is much the same as Rapson’s *c.* 150, but has been arrived at on other lines; and that it is in my view a Saca, not a Parthian, Era.
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An article by M. Govind Pai, *JIH* XIV, 1935, p. 309, only came to my notice after this book was finished. After a minute examination of the writing of the Taxila copperplate inscription (pp. 328–38) he discards the name Moga and for mogasa reads māgasa, ‘of the month Māgha’; he decides that this relates to an intercalation of this month in 77–6 B.C., which makes the Era 155–4; he refers this Era however to the usual imaginary Saca conquest of Bactria (p. 283), which he puts between 162 and 140! I can only notice the strange coincidence with my own dating of the Era; his readings I must leave to Kharoshthi scholars, though I should be astonished to find an inscription in any language dated by ‘the Great King, the Great’ without giving the name. I note the similarity of his view to one once held by Dr Konow with regard to the Taxila silver scroll, *CII* p. 70 no. XXVII; in the Corpus Konow interpreted ayasa as referring to an intercalation of the (named) month Āshādha, but the form ajasa in the Kalawān inscription has led him to abandon this and to agree with Marshall and Rapson that ayasa, like ajasa, is Azes; *JRAS* 1932 pp. 950 *sqq.*, *JIH* 1933 p. 2.