[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Greeks in Bactria and India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938) › c28.41 # The Greeks in Bactria and India c28.41 The Greeks in Bactria and India c28.41 - **Language:** English ### [c28.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28.41) 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. - [Previous: c28.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28.40) - [Next: c28.42](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28.42) - [Up: c28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.tarn-1938.c28.41) · Pramāṇa