The Greeks in Bactria and India c28.58

c28.58

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.*).