The Greeks in Bactria and India c29.12

c29.12

In any case there is little question as to what these coins are. Those of the third class, certainly in the Kharoshthi legend and probably in the Greek legend, make out that Hermaeus was a much more important king than he really was, that is, they are propaganda; the first and second classes are then propaganda also. But if Kadphises I used as propaganda the name and portrait of a Greek king who was dead some fifty years or more, and equipped him with extravagant titles which he never bore and which were not suited to his position, only one explanation is possible. We have in this book met with several undoubted pedigree coins or series of coins used as propaganda—those of Antimachus, Agathocles, Eucratides (Chap. v)—and these coins of Kadphises I are pedigree coins also: the Kushan, who was about to take or had just taken the Paropamisadae from its Pahlava rulers, is announcing that he is related by blood to Hermaeus in order to make himself more acceptable to the Greeks of that country; he is not a foreign conqueror but their lawful king. We get three steps in the process, though the sequence may be notional rather than temporal. The first (class 3) is that Hermaeus was a very great king. The second (class 1) stresses the relationship; Hermaeus has half—the more honourable half—of the coin. In the third (class 2) Hermaeus has less than half; he is falling into the background. Lastly come the coins of Kadphises alone, which I need not give. Neither of the Greek types on the coins here examined is a type of Hermaeus, any more than the legends are his; they are put on at random; Heracles⁵ and Nike might always be well-pleasing to Greeks.