The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v1.c7.s6.58

v1.c7.s6.58

While the question of supremacy in Eastern India and the Deccan was being hotly contested among the powers of Magadha, Kaliṅga, and Andhra, a similar struggle engulfed the lands of the Greeks, who had earlier threatened the safety of all the three kingdoms. As Justin says, ‘Almost at the same time that Mithridates ascended the throne among the Parthians, Eukratides began to reign among the Bactrians; both of them being great men....Eukratides carried on several wars with great spirit.’ Indeed their struggle for power and territory had now shifted from the Indian soil to Bactria and the north-west frontier of India. In this ‘cruel and most lamentable war in their own kingdom, caused entirely by themselves’, Demetrios lost everything west of the Hindukush by the end of 167 B.C.¹ As Eukratides is found to have issued a new series of coins in 166 B.C., this fact may be taken to indicate the final defeat and death of Demetrios in the preceding year.²