Part 3 of 5
Demetrius had to make arrangements for the government of Bactria during his absence, and he left his eldest son Euthydemus II as king in Bactria-Sogdiana; Euthydemus II put his own name and portrait on his silver coins,4 [
BMC p. 8, Pl. III, 3, 4; CHI pp. 447-8; J. N. Svoronos, J.I.d'A.N. xv, 1913, p. 186.] but on his nickel and bronze issues he used a Seleucid type, the head of Apollo and a tripod-lebes.5 [
BMC p. 8, Pl. III, 5, 6.] The common Hellenistic practice when a king was absent had been to leave a son merely as governor (p. 218 n. 1), but a parallel to the kingship of Euthydemus II can be found later among the Ptolemies: when Ptolemy VI Philometor invaded Syria and expected to be in that country for some time he left his son Ptolemy Neos Philopator as king in Egypt.6 [
Otto, Zeit d. 6. Ptolemaers p. 128 n. 4.] As Bactria was Demetrius' home kingdom, it is probable that Euthydemus II was not a sub-king -- that would hardly have suited the circumstances -- but a full joint-king with his father on the Seleucid model; this would agree with what happened later (p. 221). The western provinces of the empire in Iran, as already noticed, were under the rule of Antimachus in the north and Apollodotus in the south.
Demetrius took to India with him his second son Demetrius (II), and also his general Menander, of whom much will be heard later. It is just possible that the Paropamisadae were his already (p. 101); anyhow he took Gandhara, crossed the Indus, and occupied Taxila, which had been Alexander's advanced base and must have been his also. It may be taken as certain that he occupied Taxila himself, because the line of conquest there bifurcated, and had he left Taxila to be occupied by Menander, it and not Sagala must have become Menander's capital.
Gandhara,1 [
In the Jatakas Gandhara includes Taxila; but in this book I use the term in its strict sense. On Gandhara see Foucher, Gandhara; R. Grousset, Sur les traces de Bouddha, 1929, chap. VI.] the country between the Kunar river and the Indus, comprising the modern Bajaur, Swat, Buner, the Yusufzai country, and the country south of the Kabul river about Peshawur, was to be one of the strongholds of Greek power; it has been called a kind of new Hellas.2 [
Grousset ib. p. 96.] Asoka had converted much of the country, and it became to Buddhists a second Holy Land, where rose three of the four great stupas3 [
A stupa was a Buddhist shrine, circular and domed, usually but not always enclosing a relic. Buildings, even of stupa form, which did not enclose a relic were usually called chaityas: de la Vallee-Poussin p. 149. See on stupas, archaeology apart, Foucher I chap. I, and the long study by P. Mus, 'Barabudur', BEFEO XXXII, 1932, pp. 269-439, XXXIII pp. 577-980, XXXIV pp. 175-400.] which recorded Buddha's charity with his own body in earlier incarnations, those of the Body-gift at Manikyala, the Flesh-gift at (probably) Girarai in the hills between Peshawur and Buner, and the Eye-gift; this last may have towered aloft on the acropolis of what was to be the Greek capital, Pushkalavati (Charsadda), rendering, as has been said, 'still more striking its resemblance to its more famous Athenian counterpart'.4 [
Foucher, Gandhara p. 15.] But Pushkalavati, like Taxila, was only partially Buddhist; Siva was still powerful enough there for his humped bull to become the coin-type of the Greek mint,5 [
This certain fact (CHI p. 557) is confirmed by Siva being known to Greeks as the god of Gandhara: Hesychius, [x].] while the Greeks were to worship Artemis as their city goddess.6 [
Copper coins of Peucolaos, obv. Artemis, rev. the Fortune of some city with mural crown; Lahore Cat. p. 324 no. 10, see CHI p. 558. What identifies the city of these coins with Pushkalavati is Maues' coins (next note).] But she was not the Greek Artemis; she was Anaitis (Anahita) of Bactra, for Anaitis and her crown of rays appear as Artemis radiate on coins of the Saca king Maues7 [
BMC Pl. XVI, 4; Lahore Cat. Pl. X, 10; AS1 1929-30 p. 89 nos. 24, 25.] which are shown by the humped bull on them to have been struck at Pushkalavati, just as in Bactra itself she had appeared as Artemis radiate on a coin of Demetrius (p. 115). Unfortunately it is not known whether the Greek invaders brought her with them from Bactra, which would throw light on Greek relations with Asiatic deities, or whether she had arrived long before with one of the earlier streams of invaders whom Indians comprehensively called Bahlikas, i.e. Bactrians (p. 169); the latter possibility would, if correct, imply an Iranian element at Pushkalavati, again as at Taxila. But, unlike Taxila, Pushkalavati became a Greek polis (doubtless somewhat of the type of Susa, p. 27), as is shown by the Fortune of the city on kings' coins;1 [
Those of Peucolaos (above). On the Greek name of Pushkalavati see p. 237 n. 5. Many of the city Fortunes on the Saca coinage (p. 353 n. 1) are probably Pushkalavati.] the solitary coin of the city itself2 [
CHI p. 587 and Pl. VI, 10.] which exists to prove that it was once for a time completely independent (p. 336) shows, beside Siva's bull, the Fortune of the 'city of lotuses' with her mural crown, holding in her hand the lotus of Lakshmi. Evidently Pushkalavati, when a Greek polis, was no less proud of her alien deities than was Ephesus of her alien Artemis, and Siva's bull is a parallel to Artemis' bee on the coins of the Ionian city. Pushkalavati stood at what was probably then the junction of the Swat and Kabul rivers,3 [
Foucher, Gandhara p. 11.] and as it and not Purushapura (Peshawur) became the Greek capital, the regular Greek line of communication westward probably did not run through the Khyber pass but by the route which Alexander had followed more to the northward; it seems unlikely that the Khyber was in regular use till the Kushans made Peshawur their capital.4 [
See Foucher, BSOS VI, 1930-1, pp. 344-5, and plan p. 343. A correspondent, however, sent me a sketch of the masonry of some old block-houses above and commanding the Khyber pass, which he suggested was Greek. It looks to me more like the Kushan masonry at Taxila; but it is a matter which requires investigation on the spot by an archaeologist.]
With Gandhara in his hands, Demetrius would be well informed of Buddhist feeling, a matter which was to be of great importance; but from the military and political point of view the acquisition of Taxila was of more moment. The great city was even more important than it had been in Alexander's day, for it had long been the seat of the Mauryan governor of the North-West; though near it stood the fourth great stupa, that of the Head-gift, it was only partially Buddhist5 [
There are Buddhist inscriptions of the Saca period, CII nos. II, XIII, XXVII, XXXI, XXXII.] and Vishnu was strong there (p. 406); with its famous University, of which the buildings have been excavated,1 [
Sir J. Marshall, A guide to Taxila 1918 p. 72.] sought by students from many quarters, its merchant guilds who struck their own city coinage,2 [
E. J. Rapson, Indian coins 1897 p. 14; C. J. Brown, The Coins of India 1922 pp. 15-19; J. Allan, BMC India, pp. cxxv, cxxviii, and see post p. 161 n. 1.] the Iranian element in its population with their Towers of Silence,3 [
Aristobulus saw there corpses exposed to vultures, which he saw nowhere else in India, Strabo xv, 714. The Aramaic inscription found there (L. D. Barnett, JRAS 1915 p. 340; A. Cowley, ib. p. 342), though much earlier, may support this; and a tutelary Yaksha in the region of Taxila had an Iranian name, S. Levi, JA 1915 p. 75.] its balance of religions, its feeling of independence which had led it to withstand Porus and to revolt against the Maurya, it seemed destined to be the capital of the foreign invaders. So Demetrius thought. The city he found is now represented by the latest stratum of ruins on the Bhir mound; he presently built a new city on Sirkap, now buried beneath the remains of the later Parthian city (p. 179). To it he transferred the population of Old Taxila, as Hellenistic kings in the West would transfer the population of some Greek town to one of their new foundations, and the city on Bhir came to an end;4 [
Sir J. Marshall thinks that Bhir came to an end with the Greek conquest, the two latest strata being Mauryan, ASI 1930-4 p. 149. Sirkap was therefore certainly Demetrius' foundation, even if he did not finish it, for there is nothing beneath the two Hellenistic Strata.] the Taxila henceforth mentioned throughout this book is the city on Sirkap, which will be described later.
Demetrius left his son Demetrius II as his sub-king to govern the Paropamisadae and presumably Gandhara also, that is, all the country between the Hindu Kush and the Indus; his also must have been the task of securing and perhaps improving the communications with Bactria. That he had the royal title is shown by his putting his own portrait on the bilingual tetradrachm already referred to (p. 77). It is certain enough (p. 158) that his seat was Alexandria-Kapisa, the capital of the Paropamisadae (App. 6), from which Gandhara also could be governed, as it was from Kapisa in Hsuan Tsiang's day. Many reasons contributed to the importance of the capital beside its wonderfully fertile plain, which has led to it being called a little Kashmir without the lake.5 [
Foucher, Afghanistan p. 266 (of Kapisa). But as he thought Kapisa is represented by Begram, I fancy that the plain he describes must be that of Alexandria.] It was near the silver mines of the Panjshir valley and was thus well suited to be the principal mint of the province; Kapisa was the outlet for Kafiristan, the land of the Kambojas, who were possibly a valuable support to the Greeks (p. 170) -- indeed it has been thought probable that Kapisa and Kamboja are the same word;1 [
S. Levi, JA 1923 ii p. 52.] and the dual city was nearer to Bactra than any other important city and commanded the three routes. The reverse type on the bilingual tetradrachm of Demetrius II is Zeus holding a thunder-bolt. Zeus, one of the three deities of the Alexander coinage, had not before been used by any Bactrian king, and it is almost certain, from the types on the silver coinages of Pantaleon and Agathocles (p. 158), that the Zeus of this tetradrachm is meant for the elephant-god of Kapisa. A few years later the god of Kapisa began to be regularly represented as Zeus enthroned;2 [
Eucratides' coin, see p. 212.] but the reason for representing him as enthroned (p. 213) was due to other circumstances which had not yet arisen, while the reason for representing him as Zeus was a compelling one. For the elephant-god had his abode on the mountain Pilusara;3 [
CHI p. 556 (from Hsuan Tsiang). The mountain appears on Eucratides' coin.] and to Greeks a god who lived on a mountain-top could not well become anything but Zeus.4 [
Zeus Kasios is perhaps the best-known instance, but there are many; see A. B. Cook, Zeus II, App. B, 'The mountain cults of Zeus'.]
Demetrius II then ruled and coined in Alexandria-Kapisa. But he coined for his father, not for himself, as Antiochus I had once done:5 [
Coins with Antiochus' legend and Seleucus' head: E. H. Bunbury, NC 1883 pp. 67-71; Head2 p. 758.] this is shown by his putting his father's title 'Of King Demetrius the Invincible' on his tetradrachms, while on his square bilingual copper coins (which were struck by him and not by his father)6 [
Because the reverse type (BMC p. 163 no. 3) is the winged thunder-bolt, which appears in Zeus' hand on the tetradrachm and symbolises Zeus, and is therefore the type of Demetrius II. not of his father.] he put not only his father's title but his father's head, the well-known head wearing the elephant-scalp. The tetradrachms would circulate principally among Greeks, who understood the position; hence his own head. But the copper coins would circulate, or so it was hoped, among Indians, who might not understand; hence his father's head. But the real matter was the introduction on the coinage of a Prakrit legend, written in Kharoshthi, beside the Greek legend. The great importance of this step will be considered later; here I need only say that this radical development in policy could only have been due to Demetrius himself, not to any sub-king, and proves yet again that Demetrius II was coining to his father's instructions. Demetrius himself struck no coins in India; his coins nearly all come from Iran, and are practically never found east of the Indus,1 [
Cunningham, NC 1869 p. 141; BMC p. xxv; Whitehead, NNM p. 15.] though one has come from the excavations at Taxila.2 [
One from Bhir, ASI 1920-1 Part 1 p. 21. Also one of Euthydemus from Sirkap, ib. 1927-8 p. 60. In the Pearse collection in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, is a silver coin ascribed to Demetrius, ASI 1928-9 p. 139 no. 4, Pl. LVI, no. 4: obv. youngish head of king, diademed and uncovered; rev. Apollo on omphalos, with legend [x]. It is obviously the Seleucid Demetrius I.]
One word as to Demetrius' communications. The Hindu Kush, which has never prevented anyone from invading India who had a mind to, is said to be a less formidable barrier than it seems; and it has been pointed out that the whole story of the Greeks in India presupposes fairly easy communication between Taxila and Bactra.3 [
A. Foucher, CR Ac. Inscr. 1927 p. 117.] There were three routes across the Hindu Kush into Bactria,4 [
Cunningham, Geog. p. 28. On the routes of the Paropamisadae see also E. Trinkler, Afghanistan, Petermanns Mitt. Supp. Bd. 196, 1928, pp. 57 sqq.] all of them commanded by Alexandria-Kapisa at the junction of the Panjshir and Ghorband rivers. The central route, over one of the lofty Kaoshan group of passes, does not come in question; it rises too high, though local tradition believes that Alexander used it for one of his crossings. The north-eastern route commanded by Kapisa, up the Panjshir and across the longer but lower Khawak pass, had been used by Alexander on his other crossing; but though it may have occasionally been used by the Greeks, it led primarily to Badakshan, and made the road to Bactra itself very long. The southwestern route commanded by Alexandria, generally used to-day, furnished the most direct road between the capital of the Paropamisadae and Bactra; it runs up the Ghorband by Bamyan and across the Kara Kotal pass to the Darrah, the river of Bactra, thus turning the Hindu Kush rather than crossing it; the road crosses three passes, but all are much lower than the Khawak.5 [
On the Bamyan route see Foucher, Afghanistan p. 257 and his Map 3 facing p. 278.] This was the regular route in Hsuan Tsiang's day, though the pilgrim himself, perhaps for variety, went home by the Khawak; and the great Buddhist sculptures found at Bamyan attest the importance of the place subsequently to the Greek period.
The French archaeological mission had no doubt that the Bamyan route was the usual Greek route,1 [
Foucher, Afghanistan pp. 180 sqq.; cf. CR Ac. Inscr. 1917 p. 117.] though apparently no archaeological remains, such as foundations of block-houses, were found. I do not know their reasons, but are two pieces of evidence which are very strong: one is the passage from Varro to be presently cited, and the other the fact that Pliny, speaking as though approaching from the north, names first the Bamyan-Ghorband eparchy and then Opiane (p. 97 n. 1), that is, he speaks from the point of view of someone approaching Alexandria by the Bamyan route. If this were the usual route, it would explain why Alexander founded Alexandria on the opposite bank of the river to Kapisa instead of utilising the latter city, and would explain two other things also: the small importance in Greek times of Kabul, cut off from this road by the Koh-i-baba range between Kabul and the Ghorband valley, and the tradition of the hardships endured by Alexander's army in crossing the Khawak; for though Persian armies had invaded India before him, if they had used the Bamyan route his crossing of the Khawak in force may have been pioneering work. It may be supposed that the Greek kings did all they could -- road improvement, shelters, depots of provisions suggest themselves -- to make the route between Alexandria and Bactra as easy as might be, and there is one curious bit of evidence that they succeeded. When Pompey called for a report on the feasibility of making a trade route from India via Bactria and the Caspian to the Cyrus river, Varro says that the report stated that goods could be brought in seven days from India (presumably Alexandria-Kapisa) to the river of Bactra;2 [ ] one need not insist on the seven days, but it shows that the transit was considered tolerably easy, and also that the regular route was that by Bamyan to the Darrah river.
Once in possession of Taxila, Demetrius had two possible lines of advance, on either side of the Indian desert: one south-eastward along the great road across the Punjab and by the Delhi passage to the Ganges and the Mauryan capital Pataliputra, the other southward (at first southwestward) down the Indus to its mouth and whatever might lie beyond. Alexander had attempted the two lines successively; Demetrius took them concurrently. His own sons, as their portraits show, were as yet too young to lead a great advance; but he was fortunate in commanding the services of two lieutenants who must have been very able men, his brother or kinsman Apollodotus and his general Menander. The two are twice coupled in the classical tradition,1 [
Trogus Prol. XLI: Periplus 47.] which indicates some close connection between them,2 [
As E. J. Rapson has noticed: Ancient India 1914 p. 128; CHI p. 547.] but in each case Apollodotus is named first, which suggests that he was the more important; doubtless the reason is that he was connected with the royal house, while Menander was not. Who Apollodotus was has already been considered (p. 76); for Menander I must refer to the Excursus (pp. 420 sq.). He was a Greek from the Paropamisadae, and certainly a commoner; his birth in a village might mean that his father was a great landowner, successor to one of those Iranian barons who figure so largely in the Alexander story,3 [
See p. 32. It is not however known that this ever happened in the Farther East.] and that he was born in his father's stronghold to which the village was ancillary, but it more probably means that he was merely the son of a cleruch in a military settlement; in either case he had risen by his own abilities. As he died between 150 and 145 (p. 226), and as his latest coins (so far as portraiture can be relied on in Graeco-Indian coins) show a man of advanced years,4 [
Lahore Cat. p. 59, n. 1.] he must have been nearer to the generation of Demetrius than to that of his sons; and he had certainly seen fighting, for Demetrius would not have put an unproved man in command of the advance to Pataliputra. His portraits,5 [
Whitehead NNM Pl. VII. I is about the best.] for what they are worth, confirm the fact that he was not a Euthydemid; he has a different type of face, and the Euthydemid bull-neck is conspicuously absent. An Indian writer remarked later that among the Yavanas slaves could rise to be kings;6 [
Levi, Quid de Graecis p. 23.] doubtless he used 'slaves' in the Persian sense of everyone not royal (p. 355 n. 6), and was thinking primarily of the career of the most famous of the Yavana monarchs. But it must be emphasised that at the time of the invasion Menander was only Demetrius' general, a fact, it would seem, better understood by Indian writers of the period (p.166) than by modern scholars.
Our two primary Greek sources, taken together, ascribe the conquest of Northern India to three men, Demetrius, Apollodotus, and Menander. At first sight indeed it looks as if Apollodorus ascribed the conquest to Demetrius and Menander,7 [
Strabo XI. 516.] 'Trogus' source' to Apollodotus and Menander;8 [
Trogus Prol. XLI: Indicae quoque res additae, gestae per Apollodotum et Menandrum reges eorum.] but these brief notices in a fragment of Apollodorus and in Trogus' prologue to a chapter which Justin did not excerpt are inclusive, not exclusive; they mean, not that Apollodorus excluded Apollodotus or 'Trogus' source' Demetrius, but that these were the three men who between them carried the conquest through. As however the secondary sources, Strabo and Trogus, while one selected Demetrius for mention and the other Apollodotus, both name Menander, and as there were certainly two lines of advance, we are justified in taking it to mean that one line of advance was Menander's and that the other was shared by Demetrius and Apollodotus; it will appear that the evidence agrees with this.
Demetrius himself was responsible for the conquest of Sind. A scholion to the grammarian Patanjali1 [Given by A. Weber, Indische Studien v p. 150 n.] (p. 146) mentions a town Dattamitri among the Sauviras and says that it was founded by Dattamitra, who is named in the Mahabharata as king of the Yavanas and Sauviras and is undoubtedly Demetrius; and the existence of this Demetrias in Sind is confirmed by an inscription.2 [No. 18 of the Nasik cave inscriptions (p. 257 n. 3). Weber ib. pointed out that the term Dattamitriya used in another scholion to Patanjali for an inhabitant of Dattamitri is only the Sanscrit form of the Prakrit Damtamitiyaka of the inscription, for which he suggested Datamitiyaka; since then E. Senart has in fact read the word in the inscription as Datamitiyaka, Ep. Ind. VIII, 1905-6, p. 90 no. 18. See also on the identification of the towns of the scholion and the inscription N. R. Ray, IHQ IV. 1928. p. 743. It seems free from doubt.] It was certainly not the Arachosian Demetrias between Seistan and Ghazni (see App. 9), for the Sauvira-Sindhus had nothing to do with Arachosia; at this time they were on the lower Indus and occupied its Delta (p. 171). This Demetrias is not likely to have been a completely new city. Alexander had begun to build great docks at Patala and must have left a colony there; what Demetrius found there is unknown, but Patala was the natural port and centre, and undoubtedly Demetrias was Patala refounded and renamed;3 [
This will be confirmed by the section on the pepper trade in chap. IX (pp. 370 sqq.).] Demetrius may have had in mind the creation of a port on the Indus which should correspond to that of Seleuceia on the Tigris. Demetrius then followed Alexander's track down the Indus to the sea. Alexander had gone by water; Darius I before him had sent a fleet down the Indus; Demetrius too must have followed the easy and natural course of going by water, which would mean that on reaching the sea there was a fleet at his disposal. The trident on one of his coins4 [
BMC p. 7 no. 14.] must imply naval power, but it is a Bactrian coin and not likely to refer to a fleet on the Indus; probably it is connected with the symbolism of Antimachus' coins (p. 90) and refers to the squadron which every Bactrian king must have maintained on the Oxus as part of the country's system of defence.
Demetrius himself can have gone no farther. Like the Antigonids, the Euthydemids were tied to their northern frontier; as Macedonia was the shield of Greece against the barbarism of the Balkans, so Bactria was the shield of Iran against the nomads who, as Euthydemus had told Antiochus III, were perpetually threatening her, and who were one day to overwhelm her; no Bactrian king, for his own safety, dare neglect this responsibility. Demetrius, even though he had left a young son to guard Bactria, had taken some risk in going himself to Sind. He had done what Alexander had done; he must now have handed over the command of the advance southward to Apollodotus and returned to Taxila. Apollodotus, coming from the Arachosian Demetrias, may have joined him on his way down the Indus, or may have been annexing eastern Gedrosia, which was seemingly governed from Sind (p. 94).
Menander's advance to the south-east is attested both from the Greek and the Indian side. Some writers indeed, with no clear idea of the two lines of advance, have ascribed all the Indian conquests to Menander, a thing which time, space, and Trogus' mention of Apollodotus alike forbid. It is a proof of Cunningham's penetration that he saw something of the truth as long ago as 1870,1 [
NC 1870 p. 85.] when he said that the campaigns of Apollodotus and Menander were contemporary but distinct, that of Apollodotus being directed from Sind against Rajputana; but nothing came of his illuminating suggestion, because he put both kings much too late and numismatists subsequently saw that Apollodotus, who still coined on the Attic standard and some of whose coins were overstruck by Eucratides, must be a very early king. The first thing is to consider exactly what Apollodorus does say, before coming to the Indian account.
He says in one passage that the Greeks conquered more of India than the Macedonians (Alexander) had done,2 [
Strabo xv, 686: [x] (the Greeks) [x].] and in another that they became (imperfect tense; that is, they were for a time) masters of 'the Indians'; they overthrew more peoples than Alexander had done (i.e. Alexander in India) and most of all Menander, some himself and some Demetrius.1 [
Strabo XI, 516: [x].] As the words 'they overthrew' (aorist; that is, one point of time) apply to both men, we get two facts: that Demetrius and Menander were acting in concert, and that Menander went farther than Demetrius. Strabo adds to this excerpt a note of his own, showing that (like some moderns) he found it hard to believe: 'at least if Menander really crossed the Hypanis (Beas) toward the east and went as far as the Isamos',2 [
Ib. [x].] which implies that Apollodorus had said he did, and incidentally implies that Demetrius did not go so far and did not cross the Hypanis. Most of the Alexander-historians call the Beas, where Alexander turned back, the Hyphasis; but one of them, Aristobulus, preferred the form Hypanis,3 [
In xv, 686 Strabo contrasts Apollodorus with some unnamed writer who uses the form Hypanis and exaggerates city numbers in round thousands (Alexander had 5,000 cities between Hydaspes and Hypanis). In 693, a named fragment of Aristobulus (= F. Gr. Hist. fr. 35, 19), a similar exaggeration of city numbers in round thousands occurs (the shifting of the Indus made over 1,000 cities desert). Therefore the unnamed writer of 686, who uses the form Hypanis, is Aristobulus, though the passage is not given as his in F. Gr. Hist. It is morally certain that the Hypanis of 700 is from Aristobulus also. Strabo took the form from him.] and that is the form always used by Strabo. For the unknown name Isamos the most usual conjectures are the Iomanes (Jumna) or the Soamos (Son); if there really be a Prakrit name Issumai for the Jumna4 [
K. H. Druva, JBORS XVI, 1930, p. 34 n. 25. But I cannot make out if Issumai be a real name or if the writer is only suggesting that it would be the Prakrit form of Isamos.] it settles the matter, but it is not very material. For
there is one more passage of Apollodorus, or rather of Strabo paraphrasing Apollodorus in his own words, which has too often been overlooked:5 [It is not given among the fragments of Apollodorus in FHG IV, p. 308, but there can be no question about it. Apollodorus is not yet given in F. Gr. Hist.] it says that those who came after Alexander advanced beyond the Hypanis to the Ganges and Pataliputra.6 [Strabo xv, 698: we know India within the Hypanis [x]. The word [x] shows that a military expedition is meant and excludes the possibility of the reference being to Megasthenes, who anyhow could not be classified under Alexander's successors ([x]).] The language used imports a military expedition and imports also that Pataliputra was taken; Strabo could not have put it in that form had Apollodorus said that they had tried to take the capital and failed.The advance of the Greeks to Pataliputra is recorded from the Indian side in the Yuga-purana (p. 132); translations of the material sections are given in full in Appendix 4, with such discussion as is necessary. It remains to take the outline (we cannot get more) of Menander's advance and see the way in which the Greek and Indian sources agree with and supplement each other,
a conclusive proof that the story is true. [LC: !!!]
In the tradition (p. 177) Pushyamitra's power reached anyhow to Sagala (Sialkot between the Chenab and the Ravi); it is possible, as will be seen, that the halt at Taxila, while the ground won was being consolidated and Demetrius' fleet was being built, was used to prepare Menander's way with a little propaganda (p. 178).
Menander first occupied Sagala, known from the Milindapanha to have been his capital later (see Excursus), and then,
as Apollodorus says, crossed the Beas, where Alexander had turned back. The Yuga-purana then mentions the Yavanas at Mathura (Muttra) on the Jumna; here comes in Apollodorus' statement about the Isamos, if it be the Jumna. The Yuga-purana then records the Yavanas at Saketa (in Oude) and in the Panchala country (the Jumna-Ganges doab), which is followed by
Apollodorus' statement that the Greeks reached the Ganges. Finally both
Apollodorus and the Yuga-purana
record the occupation of the capital. The latter document says that the Greeks first took
Kusumadjava, which is Kusumapura, the old name of Pataliputra, but which at this time must have been separate from, or a suburb of, the Mauryan town, and then took the Mauryan capital itself, which was defended by a mud wall, necessitating the use of their siege train, as Alexander had had to use his siege train against the high mud wall of Cyropolis;
it is said that the excavations at Pataliputra have brought to light a mud wall of the Mauryan period 14 feet thick and flanked with wooden palisades.1 [
K. P. Jayaswal, JBORS XIV, 1928, p. 417.] The Yuga-purana subsequently treats the Greeks as masters of the country: they command, and the kings disappear.
One point in this account, the taking of Saeta, is further confirmed from the Indian side by a statement of the grammarian Patanjali (made merely to illustrate the right tense to use for an event which has just happened), 'The Yavana was besieging Saketa.'1 [
Cited in many works: see Levi, Quid de Graecis p. 16; CHI p. 544. Weber, Ind. Stuien XIII p. 304, pointed out that the verb in the sentence, arunad, means 'besiege' and nothing else.]
Patanjali's date has generally been put about 150 B.C. on the strength of his supposed reference to Pushyamitra's horse sacrifice as a contemporary event, and the dating so reached has been used to date Menander's advance to about 150. There is nothing in this, for it is generally admitted that Patanjali's grammatical examples are, or in any particular case may be, not necessarily his own composition but traditional examples, put together before his own time;2 [
Weber op. cit. XIII pp. 312, 315, 319; de la Vallee-Poussin p. 200.] in fact a recent authority, I venture to think conclusively, puts him much later than 150.3 [
De la Vallee-Poussin pp. 199-202, based on Patanjali's mention of the Sacas. See on these Sacas the theories of Bhandarkar, Indian Culture 1, 1934, p. 275, and Konow, ib. II, 1935, p. 189, with de la Vallee-Poussin's reply, ib. II, 1936, p. 584. His argument is unanswerable, unless the mention of Sacas in Patanjali be a later interpolation, which no one has suggested.] What Patanjali does show is that the Greek invasion produced such an impression that it could be used as a commonplace illustration in grammars.
Before passing on, one or two points in connection with the Greek advance to Pataliputra must be noticed. One need not waste time over the belief of some writers that the Greek kings were condottiere and their conquests raids, beyond hoping that such writers have clear ideas of what a 'raid' from Rawul Pindi upon Patna would mean; but the view held in defiance of Apollodorus, that it was Demetrius and not Menander who led the advance south-eastward, must be considered. It was first put forward as a guess in 1911 by Professor D. R. Bhandarkar,4 [
Ind. Ant. XL, 1911, p. 11 n. 5.] because he very properly saw that the advance must have taken place much earlier than the late date which he believed to be that of Menander;
his reasoning was sound, but now that Menander's true date is known it has no further application.5 [
The same thing applies to the adoption of this theory by H. Raychaudhuri, The Political History of Ancient India 1923 pp. 204 sqq., 209. I have been unable to see this book, and take the information from L. D. Barnett, Calcutta Review X, 1924, p. 250.] Subsequently in 1923 Dr Sten Konow6 [
Acta Orientalia 1, 1913. p. 27.] based a similar theory upon a passage in the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela, which is supposed to state that Demetrius withdrew (from Pataliputra) to Mathura, and this has found some acceptance. It been called a Yavana,1 [
The Rudraman inscription, Ep. Ind. VIII, 1905-6, p. 46.] and Ceylonese tradition knows of a missionary, Dhammarakkita, sent by Asoka to Aparanta (Gujerat), who is called a Yona.2 [
CHI pp. 499, 603, from the Mahavamsa.] The other kingdom, that of Sigerdis, is unknown, but can only mean the country between Patalene and Surastrene, including Cutch;3 [
This, and Theophila, preclude the idea that Apollodotus might have gone by sea to Kathiawar; though he may have had a fleet cooperating.] the provinces however will be discussed later (pp. 233 sqq.) and I only want here to get the outline of the conquest.
The next notice of Apollodotus is in the anonymous Periplus Maris Erythraei (referred to throughout as the Periplus), in connection with the great seaport of Barygaza (Broach) in Gujerat, on the east coast of the Gulf of Cambaye facing Kathiawar.
The merchant who wrote the Periplus in the middle of the first century A.D.4 [
On the date of this work see now J. G. C. Anderson in CAH x, 1934, p. 882, whose reasoning is conclusive against the later date often adopted; equally conclusive against any date near the end of the first century A.D. is it that the Kushans are still in Bactria and have not yet occupied Gandhara (Periplus 47). Anderson's date, the early part of the reign of Malchus II of Nabataea, A.D. 40-71, may for practical purposes be called the middle of the first century A.D., as I have done throughout; it agrees fairly closely with the date, 50-65 A.D., taken by M. P. Charlesworth, C.Q. XXII, 1928, p. 92, who rightly said it could not be later.] is not always clear about the interior of India, which he did not know; but for the things he personally knew and had seen -- the coast and the ports -- he is good authority. He
says that in the country about Barygaza there were still mementos of Alexander's expedition -- old shrines, foundations of permanent camps (or barracks), and very great wells.5 [Periplus 41: [x] On [x] see p. 86.] Alexander of course was never near Barygaza. Some of the Alexander-stories belong to Islam; but it has often been suspected that some are reminiscences of the Greeks, and this one, from its date, is certain: the objects referred to are mementos of the Greek (Apollodotus') conquest and of the subsequent Greek occupation. The camps are interesting, as showing that the troops were camped outside, and not in, a city, but more interesting are the wells. Few countries could exist without knowing how to dig wells; what the Periplus means is that Greek engineers could dig deeper wells than the people of India could. One recalls that Alexander had a well-digging expert with his army,1 [
Gorgos [x] (Strabo xv, 700) was presumably not only a mining engineer but also a water engineer, like the [x] charged to open up the choked outlets! of Lake Copais, id. IX, 407. On Alexander's well-digging see Arr. Anab. VI, 18, I.] and that when the Chinese attacked Ir-shi in Ferghana in 101 B.C. the citadel was saved by a 'man from Ts'in 'who knew how to dig (deep) wells (see pp. 310 sq.).
The Periplus further shows that Apollodotus ruled Barygaza -- that is, it was in his realm -- for some years, in the statement that his coins and those of Menander were still circulating in that town in the first century A.D.2 [
Periplus 47: [x]. This means that the writer had seen them.] This is of the first importance. One numismatist has indeed denied that the word in question means 'circulating' and thinks it means 'come to light',3 [
Whitehead, NC p. 306 n. 16.] but fortunately there is exact evidence about the word which leaves no loophole for doubt;4 [
Sext. Empir. adv. Math. I, 178: [x]. This is conclusive for the meaning of [x]. It never means 'come to light'.] it means circulating as current coin for buying and selling. One may dig up a king's coins in places where he did not rule, coins brought thither by merchants, changed at the money-changer's, and ultimately buried or lost; but if, long after a king's death, his money was still current in trade in some town -- which
may mean that the town had gone on issuing copies of it5 [
Old coins might also have been sent there; but the deduction would be the same.] -- then he must have ruled that town during his lifetime long enough to make his coinage a well-accepted medium of exchange.6 [
Whitehead loc. cit. makes the objection that before the war Indian rupees were accepted in parts of the Levant, but that did not mean that the Levant was an appanage of the Indian empire. I see no connection between the two things. The rupees (if not taken merely to melt down) were accepted because behind them was the credit of the Government of India. But Apollodotus' kingdom was long extinct; the acceptance of his money was 'use and wont', and that could only have originated in his rule. I note as a curiosity that about 1841 H. H. Wilson found Kushan copper coins in circulation in various Indian cities (Ariana Antiqua p. 349); and the receipt among small change of a copper coin of Cleopatra VII has recently been recorded from the French Riviera.] Consequently Apollodotus' rule in Barygaza cannot be in doubt.
This is the known limit of Apollodotus' advance southward -- Kathiawar and part of Gujerat, i.e. Barygaza and presumably Surat. There are indeed the cave inscriptions from the country behind Bombay, which will be considered in their place, but they do not go to proving Greek rule.
More important is the manner in which his advance is confirmed by the fragments of a list of the provinces (satrapies) of the Greek empire in India preserved by Ptolemy; but I want to deal with Ptolemy's invaluable evidence as a whole, and these fragments will be considered in Chapter VI. But one remark may be made here about Apollodorus' phrase, the 'kingdom called of Saraostos'.
Greeks adopted from Indians the habit of calling a king by the name of his country or his capital: Saraostos is 'King Surashtra', the king of Kathiawar; Taxiles of the Alexander-historians is 'King Taxila', his personal name being Ambhi;
the 'King Palibothros' of Strabo (xv, 702) is the Mauryan emperor for the time being, whose capital was Palibothra (Pataliputra); two fresh Indian instances, on coins of the Andhra dynasty, have recently been recorded.1 [
J. Przyluski, JRAS 1929 p. 276.] The usage is notorious. But Patanjali's 'The Yavana' (p. 146) is not in this category, for Yavana is not a territorial designation; the phrase does not mean 'King Yavana', but merely 'the Yavana chief'. There is a similar use in English.2 [
Cf. 'The Percy' and 'The Douglas' of the old ballads, or a title like 'The Mackintosh' to-day, which is said to be English, not Gaelic.]
With Barygaza Apollodotus had reached what must have been one of the Greek objectives, the great port which could give them good trade communication by sea with the West; but he had also reached something else, for Barygaza was the terminus of the main road which ran from west to east across India by Ujjain and Vidisa (Bhilsa) to Kosambi on the Jumna, and so to the Ganges and Pataliputra.3 [On this route and the Deccan route (p. 151) see T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India 1903, pp. 36, 103; CHI p. 517; de la Vallee-Poussin p. 173.] It is known that he turned inland, for Patanjali gives one more notice, 'The Yavana was besieging Madhyamika',4 [P. 146 n. I. Confusion used to be caused by the Brihat Samhita mentioning a people called Madhyamikas in the Middle Country (Fleet, Ind. Ant. XXII, 1893, p. 170), but the coins have cleared that up.] a place identified by its coins with the strong fortress of Nagari near Chitor in southern Rajputana.5 [V. A. Smith4 p. 227 and refs., and see now BMC India p. cxxiv.] It seems certain that he not only besieged but took it, for its coins show that in the middle of the second century B.C. it was peopled by Sibi,1 [The coins (ib.), found at Nagari, bear the legend 'Of the Sibi people of Madhyamika city'. These must be the Sibi whom the list in the Brihat Samhita places in the south division, with Barygaza (Fleet ib. p. 171).] whose own country was about Jhang in the southern Punjab with their capital at Shorkot, 'Sibi-town',2 [Sivipura = Shorkot, V. A. Smith4 p. 97 n. 2, from an inscription, Ep. Ind. XVI pp. 15-17.] and who must, it seems, have been settled at Madhyamika by Apollodotus; there is no question of the whole people having moved, for the known coins come from a very circumscribed area, Nagari and Chitor.3 [BMC India pp. cxxiv-v.]
At Madhyamika he was only some 80 miles north of Ujjain, the capital of Avanti (West Malva), and at Barygaza he had been on the great road running eastward to Ujjain. He could no doubt have reached Madhyamika across country, leaving Ujjain on his flank; but Alexander had always followed the main routes where they existed, as no doubt any army in Asia normally did, and the common-sense of the matter is that Apollodotus would follow the main highway and occupy Ujjain; indeed one can go further and say that it is inconceivable that his principal objective can have been anything but that city.4 [Cunningham, who sometimes had flashes of intuition in advance of the knowledge of his day, actually made this suggestion (NC 1870 p. 85), but nothing came of it.] For Ujjain was in the west very much what Taxila was in the north, an important seat of learning and one of the chief commercial centres of India: situated at the junction of two main routes, the Barygaza-Kosambi road to the capital and the road that came north from the Deccan, it gathered up and forwarded the trade between the Ganges valley, Southern India, and the western sea. In one way it was more than Taxila, for it was one of the seven sacred cities of India, whose meridian was to be taken as the base for India by the astronomers of a later day;5 [V.A. Smith4 p. 163; E. J. Rapson, Ancient India 1914 p. 175; CHI p. 531.] and like Taxila it had been the seat of a Mauryan viceroy. That Apollodotus could have passed it by is impossible; but it must be emphasised that this is only a deduction. There is no direct evidence of his occupation. for though Ujjain appears in Ptolemy (VII, 62) with a Greek name, [x], this is only a rendering in Greek letters of the sound of the Indian name Ujjahini and might have been made at any time. But there is the indirect evidence of the rule there later of the Saca Western Satraps (pp. 243, 335); for the Sacas merely followed where the Greeks had led.We can now see where we are going and what Demetrius was aiming at. The Mauryan empire proper, north of the line of the Nerbudda and the Vindhya mountains, had pivoted upon three great cities: Pataliputra the capital and seat of the emperor, Taxila the seat of the viceroy of the North-West, and Ujjain the seat of the viceroy of the West; these two viceroys had usually been princes of the blood, and Asoka himself had been viceroy in Ujjain under his father Bindusara. Certainly Asoka when king had given the empire a great extension southward;1 [
He had two new viceroys for the southern conquests, one in Tosali over the Kalingas (Kalinga Borderers Edict, Dhauli version) and one in Savarnagiri for the south (Minor Rock Edict I, Brahmagiri version).] but the new possessions had been lost again after his death, and it must be remembered that Greek ideas of the empire were largely taken from Megasthenes' account of the empire of Chandragupta [No, Sandrocottus!], and that to Greeks the Mauryan empire essentially meant Northern India. Now, with Menander at Pataliputra, Apollodotus at Ujjain, and himself in occupation of Taxila, Demetrius held the three cardinal points of that empire, the three centres of the administration; the occupation of what remained might seem a mere matter of time and detail. One cannot, as will be seen later, call it the 'conquest' of the Mauryan empire; rather, Demetrius' aim was to restore that huge derelict empire, but under Greek rule and with himself on the throne of Asoka. That was his plan, a plan hardly inferior in scope and audacity to Alexander's plan of conquering the Persian empire.
One may suppose that he meant to govern his empire from his new city of Taxila, with Apollodotus and Menander as his viceroys in Ujjain and Pataliputra, that is, to govern in a direction the reverse of the Mauryas; for from Taxila he could keep in touch with Bactria, which must necessarily have remained the basis of his power.Perhaps one curious speculation may be permitted here. It has recently been suggested2 [
J. Allan in The Cambridge Shorter History of India 1934 p. 33. that Asoka was grandson of the Seleucid princess, whoever she was, whom Seleucus gave in marriage to Chandragupta.[No, Sandrocottus!]3 [
See p. 174 n. 3. The suggestion of K. H. Druva, JBORS XVI, 1930, p. 35 n. 28, that on the dates she was more probably married to Chandragupta's [No, Sandrocottus!] son Bindusara, Asoka's father, is worth considering.] Should this far-reaching suggestion be well founded, it would not only throw light on the good relations between the Seleucid and Maurya dynasties, but would mean that the Maurya dynasty was descended from, or anyhow connected with, Seleucus. But Demetrius was a Seleucid on the distaff side; and when the Mauryan line became extinct, he might well have himself, if not as the next heir, at any rate as the heir nearest at hand. His plan to revive the Mauryan empire would then really have meant that he proposed to enter upon his inheritance. Should this be true, then he must have crossed the Hindu Kush with his plan ready formed; otherwise one might conjecture that that plan only took final shape at Taxila, after he had learnt more about Indian feeling and the possibilities of the situation, just as it was not till after Issus that Alexander definitely envisaged the conquest of the whole Persian empire.
There are two other matters which bear out Demetrius' plan. The author of the original document or chronicle which must stand behind the Yavana sections of the Yuga-purana (App. 4), in recording the Greeks at Pataliputra, was thinking all the time about the Mauryan empire; 'all provinces will be in confusion', he says, meaning the provinces of that empire, and when the Yavanas command 'the kings will disappear'; as his story centres throughout on Pataliputra, he means that there will be no more Indian kings in the Mauryan capital as aforetime. But more important is the meaning at this time of the words 'India' and 'Indians' to Greeks of the East like Apollodorus and 'Trogus' source'. There is no direct evidence, but the evidence from analogy is too strong to be set aside. In Alexander's day the word 'Asia' was habitually used in the sense of the Persian empire,1 [
By Alexander himself: Arr. Anab. I, 16, 7 (dedication in 334), 11, 14, 8 (political manifesto in 333, 'King of Asia'), Lindian Chronicle c. 103 (dedication in 330, 'Lord of Asia'), Arr. Anab. IV, 15 ,6 (in speaking, 329-8). By Nearchus: Arr. Ind. 35, 8 ('in possession of all Asia', 325). By others: Arr. Anab. III, 9, 6; 18, 11; 25, 3; Plut. Alex. 34; Ditt.3 303. Officially in 311: Diod. XIX, 105, I. In common parlance in 307-6: Ditt.3 326, I. 23.] that is, it was used as a political term and not merely as a geographical one. Some indeed knew that there were bits of the Asiatic continent, like the spice-land of Arabia, which were not within the Persian bounds; but such lands were shadowy things, outside the range of the politics of the day. When the Seleucid empire replaced the Persian, the word 'Asia' was transferred to signify that empire, though it was now well known that considerable sections of the continent were outside the Seleucid bounds: Seleucus was 'King of Asia',2 [
App. Syr. [x].] and the term 'Stations of Asia'3 [
Strabo xv, 723, [x]; see p. 55 n. 1.] applied to the Seleucid survey of their empire, and the title 'Saviour of Asia' given to Antiochus IV,1 [
OGIS 253; see p. 195.] are sufficient proof.
To Alexander, when he crossed the Hindu Kush, 'India' meant only the Indus country which Darius had ruled;2 [Tarn in CAH vi p. 402.] but since then Greek knowledge of India had been enormously enlarged by Megasthenes. But Megasthenes, though he knew of the existence of peninsular India, had only described the Mauryan empire of Chandragupta [No, Sandrocottus!], and the only part of India with which Greeks had been in contact since Alexander's death was the Mauryan empire, just as the only part of Asia with which they had been in contact before Alexander's birth was the Persian empire; Southern India was as shadowy a land as Southern Arabia had been. It is therefore inconceivable that 'India' should not also have had a political meaning, just as 'Asia' had always had; as 'Asia' was used in the sense first of the Persian and then of the Seleucid empires, so 'India' must have been used in the sense of the Mauryan empire. Consequently when Trogus' well-informed source called Demetrius (the Greek equivalent of) Rex Indorum,3 [Justin XLI, 6, 4, Demetrii regis Indorum. Cf. Apollodorus' phrase (Strabo XI, 516), [x].] 'King of the Indians', he meant exactly what Alexander meant when in 330 he called himself 'Lord of Asia':4 [Lindian Chronicle c. 103.] Demetrius was monarch of the Mauryan empire. Alexander in 330 had not completed the conquest of the Persian empire, but he held the great centres, and after Gaugamela what was to come seemed a foregone conclusion. Similarly, Demetrius had not yet completed the conquest of the Mauryan empire, but with the three great centres in his hand what was to come might well seem a foregone conclusion also; the one statement was as true as the other. Where Chaucer's 'grete Emetreus, the kyng of Inde' came from is unknown;5 [
The Knight's Tale 1. 1298. The affinity of some of Chaucer's Tales with Indian stories is notorious: the last section of the Pardoner's Tale is the Vedabha Jataka, though Chaucer cannot have known the Indian story (see the ed. of 1929 by A.W. Pollard and M. M. Barber, Introduction pp. viii-xi; H.T. Francis, The Vedabha Jataka compared with the Pardoner's Tale 1884); for the literature on the Indian and Chinese analogies to the Franklin's Tale see J. Schick, Studia Indo-Iranica, Ehrengabe fur W. Geiger 1931 p. 89. But the lineage of The Knight's Tale (see A.W. Pollard's ed. of 1903) goes back through Boccaccio's Teseide to Statius, and Boccaccio does not mention Emetrius; and Chaucer's phrase in the preceding line, 1297, 'in stories as men fynde', is said to be his way of mystifying his readers as to his source. Seemingly he has succeeded.] but for a moment it had seemed true, and legend remembered where history has forgotten.
For a few brief years Demetrius was lord of a realm which in mere size probably surpassed that of the first Seleucus; he ruled from the Jaxartes to the Gulf of Cambaye, from the Persian desert to the middle Ganges. Put into modern terms, and speaking roughly, his kingdom included Afghanistan and something more, the northern and probably also the southern part of Baluchistan, most of Russian Turkestan with some extension into Chinese Turkestan, and in India part of the North-West Frontier, the Punjab with southern Kashmir, much of the United Provinces with a small slice of Bihar, Sind, Cutch, Kathiawar, and the northern part of Gujerat, with apparently some extension into Rajputana. What can be made out about the Indian provinces in detail will be considered later, when everything that remained after the abandonment of Pataliputra and Ujjain had passed into the hands of Menander; but it may be noticed here that the later legend which carried Alexander's victorious arms to the Ganges and Magadha (Pataliputra),1 [Strabo xv, 702.; Diod. II, 37, 3; XVII, 108, 3; Plut. Alex. 62.; Justin XII, 8, 9; see Tarn, JHS XLIII, 1923, p. 100.] and the saying attributed to Chandragupta [No, Sandrocottus!] that Alexander had all but secured for himself his (Chandragupta's) [No, Sandrocottus!] empire of Northern India,2 [Plut. Alex. 62., Chandragupta [No, Sandrocottus!] [x] (i.e. after he was king of Northern India) [x] where [x] means the Mauryan empire. The king who 'just missed' that empire was not Alexander but Demetrius.] alike spring from the victorious progress of Demetrius.62. As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. 1 For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. [2] For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants. And there was no boasting in these reports. For Androcottus, who reigned there not long afterwards, made a present to Seleucus of five hundred elephants, and with an army of six hundred thousand men overran and subdued all India.
[3] At first, then, Alexander shut himself up in his tent from displeasure and wrath and lay there, feeling no gratitude for what he had already achieved unless he should cross the Ganges, nay, counting a retreat a confession of defeat. But his friends gave him fitting consolation, and his soldiers crowded about his door and besought him with loud cries and wailing, until at last he relented and began to break camp, resorting to many deceitful and fallacious devices for the enhancement of his fame. [4] For instance, he had armour prepared that was larger than usual, and mangers for horses that were higher, and bits that were heavier than those in common use, and left them scattered up and down. Moreover, he erected altars for the gods, which down to the present time are revered by the kings of the Praesii when they cross the river, and on them they offer sacrifices in the Hellenic manner. Androcottus, when he was a stripling, saw Alexander himself, and we are told that he often said in later times that Alexander narrowly missed making himself master of the country, since its king was hated and despised on account of his baseness and low birth.
-- Plut. Alex. 62, Bernadotte Perrin, Ed.
To return to Apollodotus. Whether he went beyond Madhyamika cannot be said. It is conceivable that he was aiming at Ajmer, the Eragassa Metropolis of Ptolemy, to secure the Ujjain-Mathura route; at Madhyamika he was more than half-way thither on the road from Ujjain, his coins have been found near Ajmer,3 [
At Pushkar; Cunningham, NC 1870 p. 85.] and Cunningham, who knew India well, thought that any conqueror in that part of the country must try to take Ajmer.4 [
The Saca Great Satrap Nahapana ruled in Ajmer (V. A. Smith4 p. 221), and the Sacas were usually copying the Greeks.] But in fact nothing is known about Rajputana except that the Greeks called the Aravalli mountains 'The vengeance of Heaven' (p. 253); Apollodotus at Madhyamika may only have been clearing his flank of an inconvenient garrison of Pushyamitra's, in preparation for the final move.
For the final move must have been meant to be that Apollodotus from Ujjain and Menander from Pataliputra should join hands along the great road and complete the circuit of Northern India. Between them lay Pushyamitra's home kingdom of Vidisa, where they might expect some serious fighting. But, so far as is known, it was never attempted; though they held Vidisa as it were between the jaws of pincers, the pincers had no strength to close. Whatever fighting the Greek leaders had had or had not had, the wastage of their armies in garrisons and settlements must have been severe; for the time being both had shot their bolt. Doubtless Demetrius would presently have reinforced them with fresh troops for the final stage; he cannot yet have been fifty when he crossed the Hindu Kush, and there seemed plenty of time.
But at some period which cannot be precisely indicated he had to return to Bactria, and had among other things to carry out a reorganisation of his sub-kings. His return to Bactria seems certain from the coinage. His coins struck in India are rare and seem to have all been struck by Demetrius II west of the Indus (p. 138). But his great new empire in India needed an abundant coinage, and had he stayed in India he, as supreme ruler, must have supplied it; this he never did, and though India received a plentiful Greek coinage it was struck by Apollodotus and Menander. His reorganisation may not all have been done at once, but it can only be indicated as a whole. I suggested before that somewhere about 175 might be a likely date for the termination of the advance; it cannot well be put later, as ten to twelve years at least must be allowed for Apollodotus' money to establish itself in Barygaza (though it may have continued to be struck or copied long after his death); and it cannot well be put earlier, because a fair interval must be allowed between the appointments of Euthydemus II and Agathocles to allow for Agathocles' coin-portraits looking slightly older than those of his eldest brother.