Historical Reference

Euthydemia I and Demetrius I of Balkh

1. The Younger Euthydemus 2. An older Euthydemus and 3. His son Demetrius I

We do not know how long Diodotus II reigned. But, as the portraits on his coins are all fairly youthful, it is scarcely possible to allow him more than ten or twelve years after the peace with Parthia. And it is certain from Polybius (xi, 34) that when Antiochus III appeared in the east at the head of an army, about 212 B.C., determined to reassert the Seleucid supremacy over the revolted kingdoms, the Bactrian throne had for some time been occupied by Euthydemus, a Greek from one or other of the cities called Magnesia, who, in reply to the challenge of Antiochus, explained that he did not think it fair that he should be interfered with: ‘He was not a rebel. Others, no doubt, had rebelled. He had put the children of the rebels to death, and that was how he happened to be king.' We may draw from this, not only a confirmation of Justin's statement as to Diodotus I having been succeeded by a son, but also the further inference that Diodotus II came to a violent end.

Our authorities give us no hint as to who Euthydemus was, or as to how he reached a position of such influence as to be able to make a successful bid for the crown. The claim of the Lydian city to be the Magnesia of his birth is perhaps slightly stronger than that of the Ionian one; for, when he came to strike money, he chose a remarkable type whose selection can be most simply explained by supposing that it had been familiar to him in his youth, as it would be if he were brought up in the Hermus valley. The first real glimpse we get of him is when he comes into conflict with Antiochus the Great The Parthian campaign of the latter had been arduous, to judge from the picture which Polybius (x, 28 ff.) has preserved of some of its incidents. But Arsaces III seems at length to have been driven to yield upon terms, and by the year 208 Antiochus was at liberty to turn his arms against Bactria. To enter it, he had to ford the river Arius (Hari Rud), the passage of which Euthydemus was prepared to dispute. When the critical moment came, the Bactrians allowed themselves to be outmaneuvered. Antiochus made a night-march with a picked body of cavalry, the majority of whom he succeeded in getting over the stream before the dawn was bright enough for the enemy's vedettes to discover them. The footing thus gained was stubbornly held, in the teeth of a singularly fierce attack. From the narrative of Polybius (x, 49) we learn that Antiochus displayed great personal courage, and that Euthydemus was so perturbed by the lesson his troops had received that he retreated(at once to his capital of Zariaspa or Bactra, the modern Balkh. A siege presumably followed, and it is generally taken for granted that this was the famous siege of Bactra, casually mentioned by Polybius in quite another context (xxix, 6 A). However that may be, the struggle was a prolonged one. By 206 two years had elapsed without either side having gained a decisive advantage. Meanwhile barbarian swarms were hovering ominously along the northern frontier of the kingdom. If the internecine strife continued, they might at any moment descend upon the country and ruthlessly destroy every vestige of Hellenic civilization.

The reality of this peril was pressed home upon Antiochus by Teleas, a fellow-countryman of Euthydemus, whom the latter had empowered to use his good offices in working for a settlement. Antiochus, upon his part, was only too glad to welcome the prospect of an honorable escape from a situation that threatened to grow more and more embarrassing. Informal negotiations, conducted through Teleas, ultimately resulted in the dispatch of Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, as a fully accredited envoy to the camp of Antiochus. Polybius is still our authority for details. He speaks (xi, 34) in glowing terms of the favorable impression which the handsome youth produced upon the Seleucid king, who offered him one of his own daughters in marriage and indicated his willingness to waive all objection to the use of the royal title by Euthydemus. A written agreement covering the disputed points was drawn up and signed, and a formal alliance concluded. Euthydemus had been the first to move towards peace, and therefore it may be regarded as certain that he too made concessions. Unfortunately we have to guess what they were. Not improbably they extended to an acknowledgment of the suzerainty of Antiochus, although all we are told is that the expeditionary army, which was now about to direct its march towards India, had its commissariat richly replenished by the Bactrians, receiving at the same time an important reinforcement in the shape of the whole of the war- elephants that had been at the command of Euthydemus.

The second Greek invasion of India amounted to little more than a reconnaissance in force. Acoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, had died about 236 B.c., and after his death the power of the Maurya dynasty speedily declined. When Antiochus crossed the Hindu Rush and marched down the Kabul valley, he found himself in the territory of a prince whom Polybius (xi, 34) calls ' Sophagasenos, King of the Indians.' Indian history knows no ruler of corresponding-name, and it has therefore been conjectured that Sophagasenus was some local raja who had taken advantage of the decay of the Maurya empire to establish a kingdom of his own in the country west of the Indus1. Whoever he was, he plainly realized that he was quite unfit to offer an effective resistance to the seasoned troops of his adversary. At the same time Antiochus was in no mood to emulate the Indian adventure of his invincible forerunner. He had already been three years in the east. The West was calling loudly, and he had enhanced his reputation so substantially by his prowess that he could afford to be satisfied with a bloodless victory. Accordingly he accepted the submission of Sophagasenus who, like Euthydemus, revictualled his army for him and handed over a number of war-elephants. A heavy indemnity was also imposed. This last, however, Antiochus did not wait to receive. He left Androsthenes of Cyzicus behind to take delivery of the promised treasure, and himself hurried back with all speed towards Mesopotamia, choosing the route that ran through Arachosia and Drangiana (Seistan) to Carmania. Who was the lord of Arachosia when it was traversed by the Seleucid troops, it is impossible to say. It had once been A9oka. Now it may have been Sophagasenus. The numismatic evidence suggests that ere long it was Euthydemus. General Cunningham2 remarks that the silver of the last-named king ' is very common in Balkh and Bokhara, to the north of the Caucasus, and less common in Kabul, Kandahar and Seistan,' while his bronze coins, 'which are perhaps less numerous than the silver, are found in about equal numbers in Seistan and Kandahar, and throughout the Kabul valley.' Other observers describe his bronze as ' very common in As bronze was much less likely to travel outside the area of its actual currency than gold or silver, the significance of these facts is unmistakable. Where the number of specimens is so large, the possible effect of confusion with the rare coinage of Euthydemus II may safely be disregarded.

In addition to what the ' find-spots' teach, there is something to be learned from a review of the coins themselves, or at all events of the gold and silver. It has already been indicated that Euthydemus on his accession discarded the characteristic type of Diodotus, and substituted for it one which may have been familiar to him in the city where he was born and bred. Zeus the thunderer was replaced by Heracles seated to left on a rock, leaning with his right hand on his club. The device was apparently borrowed from a set of silver tetra-drachms struck at the cities of Cyme, Myrina, and Phocaea, in Western Asia Minor, during the reigns of Antiochus I and II (J.H.8., 1907, pp. 145 ff.). It is universal on the gold and silver of Euthydemus, but two varieties of it are readily distinguishable. On the gold and on much of the silver the rock upon which Heracles sits is bare, while the lower end of his club is supported by a short and somewhat unnatural-looking column of stone (PL III, 1). On the remainder of the silver the rock is covered with a lion-skin, and the lower end of the club is apparently resting on the god's thigh (PL III, 2). The whole of the coins belonging to the second class bear the monogram [;. and have their dies adjusted t f. The first class, on the other hand, comprises three or four different groups, each having a characteristic letter or monogram other than j£. The rule here is for the dies to be adjusted 4 t, but there are a considerable number of exceptions (M) which may fairly be presumed to be later, seeing that M is invariable in subsequent reigns. The appearance of these particular monograms is a new phenomenon on the Bactrian coinage. As they usually persist through a long series of years, they cannot be interpreted as magistrates' names. They should rather be regarded as the names of mints, a view which is confirmed by occasional minor variations of type and by certain subtle peculiarities of style, such as the thin ' spread' fabric which is characteristic of many of the £ coins of the earlier kings.

The mere increase in the number of royal mints may not unreasonably be held to prove that the dominions of Euthydemus were more extensive than those of his predecessor. It would seem that, soon after the Maurya empire began to crumble away, he possessed himself—it may be at the expense of Sophagasenus—of the Paropanisadae and Arachosia, possibly also—although as to this the coins are less definite—of some of the other districts which Seleucus I had ceded to Chandragupta. His silver tetra-drachms are very common, and so too are more or less clumsy barbarous imitations, many of which appear to date from a relatively late period. Without doubt his money must have circulated widely, and must have enjoyed a high reputation for quality. Bactria under his sway clearly reached a pitch of prosperity such as she had never before attained. And his reign must have been a long one. The abundance of his coinage suggests this. The great variety of the portraits proves it Even after every allowance has been made for the mannerisms of different artists and of different mints, a comparison of the head on PL III, 1, with the head on PL III, 2, will be felt to be conclusive. The latter, which is an admirably realistic piece of work, is obviously intended to represent a very much older person than the former. It is on the strength of this evidence that the death of Euthydemus is generally supposed to have taken place about 190 B.C.

We have seen that under Euthydemus the frontiers of the Bactrian kingdom were pushed southwards until they included at least the whole of the lower portion of Afghanistan. But this was not the only direction in which expansion had become possible. The Indian expedition of Antiochus the Great, if it had had no other result of importance, had revealed the feebleness of the resistance that a properly equipped army was now likely to encounter in an invasion of the Punjab. We may be* sure that, after the Seleucid forces had withdrawn, the eyes of Euthydemus were turned longingly towards the Land of the Five Rivers. He may actually have annexed it. If he did, it was probably only towards the close of his reign, for he would hardly have ventured to put so ambitious a design into execution until he felt secure from interference at the hands of Antiochus HI, and that he can scarcely have done before about 197, when the latter became hopelessly involved in the meshes of the anti-Roman policy which was to prove his ruin. In any event the real instrument of conquest was his son and successor, Demetrius, of whose romantic career one would like to believe, with Cunningham, that a far-off echo has survived in Chaucer's picturesque description of 'the grete Emetreus, the king of Inde.' Demetrius had been a youth of perhaps seventeen or eighteen, when he acted as intermediary between his father and Antiochus. He would thus be between thirty and thirty- five when his reign as king began, an age that agrees well with the most characteristic portrait on his coins (PL III, 3). Years before, he had probably been married to a Seleucid princess, in accordance with the promise made during the peace negotiations. If so, nothing whatever is known about her; the view that she was called Laodice is based upon evidence that admits of an altogether different interpretation. It should be noted that in the coin- portrait he is represented as wearing a head-dress made of the skin of an elephant, an animal closely associated in those days with India. It is not impossible, therefore, that some of his Indian laurels may have been won, while he was still merely crown-prince. The reverse type which he chose for his silver might easily be interpreted as pointing in the same direction. Heracles remains the patron-divinity, but he is no longer taking his ease on a rock ; he is standing upright, placing a wreath upon his head (PL III, 3). The inference here suggested is identical with that drawn from somewhat different premises by Cunningham, who argued that the subjugation of part of India by Demetrius during his father's lifetime would account for certain facts regarding the provenance of the bronze money of Euthydemus. Single specimens of this are occasionally met with in the Western Punjab, and several were found in the bed of the Indus at Attock in 1840, while raising a sunken boat. It is, however, a serious flaw in Cunningham's reasoning that he did not distinguish between the coins of Euthydemus I and those of the grandson who bore the same name.

In whatever circumstances the Indian campaigns of Demetrius may have been inaugurated, there can be no question as to their brilliant outcome. Unfortunately the true extent of his territorial acquisitions can no longer be exactly determined. Strabo, in the passage (xi, 516) which is our chief authority on the point, is quoting from Apollodorus of Artemita, and the original reference of Apollodorus is merely a casual one. He is drawing attention in passing to the remarkable way in which the kingdom of Bactria expanded beyond its original limits, and he mentions incidentally that the kings chiefly responsible were Demetrius and Menander. The advance towards Chinese Tartary which he records may well have been the work of Demetrius or of his father Euthydemus. But, as Menander left a far deeper mark on the traditions of India than did Demetrius, it would be unreasonable to give the latter credit for subduing the whole of the Indian districts that Apollodorus enumerates. Yet there is nothing to show where the line should be drawn. It is probably safe to say that Demetrius made himself master of the Indus valley. When we try to take him further, we enter a doubtful region. It is, indeed, sometimes stated that he fixed his capital at Sangala or Sagala, which he called Euthydemia in honour of his father. But, if the statement be probed, its value is considerably diminished. It is not certain, though it may be very likely, that the 2.dyya\a of Arrian (v, 22) is the same as the £070X0 fj Kcu Ev6v/j.eSeia (al. JLvOvftrjSia) of Ptolemy (VII, 1, 46). Granted, however, that the two may be identical and may both represent the Pali Sagala (Sialkot), it is necessary, in order to establish a connexion with Demetrius, to resort to conjecture and to substitute Evdv&rjpia for the Evdvpe&eia of the manuscripts, a proceeding which is plausible enough in itself but nevertheless open to challenge. More satisfactory, if much vaguer, evidence of the firmness of the footing that he gained to the south of the Hindu Kush is furnished by one or two very rare bronze pieces, which have the square shape characteristic of the early native coinage of India. That they were intended for circulation there, is clear from their bearing a bilingual inscription—Greek on the obverse, Kharoshthi on the reverse. It is significant that on these the king employs the title of dviici)To<; or ' the Invincible.' As usual, he is wearing a head-dress made of the skin of an elephant.

The very success of Demetrius appears to have proved his undoing. As a direct consequence of his victories, the centre of gravity of his dominions was shifted beyond the borders of Bactria proper. The home-land, however, was not content to degenerate into a mere dependency. A revolt ended in the establishment of a separate kingdom under Eucratides, a leader of great vigour and ability, about whose rise written history has little or nothing to say. Justin (xli, 6) tells us that his recognition as king took place almost simultaneously with the accession of Mithradates I to the throne of Parthia. As Mithradates succeeded his brother Phraates I about 171 B.c., we may accept von Gutschmid's date of 1/5 as approximately correct for Eucratides. The beginning of his reign was stormy. He had to face attacks from several sides, and on at least one occasion he was hard put to it to escape with his life. Demetrius, who was now king of India—that is, of the country of the Indus,—not of Bactria, and who was naturally one of his most determined foes, had reduced him to such straits that he was driven to take refuge in a fort with only 300 followers. Here, if we may believe Justin (loc. cit.), he was blockaded by a force of 60,000 men under the personal command of his rival. The odds were tremendous. But his resourcefulness carried him safely

xvi i] Euthydemus II 447

through; for more than four months he harassed the enemy by perpetual willies, demoralising them so thoroughly in the end that the siege had to be raised. This is the last we hear of Demetrius. It is uncertain whether he died a natural death as king of India, or whether he fell defending his territory against Eucratides, into whose possession a considerable portion of it ultimately passed. The close of his reign is sometimes given as circa 160, but the date is a purely arbitrary one. As we shall see presently (infra, p. 457), there is good ground for believing that the conquest of the Punjab by Eucratides was earlier than 162.

At this point it becomes necessary to notice a group of four or five kings, whose existence is vouched for solely by the money which they struck, but who must have been to some extent contemporary with the two who have just been discussed. Appreciation of the evidence will be facilitated by a further glance at the silver coinage of Demetrius who, by the way, does not seem to have struck any gold. It will be observed (PL III, 3) that he is the first of the Bactrian kings to be represented with his shoulders draped; and from his time onwards that feature is virtually universal. But he is also the last to be shown with one end of the royal diadem flying out behind, and the other hanging straight down his back, a method of arrangement that had persisted steadily in Bactria since the reign of Antiochus I (see PL II, 9-14, and PL HI, 1 and 2). Again, on the great majority of the surviving specimens of his coinage, his bust on the obverse is enclosed within the circle of plain dots which had hitherto been customary. On the other hand, in a few cases, the circle of plain dots is replaced by the so-called bead-and-reel border, which is familiar from its use on the issues of Antiochus the Great and later Seleucid kings, and which is invariably found on the tetradrachms of Eucratides and his son and successor Heliocles (PL IV, 4-9). These differences, coupled with other and less obvious nuances of style, will supply valuable guidance in determining the period to which one ought to assign the pieces that have now to be described. It has already been mentioned (supra, p. 443) that after the reign of Euthydemus, the dies are always adjusted f t

Of the four or five groups of coins to be discussed, we may take first the tetradrachms and smaller denominations of silver which have on the obverse a youthful bust with draped shoulders, and on the reverse a figure of Heracles standing to front, much as on the coins of Demetrius, except that, besides having one wreath on his head, he holds a second in his extended right hand (PL III, 4). The legend on these pieces is BAIIAEQZ EYGYAHMOY, and most of the older numismatists, including Cunningham, were disposed to attribute them, like those with the seated Heracles, to the father of Demetrius. Since von Sallet wrote, however, it has been generally agreed that this view is not tenable. Stylistic considerations compel the acceptance of an alternative theory, first advocated by Burgon, to the effect that they were struck by a second and later prince, in all probability the eldest son of Demetrius, on whom his grandfather's name would in ordinary course be bestowed. Attention may be called more especially to the draped shoulders and to the treatment of the diadem. Nor is it possible to account for the differences on local rather than on chronological grounds, inasmuch as the mint-marks on the two sets of coins are often identical. Confirmation is furnished by a few nickel pieces, likewise reading BAZIAEQ1 EYGYAHMOY, although showing no portrait Nickel was not used by Demetrius, and therefore it was presumably not used by his predecessor, Euthydemus I. On the other hand, we shall presently find it employed by two of the remaining kings of the group now under discussion. So peculiar an alloy — it does not appear again in any part of the world until quite recent times — is clearly characteristic of one particular epoch. The case for a second Euthydemus is thus irresistible. And that for a second Demetrius, whom we may suppose to have been a younger brother, is very nearly as strong. The coins of Demetrius II are very rare, but two or three tetradrachms and drachms are known. The obverse displays a youthful bust with draped shoulders and a novel arrangement of diadem ends, while the reverse has a figure of Athena, standing to front with spear and shield (PL III, 5). The legend is BAIIAEQZ AHMHTPIOY. Here again the appearance of a new type is significant, and the differences in the portrait cannot be set aside as due to local idiosyncracy, for the mint-mark which the coins with Athena bear occurs also on coins having the usual types of Demetrius the elder. Lastly, and this is highly important, of the two tetradrachms in the British Museum here attributed to Demetrius II, one has a bead-and-reel border, and cannot therefore be much, if any, earlier than the beginnings of the coinage of Eucratides, when a youthful portrait of Demetrius I would, of course, be highly inappropriate.

The Cambridge History Of India In Six Volumes Volume I Ancient India  Edited By E. J. Rapson, M.A. Professor of Sanskrit In The University Of Cambridge, Fellow Of St John's College. New York Macmillan Company 1922

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