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The sequence of Menander's drachmae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

A. D. H. Bivar
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Extract

For the understanding of the period of history to which the name Indo-Greek (in perhaps more precise terminology Indo-Bactrian) is usually given, the reign of Menander has to be treated as central. For the Indo-Bactrian kingdom, this reign must have constituted the main period of stability and consolidation. Whatever we can hope to detect of Indo-Bactrian organizational structure must have assumed during those years its most coherent form. They had been preceded by several decades of expansion and improvization. The aftermath, as we shall attempt to show, was one of division, perhaps of dissension. At neither extreme could we expect a pattern of administrative continuity to stand out from so fragmentary an historical tradition. Since the evidence of texts and archaeology, despite noble efforts that have been devoted to them, is alike scanty for this episode of Macedonian government southward from the Hindu Kush to the eastern fringe of the Panjāb, it is from the copious coinage that inquiry must still be made. We may fittingly dedicate to Sir Mortimer Wheeler, excavator of Menander's capital at Chārsada, a new attempt to interpret the coinage of Menander. His own authority may be cited for the judgment that previous numismatic studies, notwithstanding great merits, have not yet revealed all that the archaeologist needs to know. In an age of technological progress, it may still be said that an excavator's finds of coins, once fully understood, could continue to provide his most accurate indication of dating. The present analysis derives from an inquiry conducted at Kabul during study leave from the School of Oriental and African Studies in the summer of 1969. The writer is indebted to H.E. Dr. Muhammad Anas, Minister of Culture and Information of the Royal Afghan Government, for permission to examine the copious material of the Mir Zakah hoard; to Dr. A. A. Motamedi, Director-General of the Kabul Museum, both for the initial invitation which made the visit possible, and for his generous allocation of the Museum's facilities while the work was in progress; and to Dr. Paul Bernard for his hospitable welcome at the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 102 , Issue 2: Studies in Honour of Sir Mortimer Wheeler , April 1970 , pp. 123 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1970

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References

1 Curiel, R. and Schlumberger, D., “Le trésor de Mir Zakah”, in Trésors monétaires d' Afghanistan (Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan XIV), Paris, 1953, 67–99.Google Scholar

2 Bivar, A. D. H., “Indo-Bactrian problems”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1965, 82.Google Scholar

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4 This conclusion is particularly suggested by the unusual drachmae of Apollodotus I from the Mir Zakah hoard, upon which various symbols appear in the field beside the figures of bull and elephant; and so suggest a close link with the punch-marked issues of the Mauryas. Cf. Curiel and Schlumberger, “Le trésor de Mir Zakah”, 87. We are not concerned here with the bilingual issues of Agathocles and Pantaleon.

5 W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, 229.

6 Narain, A. K., The Indo-Greeks, Oxford, 1957, 112.Google Scholar

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9 Below, p. 132.

10 Op. cit., 77. This conclusion, here accepted as valid, seems actually to be incompatible with their denial, expressed elsewhere, of a common mint for the Attic and bilingual issues bearing the same monogram.

11 PMC I, no. 480. Pl. I, 1, below.

12 PMC I, no. 473. Pl. I, 2, below.

13 Recent work does not support the surmise of Rapson (CHI, I, 552, n. 1) that the head of Athena upon the “owl” drachmae was intended as a likeness of Agathocleia. It seems now more probable that the issue with the bust of Agathocleia was not the first of Strato's reign, and that she was more probably his wife than his mother. In which case she need have no close connexion with Menander (cf. Jenkins, G. K., “Greek and Greco-Indian coins from the Haughton Collection”, BMQ, XXI, 1958, 72Google Scholar; Bivar, A. D. H., Numismatic Chronicle, 1965, 86).Google Scholar

14 Whitehead, R. B., “Notes on the Indo-Greeks”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1940, 105Google Scholar. All specimens with any indication of provenience seem to have come from Charsada, cf. Haughton Sale Catalogue, Sotheby & Co., April–May 1958, p. 66.

15 Cunningham, A., “An attempt to explain some of the monograms found upon the Grecian coins of Ariana and India”, Numismatic Chronicle, VIII, 1845, 178Google Scholar: “On some coins of Demetrius, Eucratides, Apollodotus and Menander, the monograms are accompanied by single letters: and on a solitary specimen of Apollodotus, there occur two separate letters with the monogram. As these letters, with a single exception, all represent low numbers, they probably denote the current years of the reigns of the different princes.” In respect of Menander this view was especially approved by Bailey, E. Clive, “On some double-struck coins of Azes”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1861, 78.Google Scholar

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19 One recalls chiefly the situation at Sidon and Ake, cf. Merker, Irwin L., “Notes on Abdalonymos and the dated Alexander coinage of Sidon and Ake”, Museum Notes, XI, 1964, 13–20.Google Scholar

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21 Curiel and Fussman, nos. 87–9 and 199–205.

22 This refinement was observed when the present analysis was nearly complete, and the suggestion offered provides a feasible explanation. It requires, however, the confirmation of a detailed die analysis, which represents a further stage of study.

23 Numismatic Chronicle, 1965, 103.

24 Ibid., p. 75.

25 Whitehead, R. B., “Notes on Indo-Greek numismatics”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1923, p. 137Google Scholar. The chronological relationship between Demetrius II and Menander is uncertain, but the bilingual coin, being in all likelihood Taxilan, is far from the area of Demetrius's own kingdom, and may well be a posthumous issue, or a fictitious issue by some unknown successor in the period of Eucratides' invasion.

26 Numismatic Chronicle, 1965, 95.

27 The last two of these are presumably of north-western location, since they appear with on subsequent coins of Zoilus. See below, p. 133.

28 Curiel and Schlumberger, Pl. VIII, 7. Pl. I, 3, below.

29 Curiel and Fussman, nos. 242–4.

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31a W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, 226, reckoned the duration of Menander's reign at 15 years.

32 C. Seltman, Greek coins, Pl. LV, 5; Lahiri, A. N., Corpus of Indo-Greek coins, Calcutta, 1965, Pl. XVI, 2.Google Scholar

33 Curiel and Fussman, nos. 207–8.

34 BM Greek and Scythic Kings, p. 16, nos. 36–7.

35 The Greeks in Bactria and India, p. 219.

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39 Plutarch, Moralia, 821D: Μεννδρου δ τινος ν Βκτροις πιεικς βασιλεσαντος εἰτ' ποθανντος π στρατοπδου, τν υν ἂλλην ποισαντο κηδεαν κατ το κοινν αἱ πλεις, περ δ τν λειΨνων αὐτο καταστντες εἰς γνα μλις συνβησαν, στε νειυμενοι μνρος ἴσον τς τϕρας πελθεῑν. κα γενσθαι μνημεῑα περ πσι τνδρς.

40 Lahiri, p. 148, type 9. For Lysias this monogram may occur in copper only. It is perhaps interesting to notice that each of the three kings directly succeeding Menander, Zoilus I Dikaios, Lysias, and Theophilus, employed the reverse type of a standing Heracles.

41 Whitehead, R. B., “Notes on the Indo-Greeks, Part II”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1947, 44.Google Scholar

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45 Lahiri, p. 148, type 9, mon. 42.

46 Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Chārsada, p. 125.