Who Founded the Indo-Greek Era of 186/5 B.C.E.?

Abstract

The kingdom of Bactria (c. 250-130 B.C.E.) was an important Hellenistic state, based on a substantial settlement of Greeks who inhabited the fertile valleys of northern Afghanistan and apparently became well integrated with its original Iranian population. Due to the lack of written sources its history has however been obscure and the chronology, at least after the third century B.C.E., reconstructed primarily from coins. It is however generally agreed that soon after 200 B.C.E., the weakening of the Indian Maurya Empire enabled the Bactrian Greeks led by Demetrius I (c. 200-185 B.C.E.), the son of Euthydemus I, to cross the Hindu Kush and make conquests as far as Punjab and the Indian coast. 1 After the death of Demetrius I, who left only a young heir Euthydemus II, a number of kings emerged rapidly in Bactria and an independent kingdom was established outside of the Hindu Kush, in ancient 'India'. Bactria collapsed around 130 B.C.E. under the combined pressure of nomad incursions and wars with the Parthians, while some Indo-Greeks-despite their isolation from the Hellenistic world-remained independent for more than another century. The most important Indo-Greek 2 king, Menander I (c. 155-130 B.C.E.), presumably even led a second wave of conquests and converted to Buddhism. Demetrius I himself never issued any Indian coins. This does however not belie his Indian conquests: neither did Alexander the Great, and issuing coins is the task of an administrator, not a conqueror. The Bactrian kings Pantaleon and Agathocles, both adjacent to Demetrius, were the first to issue bilingual coins in the Kabul valley and Gandhara, mostly bronzes meant for local circulation. Agathocles was challenged in Bactria by Antimachus I: the datings are uncertain enough to allow for all of these kings to have ruled in 185 B.C.E.or closely afterwards. DATED INDO-GREEK INSCRIPTIONS There were in fact no exact datings until the finding of a Buddhist reliquary which was dated as belonging to year 201 of the Yonana (Kharosthi for Greek) era (see R. Salomon [2005]). As the inscription also gave the year 73 of the era of the Saka king Azes from 57 B.C.E., it was established that a so-called Indo-Greek era was inaugurated in 186/5 B.C.E.. The finding place of the reliquary was unfortunately unknown, but there are unambiguous examples of this era being used in the first