A Trip Around the World through Time from my Second Ancient Coin (A Menander Drachm)

Hi folks! It's been ages since I checked in last. Today my second, very long-awaited ancient coin came in the mail.



This tiny coin, which is about the diameter of a dime, though considerably thicker, is a silver drachm minted during the reign of Menander I Soter (i.e. "Savior"), an Indo-Greek king ruling at various times over areas that are now parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India. The Indo-Greek kingdom won its independence from the Seleucid Kingdom, which was founded by the Greeks who went with the Macedonian king Alexander the Great into the Middle East and beyond. Interestingly, "Soter" is also a title used by the Macedonian King Ptolemy I of Egypt. This coin has been dated to 155-130 BC/BCE.

The obverse reads: "BASILEOS SOTEROS MENANDROU," (literally, "Of King Menander, the Savior"), and features a beautiful bust of Menander with very well-defined facial features, wearing a headpiece. For a coin this small, the high relief of the bust surprises me, and I am also quite happy to see an amazing amount of detail that was first imprinted onto the coin, and which has still stood the test of time.

The reverse features an equivalent Prakrit-language legend written in the Kharosthi script: "Maharaja Tratarasa Menadrasa." Kharosthi is an abugida: a syllabary whose symbols represent a consonant and a vowel together. Kharosthi itself ultimately derives from the Aramaic script of the Achaemenid Empire, most likely during the time of Darius the Great (approximately 522-486 BC/BCE).

The Kharosthi script was actually deciphered in the 19th century by British and German scholars using ancient Indo-Greek coins, including those of Menander. Once they had deciphered the script, they were able to read the Kharosthi and also the Brahmi sections of the Edicts of Ashoka.

As some of you may know, Ashoka was a famous Buddhist conqueror King in the third century BC/BCE. His edicts were written in three languages using four scripts (Greek, Prakrit (scripts were Brahmi and Kharosthi), and Aramaic. The edicts themselves speak of Buddhist missionaries sent as far as the Mediterranean. In this regard, many scholars have noted the commonalities between some ancient Greek thought at this time, and Buddhism; there may be some actual connections there. For example, Hegesias of Cyrene was a philosopher thought to have been influenced by Buddhist thought. Hegesias lived in Cyrene, which was ruled by one Magas, who is mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka as having received Buddhist missionaries. Additionally, some scholars think that the practice of Buddhist monastic living influenced the community of the Essenes, who would prove to have an important influence on the development of early Christianity. (For more on this claim, see in the linked article on the Edicts of Ashoka, above.)

The reverse of this drachm shows a helmeted deity, Athena Alkidemos, ("Athena, defender of the people," the patron deity of Pella in Macedonia) holding a thunderbolt. I particularly like the fact that I can see the face in the center of the shield that Athena Alkidemos is holding. To the lower right of Athena Alkidemos is a mintmark, one of many used on Indo-Greek coins. The figure of Athena Alkidemos would be used on the Indo-Greek coins after Menander, so this design stuck for some time.

Menander, the most successful of all the Indo-Greek kings, has three notable mentions that I am aware of in the Classical sources. One of these is a completely offhand mention by Plutarch, in his Political Precepts (not his Moralia, as mistakenly indicated in one Wikipedia entry). Plutarch mentions Menander as an example of how a just king is revered by his subjects:

But when a certain man named Menander, who had been a good king of the Bactrians, died in camp, the cities celebrated his funeral as usual in other respects, but in respect to his remains they put forth rival claims and only with difficulty came to terms, agreeing that they should divide the ashes equally and go away and should erect monuments to him in all their cities. (Political Precepts 28.6. Source here.)
​

In his Geography, Strabo characterized Menander as having conquered more of India than Alexander the Great.

As for Bactria, a part of it lies alongside Aria towards the north, though most of it lies above Aria and to the east of it. And much of it produces everything except oil. The Greeks who caused Bactria to revolt grew so powerful on account of the fertility of the country that they became masters, not only of Ariana, but also of India, as Apollodorus of Artemita says: and more tribes were subdued by them than by Alexander—by Menander in particular (at least if he actually crossed the Hypanis towards the east and advanced as far as the Imaüs), for some were subdued by him personally and others by Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus the king of the Bactrians; and they took possession, not only of Patalena, but also, on the rest of the coast, of what is called the kingdom of Saraostus and Sigerdis. In short, Apollodorus says that Bactriana is the ornament of Ariana as a whole; and, more than that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. (Geography, 11.11.1 Source here.)​

So what does all that mean, exactly? Something like this:



(Map source here.)

A third interesting reference to Menander in the Classical sources is to be found in a koine Greek periplus, which I just learned is a kind of sailor's logbook indicating the locations and distances of ports and coastal landmarks. The specific work Menander is mentioned in is called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. It is thought by scholars to have been the work of a Greek subject of the Roman Empire living in Egypt, and is now dated to between 40 to 50 AD/CE.

What the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea has to say here actually relates to the acceptance of Menander's coins in trade in the part of India now known as Gujarat:

...there are to be found on the market in Barygaza even today old drachmas engraved with the inscriptions, in Greek letters, of Apollodotus and Menander, rulers who came after Alexander. (Source here.)​

This longevity of Menander's coins in India itself is quite interesting, as this was about two hundred years after the coins were minted.

Menander's capital was at Sagala, which is believed to be on the site of modern Sialkot in Pakistan, close to the Indian border. Both Sagala and Barygaza are indicated on the map above.

During the time of Menander, the Indo-Greeks were invaded by Eucratides, the Baktrian king. It seems that Menander was successful in stopping the expansion of the Bactrian king Eucratides into the Indo-Greek kingdom. If so, this is quite interesting, because the coins of Eucratides are among the finest in all of numismatic history, and Menander's, while still lovely, are just not as nice. Perhaps Eucratides spent too much time on numismatic concerns instead of strategic ones!

What makes Menander really special, though, is his apparent conversion to Buddhism, as recounted in the ancient Buddhist text Milinda Pañha, traditionally known in English as The Questions of King Milinda, who is identified as our Menander. I've just purchased a copy of this work, and running at 500 pages, it will certainly take me some time to finish it. Like many ancient documents, it is a composite text, which means that various additions have been added to make the final product that we have today. A shorter version in Chinese exists as well, but that does not appear to have ever been translated into English. I hope to return at some point in the future with a new post featuring some interesting quotes from that work. The Questions of King Milinda ostensibly represents a series of conversations between a Buddhist monk named Nagasena, and King Menander. In it, they discuss philosophy and other matters.

Indeed, it is an interesting fact that the Indo-Greek kings Zoilos I and Strato I, who succeeded immediately after Menander, added a new title in Kharosthi to their coins: "dhramikasa," meaning "Follower of Dharma." Dharma, of course, is a well-known Buddhist concept relating to right thoughts, right actions, right words, and so on. The famous Buddhist king Ashoka called himself the "King of Dharma." With inscriptions like these, we have come a long way from the Mediterranean Greek times of Alexander the Great.

This tiny little coin, then, connects a lot of disparate worlds. The king whose portrait it displays was a descendent of the polytheistic Greeks around the Mediterranean, but his realm was far away, as he controlled parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The Kharosthi script used to record the Prakrit legend is itself dependent on the Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, and was deciphered by British and German scholars in the 19th century. That decipherment, based on the study of the Indo-Greek coins, including Menander's, opened the way up for the reading of the Prakrit sections of King Ashoka's edicts, which are key pieces of evidence for the study of early Buddhism. And early Buddhism, in turn, seems to have had some effect on certain strands of ancient Greek philosophy, while the Buddhist practice of monasticism may have influenced the development of the ancient Jewish Essene sect, which would go on to have a significant influence on the development of early Christianity.

If any of you are still here at the end, thanks for reading!

 

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A wonderful, educational article. Thank you. I learned something tonight.

 

Sir, I applaud you for such an interesting write-up. If you choose to log in more regularly to Coin-Talk in the future, it will be to the benefit of all of us

Very nice coin, and a nice Menander drachma has been in my wishlist for a while. And they are affordable too, which is a bonus. Everybody has heard of Alexander the Great, but not many people know the extend of the Greek presence and influence on the region that is modern-day India. There are actually still to this day some tribes in Pakistan that look Caucasian and have a culture and language with many Greek traces. Some say that they are descendants of Alexander's army, and even though we don't know to what extend this may be true, we can confidently say that they have strong connections to the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people

 

Thank you very much for the write up , I have a coin of one of the successors of Menander, it came in a lot and I like it:

 

Congratulations Nathan on a very well researched and well written essay. Thanks for sharing it with us. Looking forward to more....

SC

 

Magnificent coin and writeup, @Nathan B. It's really fantastic when you and our other intrepid Baktrio- /Indo-Greek and other South Asian guys get into the combined political and cultural dynamics like this. Does a Lot to give the rest of us the traction we need with this whole part of the world.

 

Thank you for the enjoyable writeup @Nathan B. Nice.

Following some of the main players in your story...

MENANDER


Indo-Greek Baktria Menander I Soter BC 155-130 AR Tet 26mm 9.6g Diad - Athena Alkidemos tbolt Gorgon shield SNG ANS 764-767


ASHOKA


India Maurya ser VIB AR Karshapana punchmark 270-175 BC ASHOKA


EUKRATIDES

Baktria Indo Greco-Baktrian Kingdom Eukratides I Megas 170-145 BCE Dioscuri AE Quadruple Unit

 

Thank you very much, Mammothtooth!

 

Sorry for the double reply--I was trying to add the fact that I learned a lot while writing to my original reply to you.

 

Thank you, Poor man! I appreciate the kind words and share your fascination with this fascinating part of the world. And I agree that the Menander drachms are affordable. I spent about 14% on this one of the amount that I spent on the Athenian tetradrachm that is my avatar. (In fairness, I probably overpaid for that one.)

 

Thank you very much, Andres2, Otlichnik and +VGO.DVCKS. I appreciate the kind words and am glad that you enjoyed the write up.

And Andres2, I hope to one day get a coin of Hermaios, too!

 

Thanks, Alegandron! I appreciate your kind words, and also your illustration of some of the players in my story, like Eucratides and Ashoka. You have an amazing collection, and I have always very much admired your collecting habits!

 

Really interesting, educational and professional essay. Congrats...

 

While the coin is quite nice on its own, the fact that it drove you to such an in depth study is even better. I might add that this particular coin is available with more than one variation. My drachm below shows the heroic bust.

Below is a 14mm square AE fraction from Menander with belled elephant and club. The obverse, Greek legends are the same. The reverse legends seem to match around the sides but I do not know the reading of the exergue of the drachm. The monograms (mintmarks?) of my two coins match but differ from other examples on this page. The AE has an A in right field (denomination? One unit?). I do not know what fraction of the drachm this AE unit represents. Anyone?

 

Thanks so much, @Nathan B., for the fascinating and highly informative post. And welcome back to the forum.

 

Terrific write-up and coin.

This drachm of Menander is one of my first ancients, bought back in 1990. This one differs from the OP, with left-facing bust with spear, and the reverse featuring Athena with an aegis, rather than a shield (or a squid got attached to her arm):



Indo-Greek Kings Drachm
Menander I
(c. 160-130 B.C.)
BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΣΩTHPOΣ / MENANΔPOY Diademed bust left, spear in right hand /Kharoshthi: maharajasa tratarasa menamdrasa, Athena Alkidemos standing right with thunderbolt & aegis, monogram.
Bop 6C; MIG 221d.
(2.15 grams / 18 mm)

Note: "At some point relatively early in Menander's reign, the legend was changed to a discontinuous format in which the first two words were placed in an arc at the top of the coin and the king's name in an arc at the bottom. This was probably issued early in the series, as it retains the front-facing representation of Athena (with aegis, not shield)" (CoinIndia.com)

 

Thank you very much for your kind words, Doug. I appreciate them a lot!

In regards to your question quoted above, I believe you are talking about the four letters at the bottom of the reverse, is that right? If so, I believe it is Menander's name, indicated as "Me-na-dra-sa." I'm completely certain about the first and the last, reading from right to left, but I can't really see how the "na" should be a "na" (if in fact it is). I suppose with varying styles we can get the other letter to be "dra." I'm working from the assumption that CoinIndia's transcription of "menandrasa" really should be rendered "menadrasa." You can see some coins with the same exergues here: http://coinindia.com/galleries-menander.html.

 

Thank you so much for the kind words 7Calbrey.

Thank you also, MarsyasMike. Nice coin, too, and I also like the joke! ;-)

And Donna, thank you very much, for your kind words and welcome back. I missed interacting with you here on these forums!

 

Man, the Chola dynasty was around FOREVER. Just a random thought prompted by the map.

 

Thank you, Nathan for your article on this little known, for me, part of the ancient world. I am afraid that my knowledge of Bactria and the successive Indo-Greek kingdoms end with Alexander's retreat from India in the later part of the 4th century BC, which is to say next to nothing. From that point on, aside from my interest in the imitative Athenian coins of Bactria and other adjoining kingdoms, there is a void, a void which has been filled by your illuminating article.

There is a connectedness to the world, then and now, and it is always a pleasure to understand another dimension to this web of history.

I do have some Bactrian coins, as well as an Indo-Greek tetradrachm that I hope to photograph, perhaps tomorrow.

In the meantime, here is my little Bactrian obol of Eucratides. MIG 181a, Bop 9C.

.69 grams



Welcome back.