Agathocles of Bactria
Template:Infobox royalty Agathocles I Dicaeus (Template:Langx, meaning "Agathocles the Just") was a Greco-Bactrian/Indo-Greek king, who reigned between around 190 and 180 BC. He was likely from the dynasty of Euthydemus I, but he is also known to have commemorated both Diodotus I and Antiochus Nicator.
Accounts and discovery
There is a near-complete lack of written sources except an extensive coinage.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref>
Agathocles was first discovered by Johann Martin Honigberger in 1834, with hoards of coins being discovered at a rapid pace.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref> No sooner had Desiré-Raoul Rochette held him to be the founder of the Bactrian dynasty than he was rejected by Christian Lassen, who felt that Agathocles was a contemporary of Demetrius and Eucratides I.<ref name=":7" />
Biography
Agathocles' father may have been Diodotus II, and he would therefore have been illegitimate.<ref name=":6" /> Agathocles ruled Template:CircaTemplate:Efn and was probably the immediate successor of Pantaleon; he was a contemporaneous relative (maybe, son) of Demetrius I, who was busy expanding towards India.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" />Template:Efn
He was challenged by Antimachus I.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":1" /> Depending on the results, which is not accurately ascertainable, he was either immediately ousted by Antimachus I or a few years later, by an usurper Eucratides I.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":6" />
Coinage
No gold mints have been found.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> Bronze and silver mints were commonplace. Copper mints having significant Nickel were discovered by Flight in 1868; François Widemann believes them to have had an intermediate value between bronze and silver.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Commemorative coinage
Agathocles issued a series of coins mentioning a variety of rulers.<ref name=":4" />
The first of these types was acquired by a Russian explorer Nicholai de Khanikoff from Bukhara and published by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy: on the obverse was the usual image of Diodotus but with an epithet of ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ("savior") instead of basileus and on the reverse was the usual image of Zeus but with an additional inscription that read "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΟΝΤΟΣ ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ" (Agathocles the Just, ruling as a King).<ref name=":7" /> This peculiar coinage led to significant debate among numismatists — Barthélemy had construed the coins to venerate a dead ancestor but Johann Gustav Droysen argued, to significant acclaim, that it meant Agathocles was ruling as a subordinate of Diodotus.<ref name=":7" />Template:Efn
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Agathocles' commemorative coin for Alexander the Great.
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Agathocles' commemorative coin for Diodotus I in the name of Antiochus II.
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Agathocles' commemorative coin for Euthydemus I.
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Agathocles' commemorative coin for Demetrius.
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Agathocles' commemorative coin for Pantaleon.
Precisely similar coins but commemorating other rulers were located in the following decades — Euthydemus (1858) and Antiochus (1868).<ref name=":7" /> A coin of the same kind commemorating Diodotus but struck by Antimachus was also chanced upon.<ref name=":7" /> Scholars increasingly accepted the reasoning of Droysen and Cunningham proposed that Agathocles (alongside Antimachus) first ruled under DiodotusTemplate:Efn and then under Euthydemus and Antiochus.<ref name=":7" /> The general understanding of Bactrian Kingdom around the middle nineteenth century hold all of these Kings to be contemporaneous co-rulers.<ref name=":7" /> Among the rare dissenting voices was Alfred von Sallet who asserted that these "ancestor coins" were struck for the purpose of commemoration and rejected that these rulers were contemporary, based on the design of coins.<ref name=":7" />
In 1880, a coin of the same kind struck by Agathocles but "commemorating" Alexander, Son of Philip was published by Percy Garnder of British Museum.<ref name=":7" /> That it was impossible for Agathocles to be a sub-king of someone who had ruled about two hundred years earlier, Droysen's explanation was summarily rejected in favor of Sallet.<ref name=":7" />Template:Efn Gardner proposed that these coins were struck to increase his public on the eve of an (eventually successful) challenge by Eucratides I.<ref name=":10">Template:Cite book</ref> In the early-mid 1900, Hugh Rawinson and William Tarn would extrapolate Gardner's ideas to further their visions of a grand Hellenistic past where Agathocles had faked his pedigree and Eucratides I was carrying out the orders of Antiochus IV to reestablish the Seleucid control.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":10" /> Other scholars generally avoided giving too much significance to these "ancestor coins".<ref name=":9">Template:Cite journal</ref>
More varieties of these coins would be discovered later.<ref name=":7" /> These mention Diodotus II, Demetrius II and Demetrius.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":9" /> In the last few decades, such coins have been discovered in more numbers but the accuracy of these finds remain plagued by the fact that these did not came from controlled excavations but auction networks.<ref name=":7" /> They were evaluated by scholars only after they have traveled continents and passed through multiple hands.<ref name=":7" />
It has been since accepted that these coins indeed represented Agathocles' predecessors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The precise context of minting and significance is still not clear.<ref name=":1" />
Religious coinage
Template:See also Agathocles was unique in issuing bilingual coinage.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":6" /> Meant for local circulation in Gandhara, they were typically of smaller denominations, square or rectangular in shape, and minted in bronze or silver.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1" /> The obverse had his portrait labelled in Greek while the reverse had imagery from the Buddhist as well as Hindu pantheon alongside inscriptions in Brahmi/Kharosthi.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" />Template:Efn Monolingual coinage (in Kharosthi) of similar kinds have been discovered.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref>
These finds have led scholars to conclude that Agathocles favored socio-religious tolerance.<ref name=":3" /> Osmund Bopearachchi hold him to have inaugurated the first Indo-Greek era; others have been skeptic.<ref name=":1" />
Buddhist
Buddhist symbols such as the stupa and the "tree in railing" have been located in his coins.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":3" /> These coins sometimes use Brahmi, and sometimes Kharoshthi, whereas later Indo-Greek kings only used Kharoshthi. Lakshmi, goddess of abundance and fortune, appears in several of these coins.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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Buddhist coin of Agathocles, with stupa surmounted by a star, and vegetal symbol.
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A six-arched hill symbol surmounted by a star. Kharoshthi legend Akathukreyasa "Agathocles". Tree-in-railing, Kharoshthi legend Hirañasame.<ref>Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques, Bopearachchi, p. 176</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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Agathokles coin Rajaye Agathukleya (Brahmi script).
Hindu
Obv ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ (Basileōs Agathokleous).
Rev 𑀭𑀚𑀦𑁂 𑀅𑀕𑀣𑀼𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀮𑁂𑀬𑁂𑀲 Rajane Agathukleyesa "King Agathocles".
On 3 October 1970, six Indian-standard silver drachmas were discovered at the administrative quarters of Ai-Khanoum from a pilgrim's water vessel by a team of French archaeologists.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> These coins are the first numismatic representations of Vedic deities and serve as key evidences about Bhagavatism being the first form of Vaishnavism in early India.<ref name="Bopearachchi">Osmund Bopearachchi, 2016, Emergence of Viṣṇu and Śiva Images in India: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref>
The coins display early Avatars of Vishnu: Balarama-Sankarshana with attributes of pestle and plow on reverse, and Vāsudeva-Krishna with attributes of Shankha and Sudarshana Chakra on obverse.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Bopearachchi" /><ref name=":5" />Template:Efn On the bases of the coins bearing characteristic trademarks of Indian sculpture — frontal pose as opposed to three-quarter, stiff and starched folds in drapes, absence of proportions, and sideways disposition of feet — Audoin and Bernard speculated that the engravings were by Indian artists.<ref name="Bopearachchi" /> Bopearachchi disputes the conclusion and points out the mis-representational depictions of Vāsudeva-Krishna's chattra with a headdress and conch with a high-necked vase; he hypothesizes that a Greek artist had engraved the coin from a now-lost (or undiscovered) sculpture.<ref name="Bopearachchi" />
A dancing girl, found on the obverse of some Bronze coins of Agathocles are believed to be representations of Subhadra.<ref name="Bopearachchi"/>
Nickel coins
Also, Agathocles and Pantaleon, along with their contemporary Euthydemus II, are unique in the ancient world, in that they were the first in the world to issue copper-nickel (75/25 ratio) coins, an alloy technology only known by the Chinese at the time (some weapons from the Warring States period were in copper-nickel alloy).<ref name="JN"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> These coins used the symbolism of Dionysos with a thyrsus over his left shoulder and his panther, which were his type for smaller coinage.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
It has long been suggested that the nickel contained in the coins of Agathocles was ultimately of Chinese origin (Chinese Baitong, 白铜, "white copper"), and that they were indicative of the existence of trade links with China around that time.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="JN">Template:Cite book</ref> However, a recent archaeometallurgical study of trace elements has shown that nickel in these coins actually came from natural nickeliferous copper ore.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Decipherment of the Brahmi script
From 1834, some attempts were made to decipher the Brahmi script, the main script used in old Indian inscriptions such as the Edicts of Ashoka, and which had become extinct since the 5th century CE. Some attempts by Rev. J. Stevenson were made to identify characters from the Karla Caves (Template:Circa) based on their similarities with the Gupta script of the Samudragupta inscription of the Allahabad pillar (4th century CE) which had just been deciphered, but this led to a mix of good (about 1/3) and bad guesses, which did not permit proper decipherment of the Brahmi.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The first successful attempts at deciphering the ancient Brahmi script of the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE were made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen, who used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coins of Indo-Greek kings Agathocles and Pantaleon to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters.<ref name=RHP>Template:Cite book</ref> The task was then completed by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company, who was able to identify the rest of the Brahmi characters, with the help of Major Cunningham.<ref name=RHP/><ref>More details about Buddhist monuments at Sanchi Template:Webarchive, Archaeological Survey of India, 1989.</ref> In a series of results that he published in March 1838 Prinsep was able to translate the inscriptions on a large number of rock edicts found around India, and provide, according to Richard Salomon, a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Gallery
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Another silver coin of king Agathocles. The obverse with the king's portrait wearing diadem and reverse with standing Zeus holding Hecate and sceptre.
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Another coin of Agathocles, commemorating Diodotus I Soter, with the Greek legend: ΔIOΔOTOY ΣΩTHPOΣ, "of Diodotus the Saviour". The reverse shows Zeus holding aegis and thunderbolt and advancing left.
See also
Notes
References
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