1836.] Third Memoir of Ancient Coins. 545 



ni, or as now called Ghazni ; and Sophagasenus, shewing the name 

 both of the prince and of his nation. The former, Colonel Tod tells 

 us, was Subhav or Subhag ; and as for the latter, we learn fromPLiNT 

 that the Aseni peopled three cities, their capital being Bucephalia ; the 

 ruins of this city may still be seen on the Jelum river, in the Panjab, 

 and the Yadu or Yidu hills, from which Subhav issued on his career 

 of conquest, still preserve their ancient name in Jid or Yid. This 

 branch of the Pandava family being cotemporaneous with Euthyde- 

 mus of Bactria, who is supposed to have deprived it of sovereignty in 

 the person of Raja Gaj ; it is evident, that the sway of the two first 

 Bactrian kings, Thkodotus I. and Theodotus II. did not extend south 

 of the Caucasus ; — it also is manifest that Euthydemus could have es- 

 tablished his sway over the Paropamisus only towards the close of his 

 reign ; for at the time of the expedition of Antiochus, Sophagasenus, 

 as the Greeks have it, the father of Gaj, was living. Pliny in men- 

 tioning the Aseni, is speaking of the nations which inhabited the mo- 

 dern Panjab, but it is probable that he gives the information he deriv- 

 ed from authors who flourished two or three centuries before him ; 

 and this remark may correctly apply to all he advances upon India. 

 His observations on Bactriana, Marginia, &c. he avows to have col- 

 lected from Demonax ; his testimony is not the less valuable on this 

 account, and this slight notice of the Aseni, leads us to the know- 

 ledge, that the kingdoms of Porus and Taxiles had been subverted or 

 had passed into other hands, that the Pandavas had possessed them- 

 selves of the hilly regions, west of and contiguous to the Acesines ; 

 and that Bucephalia had risen into importance, and had become the 

 capital of a dynasty. 



We had nearly omitted to refer to the monograms of the Beghrdm 

 coins. The Greek- Bactrian have chiefly alphabetical ones, which con- 

 ceal much information, never likely to be ascertained. As the same 

 monograms occur sometimes on the coins of more than one prince, 

 they may be presumed monograms of locality, and may be useful 

 to establish a connection, when other indications are wanting. The 

 Indo-Scythic coins have also monograms, but not alphabetical ones, 

 being apparently emblems of authority and religion. 



We refrain in these preliminary observations from many specula- 

 tions to which the subjects referred to might lead, — because it is possi- 

 ble that future discoveries may tend greatly to clear up the difficulties 

 which attend our present investigations into the antiquities of Bactria, 

 and which may induce very different conclusions from those we now 

 arrive at by conjecture. In the memoir of last year we indulged too 

 freely in such speculations, which occasions regret. Nevertheless, in 

 4 b 



