1840.] from Bactrian and Indo- Scythian coins. 673 



subjects. On this fact we have the authority of Plutarch and 

 Strabo.* 



Secondly ; the respective passages, more carefully considered, 

 do not render it necessary to consider Menandros as a king of 

 Bactria, but they are rather at variance with this view. 



Plutarch makes no mention of Menandros but accidentally; and 

 the great conqueror is so little known to him, that he calls him, 

 ^^ one Menandros.'^ As now even Strabo, though he had before 

 him the book of ApoUodoros of Artemita, the very best authority 

 for this history, does not distinguish in a remarkable manner the 

 separated dominions of the Greeks in India, a fact fully estab- 

 lished by the evidence of the coins ; we cannot be surprised, that 

 Plutarch in later days, confounded the separate Indian empire 

 with the Bactrian one. The expression he uses, does not there- 

 fore obUge us to consider Menandros as king of Bactria. 



Strabo, when summing up in his passage the greatest extent 

 of power on the whole, any where attained by those Greeks 

 who rendered Bactria independent, mentions Menandros as the 

 sovereign who advanced farthest towards India; but he is not 

 named there as king of Bactria, nor does this follow from a 

 passage conceived in such general terms as this is. If we do not 

 explain this passage as intended to give a general view, but ra- 

 ther limit the facts mentioned to Menandros and Demetrios, 

 they would be considered by Strabo as those that stirred up 

 Bactria against the Seleucides, and who had also possessions in 

 the country of the Scythian nomades ; now the first statement 

 would be false, and the second improbable. 



Lastly ; the following passage, (Prolo. Trog. Pomp, xli) 

 ^^ Indices quoque res additae, gestae per ApoUodotum et Me- 

 nandrum, reges eorum. Bactria was, it is true, already mentioned, 

 but why should this prevent a suspicion, that in such an ex- 

 tract the expression was too concisely given, and that instead of 

 explaining '^ eorum '' by ^^ BactrianoruMy^ we should not ra- 

 ther supply ^^ Indorunv'^ from " Indicee ? ^^ 



* Plutarcli de Kep. Ger. p. 821. 

 MtvavSjOov ^k Tivog tv ^uKTpoig iirieiKioQ j3a(JiXtv(TavTog, ura 

 aTToOavovTog ctti (JTpaToire^ov k. r. X. 



Strabo. xi. p. 516. We shall hereafter examine this passage. 



