256 Lassen on the History traced [No. 99. 



fallacious. The external outlines of the Bactrian empire, and 

 of those Indian states that originated in it, come out already 

 more distinctly in connection with many detached facts of their 

 internal formation. From things scarcely noticed, while the loss 

 of written accounts on the fate of those empires, viz. the Bac- 

 trian, and the Indian, (for more to suppose, there was no reason) 

 was lamented, even from those neglected things we have deriv- 

 ed that unexpected benefit, and this from a quarter whence it 

 was least hoped for. There have been found coins of those very 

 kings at the seats of their former dominions in Bactria, on the 

 banks of the Cabul river, and in North-western India. These are 

 the most authentic sources we can desire, and what assistance 

 coins may supply, where written accounts do not exist, has long 

 been evident from the history of the Seleucides and Arsacides. 



It is the design of the following pages to examine those newly 

 acquired relics, in a light under which they have been hitherto 

 looked on as least likely to afford results to the historical inves- 

 tigator. I do not intend to relate here the history of these newly 

 cultivated numismatics, chiefly because my work is not to be 

 a numismatical treatise. It is rather for the numismatical in- 

 quirer, who may hereafter compare all the coins of the Bactrian 

 and Indian empires, and the Greek kings, to relate that history. 

 Here the following outlines may suffice. 



Since Bayer wrote, and before the last rich discoveries, 

 some few single coins arrived in Europe by different ways, 

 and were then published. Being merely unconnected, and 

 scarcely supplying single deficiencies, they still excited the 

 hope, that by degrees so much might be collected, as in time 

 to yield more important advantages : — thus the coins receiv- 

 ed through Russia, which Koehler in Petersburg, and Tychsen* 

 at Gottingen have described, and likewise those which were 

 previously collected by Tod in India, and afterwards publish- 

 ed in England, f 



This state of things continued till the year 1834, when 



* The latter in the Comentt. Recentt. Gottingg. v. vi. ct. phil.; the 

 former in detached little treatises. 



t In tlie transactions of the Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ire- 

 land, vol. i. p. 313. 



