142 Translation of some Greek legends of the [No. 2. 



demus, and Demetrius,* to have been the only purely Greek monarchs 

 of Bactria ; their title king, and their proper name simply, in the 

 genitive case of the Greek, are given upon the coins as yet found, which 

 have issued from their mint. 



Eukratides, B. C. 181, (I give Bayer's and "Wilson's chronology) is the 

 first who gives signs of orientalisation, though in style of workmanship 

 his silver tetradrachms are exquisite medallic specimens. He ceases 

 to be simply king on all his coins : he becomes on some of them great 

 king, and upon one, — the authority for this however is doubtful, — king 

 saviour. The source of this amplified title is explained in the obverse 

 of some only of his coins. His name as king ; his title in Greek as 

 great king ; in Greek letters, are explained in the local dialect of the 

 land he had adopted, and he appears in Pracrit as Maharaja. We 

 may trace on the one hand in the sparse employment of the Pracrit 

 legend in the case of this monarch, and on the other in the singular 

 bungling manner in which some native artist doubtless has tried his 

 hand at the Greek characters (v. this Journal, June 1835, PI. XXV. 

 fig. 5), of his amplified title, signs of the fusion going on between the 

 conquerors, and the conquered. His coins contribute to our vocabula- 

 ry the word fxeyaXos great, and perhaps o-iorrjp saviour. 



The name of Eukratides with the word yueyas occurs in conjunction 

 with that of Heliokles, and Laodice on an unique coin procured by Dr. 



* The reasons for which I identified with this king the name of a supposed 

 Mayes, or Maius, are given in the January number of this Journal for 1840. Pro- 

 fessor Wilson has done me the honour to state my argument (Ar. Ant. C. IV. 

 p. 313. 4to.) ; which is he states, " annihilated" by the discovery of an undoubted 

 king Mayes whom he places with justice among the barbaric princes of Cabul. A 

 comparison of the pure Greek type of the Maius Demetrius coin (Ar. Ant. Plate 

 VIII. fig. 18.) and its Greek inscription only, with the barbaric Mayes having a 

 Pracrit legend, and an oriental title, " Great king of kings" {ut supra fig. 10, 

 Plate VII. fig. 5,) might have satisfied the Professor that I have not in a numismatic 

 sense endured annihilation, that my classical argument is good as applied to a 

 classical subject, and that Maius Demetrius with his caduceus and Greek matrony- 

 mic, and Mayes the barbarian, now treading on a prostrate figure, " now" sitting 

 cross-legged on a couch " are not the same persons." Maius, paios il filius Maise," 

 (Hor.) or Mercury; and Mayes, the Deus Lunus (mao, moon, Zend.) of a Scythic 

 horde are easily separable. 



H. T. 



