618 Note on some Sculptures found in Peshawar. [No. 7. 



king mentioned under that name, because the Indian expedition of this 

 prince brought him alone of the monarchs who bore it personally in 

 contact with any Indian sovereign. From this he argues that the 

 princes named not being contemporary, no deduction as to the date of 

 the inscription can be drawn from their mention. 



But this inference is scarcely borne out by facts. The kingdom of 

 the promulgator of the pillar edicts must have extended much along 

 the present N. W. Frontier of British India, indeed somewhat 

 beyond it. 



Up to 255 or 256 B. C. the whole of the country lying west of this, 

 owned the sway of the earlier Syrian monarchs — of Seleucus Nicator, 

 Antiochus Soter and Antiochus Theos. We have no evidence of rebel- 

 lion against them ; on the contrary we know that even the coin of 

 these countries was struck in their names. 



Hence it is reasonable to presume that they exercised a general 

 superintendence over the government ; that they received reports of 

 the administration ; and issued their mandates to the local governors, 

 and that they drew into their treasuries if not the whole surplus 

 revenues, at least a considerable tribute from each district, that, in 

 short they kept up such a general official intercourse with their orien- 

 tal dominions as would make their names familiar, and even the cur- 

 rent course of events in the west generally known to their subjects in 

 the east. 



Commerce too which we have evidence was both at an earlier and a 

 later period carried on via Pontus between the nations of Southern 

 Europe and Central Asia must have lent its aid to familiarize the peo- 

 ple of the Greek dominion of the East with the names and occurrences 

 of the West. 



But further than this, it is expressly recorded both by Strabo and 

 Athenaeus (De Pentapotamia Indica, p. 44) that the friendship which 

 existed between Chandra Gupta and Seleucus was continued by 

 their sons, and that an embassy went also from Antiochus Soter to 

 Palibothra. 



Surely it is far more probable that through channels such as these 

 the royal author of the pillar edicts (being as he expressly states on 

 friendly terms with the Syrian monarch) should have deemed an 

 accurate knowledge of the names and circumstances of his neighbours 



