Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society 198 (2009) Jens Jakobsson www.alexandersarvtagare.se or jens.jakobsson@spray.se INDO-GREEK CHRONOLOGY c.200-145 BCE by Jens Jakobsson Introduction This is an attempt to evaluate Bactrian chronology from c. 200-145 BCE. The roles of Eukratides I and Menander I, as well as Justin’s enigmatic ‘Demetrius, king of the Indians’, will be central. The article will argue that Justin’s Demetrios belongs to the period late in Eucratides’ reign and cannot be identified with Demetrios I, that there were two kings named Antimachos whose rules were not related, and that Bopearachchi’s chronology from 1991 (BNBact) is with some adaptations still the best reconstruction. Bactrian chronology, 2 nd century BCE One such adaptation was made by Bopearachchi himself: he moved the death of Demetrios I, the son of Euthydemos, to c.185 BCE (moving the consequent kings as well). Demetrios was a young man in 205 BCE when Antiochus the Great besieged Bactria (Polybius, Histories, XI.34), he succeeded his father Euthydemos peacefully and went on to make conquests in Arachosia, the Kabul valley and Gandhara. A reign of fifteen years fits well with how he ages slightly on his coin portraits. The relationships between the kings who followed Demetrios I have been treated elsewhere (Jakobsson, 2008), and the relative chronology of this group is well established. It seems likely that Antimachos I and perhaps Agathokles were dethroned by Eukratides I. This was one of the most important Bactrian kings, but only one source mentions Eukratides’ relations to other Greek kings. ‘Almost at the same time that Mithridates ascended the throne among the Parthians, Eucratides began to reign among the Bactrians; both of them being great men […] Eucratides, however, carried on several wars with great spirit, and though much reduced by his losses in them, yet, when he was besieged by Demetrius king of the Indians, with a garrison of only three hundred soldiers, he repulsed, by continual sallies, a force of sixty thousand enemies. Having accordingly escaped, after a five months’ siege, he reduced India under his power. But as he was returning from the country, he was killed on his march by his son, with whom he had shared his throne, and who was so far from concealing the murder, that, as if he had killed an enemy, and not his father, he drove his chariot through his blood, and ordered his body to be cast out unburied.’ Justin (Epitome XLI:6 1 ) This paragraph has been the subject of much criticism. Justin was a late Roman historian whose work Epitome is essentially a collection of anecdotes from historian Pompeius Trogus; his account is not seldom vague, sensational and incoherent. It is frustrating that Eucratides’ relations with important kings whom coins have shown were his contemporaries are neglected. But Justin had a good source, and perhaps his account can be reconciled with the numismatic evidence. That Eukratides came to power around the 1 Translation by Rev. John Selby Watson, 1853