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Drachm - Diomedes
| Issuer | Kings of Baktria |
|---|---|
| Year | 95 BC - 90 BC |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 2.4 g |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, depicted standing facing, each holding a long spear upright, a standard reverse type among Indo-Greek rulers evoking Hellenistic divine patronage. A dynastic monogram appears to the left of the figures, with Kharosthi lettering distributed in the field providing the Prakrit royal titulature. The composition is enclosed within a beaded border, and the rendering reflects the hybrid Greco-Indian artistic conventions typical of the Baktrian mint tradition. |
| Reverse script | Kharosthi |
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| Additional information |
Diomedes is one of the more obscure Indo-Greek kings, known almost entirely through his coinage rather than any surviving literary record. He ruled a fragment of the collapsing Baktrian Greek world during the late 2nd to early 1st century BC, a period when the Indo-Greek kingdoms had splintered into a patchwork of competing dynasts, many controlling little more than a mint town and its hinterland. His bilingual issues — Greek on one side, Kharoshthi on the other — confirm he operated east of the Hindu Kush, likely in the Paropamisadae or Gandhara region.
Bopearachchi places him in a relatively tight chronological bracket based on die linkages to neighboring rulers rather than any fixed historical anchor.