Apollophanes Soter (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: ;

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

means "the Saviour"; reigned c. 35 – 25 BCE) was an

Indo-Greek The Indo-Greek Kingdom, or Graeco-Indian Kingdom, also known historically as the Yavana Kingdom (Yavanarajya), was a Hellenistic-era Greek kingdom covering various parts of Afghanistan and the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent ( ...

king in the area of eastern and central

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in modern

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and

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Little is known about him, except for some of his remaining coins. The dating is Osmund Bopearachchi's, but R. C. Senior suggests approximately the same dates. Earlier scholars, such as Professor Ahmed Hasan Dani, W.W. Tarn and A.K. Narain dated Apollophanes considerably earlier, but the style and finding places of his coins make it clear that he belonged to the last line of eastern Indo-Greek kings, not long before they were overcome completely by pressure from the

Indo-Scythians Indo-Scythians (also called Indo-Sakas) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples of Scythian origin who migrated from Central Asia southward into modern day Pakistan and Northwestern India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 4th centu ...

. He may have been a relative of Apollodotus II Soter since both kings share the epithet ''Soter'' (Saviour), have names related to Apollo and use Pallas Athene as their reverse.

Coins of Apollophanes

Apollophanes issued a few debased silver drachms of the type seen above, struck with a single monogram and of little artistic quality. He seems to have been an insignificant local ruler. Apollophanes wears what appears to be a

Macedon Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled ...

ian helmet of the type seen on the

Alexander Mosaic The ''Alexander Mosaic,'' also known as the ''Battle of Issus Mosaic'', is a Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii (an alleged imitation of a Philoxenus of Eretria or Apelles' painting, 4th century BC) that dates ...

which he was the last Indo-Greek ruler to use. Apollophanes used exclusively a single "boxy" mint-mark, in keeping with late Indo-Greek kings.JSTOR article
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References

* ''The Greeks in Bactria and India'', W.W. Tarn, Cambridge University Press. * ''The Bactrian and Indus Greeks'', Ahmed Hasan Dani, Lahore Museum * ''The Indo-Greeks - Revisited and Supplemented'', A.K. Narain, BR Publishing Corporation * ''Monnaies Gréco-Bactriennes et Indo-Grecques'', Osmund Bopearachchi, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. {{DEFAULTSORT:Apollophanes Indo-Greek kings 1st-century BC rulers in Asia

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Coins of Apollophanes

See also

References

References