Kalliope (queen)
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Kalliope ( Greek: Καλλιόπη) was an Indo-Greek queen and wife of Hermaeus, who was a Western Indo-Greek king of the Eucratid Dynasty. He ruled the territory of
Paropamisade Paropamisadae or Parapamisadae (Greek: Παροπαμισάδαι) was a satrapy of the Alexandrian Empire in modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, which largely coincided with the Achaemenid province of Parupraesanna. It consisted of the districts ...
in the
Hindu-Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province ...
region, with his capital in Alexandria of the Caucasus (near today's Kabul, Afghanistan). Their reign dates from the first quarter of the first century BC.


Coinage

Kalliope and Hermaeus jointly issued silver, Indian-Standard Drachms. The obverse featured diademed and draped busts of them both. The reverse shows the king on a prancing horse, which is characteristic motif of the contemporary Greek kings in the eastern Punjab such as Hippostratos. It has been suggested that the coin represented a marital alliance between the two dynastic lines. Coins have been found in Peshawar and near Mohmand. They were also part of the assemblage of the Sarai Saleh hoard and 928 were found in the first Mir Zakah deposit.Bopearachchi, Osmund
"RECENT DISCOVERIES OF COIN HOARDS FROM CENTRAL ASIA AND PAKISTAN NEW NUMISMATIC EVIDENCE ON THE PRE-KUSHAN HISTORY OF THE SILK ROAD."
''Proceedings of the Symposium on Ancient Coins and the Culture of the Silk Road''. 2011.
Some of these coins are found overstruck with dies in the name of Artemidoros. The depiction of the wife on Indo-Greek coins is otherwise not common, so that it can be assumed that Calliope played a special role (perhaps in the marriage policy of the Indo-Greek states).


Historiography

Whilst Kalliope has been referred to as Hermaeus' wife by W W Tarn and A K Narain, S K Dikshit suggested that Kalliope appeared older in her portrait and as such perhaps was Hermaeus' mother.{{Cite journal, last=Dikshit, first=S. K., date=1952, title=THE PROBLEM OF THE KUṢᾹṆAS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE VIKRAMA SAṀVAT, url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41784638, journal=Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, volume=33, issue=1/4, pages=114–170, jstor=41784638, issn=0378-1143


References

1st-century BC women Indo-Greeks Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Ancient queens consort