A meridarch or ''meridarches'' ( el, μεριδάρχης, from ''meris'', "division", and ''-arches'', "ruler") was the civil governor of a province in the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

world (4th-1st centuries BCE), and could be translated as "Divisional Commissioner". Only three mentions of meridarchs are known from ancient sources, one from Palestine, the two others from the Indo-Greek kingdom in India, one on a vase from Swat, the other on a copper plate from

Taxila Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...

Judea

Shortly after 153 BCE, Josephus relates, Alexander Balas appointed

Jonathan Maccabeus Jonathan Apphus (Hebrew: ''Yōnāṯān ʾApfūs''; Ancient Greek: Ἰωνάθαν Ἀπφοῦς, ''Iōnáthan Apphoûs'') was one of the sons of Mattathias and the leader of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea from 161 to 143 BCE. Name H J Wolf no ...

as ''

strategos ''Strategos'', plural ''strategoi'', Linguistic Latinisation, Latinized ''strategus'', ( el, στρατηγός, pl. στρατηγοί; Doric Greek: στραταγός, ''stratagos''; meaning "army leader") is used in Greek language, Greek to ...

'' (general) and meridarch (civil governor of a province) of Judea, and sent him back with honors to Jerusalem (I Macc. x. 51–66; Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 4, § 1).

Indo-Greek kingdom

Meridarch Theodorus inscription in Swat relic vase

At the far eastern end of the Hellenistic world, in northern India, an inscription in Kharoshthi has been found on a relic vase Swāt, referring to a " meridarch Theodorus" and his enshrinement of relics of the Buddha: Taxila meridarch plate

Another mention of a Meridarch appears on the

"meridarch" plate. The plate reads:

References

Ancient Greek titles Indo-Greeks Hellenistic civilization {{AncientGreece-stub