Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/249

 KADPHISES I 211 The coins of Abdagases, the son of Gondophares' brother, are found in the Panjab only, while those of Orthagnes occur in Kandahar, Sistan, and Sindh. It would seem that the Indo-Parthian princes were gradu- ally driven southward by the advancing Yueh-chi, who had expelled the last of them from the Panjab by the end of the first century A. D. 1 For a period of some two centuries after the begin- ning of the Saka and Parthian invasions, the northern portions of the Indian borderland, comprising probably the valley of the Kabul River, the Suwat valley, and some neighbouring districts to the north and northwest of Peshawar, remained under the government of local Greek princes, who, whether independent or subject to the suzerainty of a Parthian overlord, certainly exer- cised the perogative of coining silver and bronze money. The last of these Indo-Greek rulers was Hermaios, who succumbed to the Yueh-chi chief, Kadphises I, about 50 A. D., when that enterprising monarch added Kabul to the growing Yueh-chi empire. The Yueh-chi chief at first struck coins jointly in the name of himself and the Greek prince, retaining on the obverse the por- trait of Hermaios with his titles in Greek letters. After a time, while still preserving the familiar portrait, he substituted his own name and style in the legend. The next step taken was to replace the bust of Her- maios by the effigy of Augustus, as in his later years, and so to do homage to the expanding fame of that 1 The successors of Gondophares seem to have followed in this order : Abdagases, Orthagnes, Arsakes, Pakores, Sanabares.