Sogdian copy of a tetradrachm of Euthydemus I

A Sogdian copy of a tetradrachm of Euthydemus I. On the front of the coin is a young man with a diadem on his head, looking to the right. On the back is a sitting Heracles, naked, turned left and holding a club in his right hand. He is surrounded by text in Sogdian.

Euthydemus I was the ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom from 230 to 195 BCE. Preceded by the Seleucid Empire, the kingdom was founded when Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria, seceded from the empire and proclaimed himself King of Bactria. The easternmost of the Hellenistic kingdoms, it reached as far as Central Asia at its largest. Despite its geographical location, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was a Greek kingdom and its rulers were Hellenistic kings who spoke Greek and worshipped Greek gods.

Taking these factors into account, it is interesting that the texts of this coin were not written in Greek but probably in Sogdian, which was written in Syriac and Manichean script, both descended from the Aramaic alphabet. The texts of most of Euthydemus I’s coins are in Greek, and the reasons for the divergent texts of some of the coins are not known. One theory is that this was a “barbaric” copy of the tetradrachms struck by Euthydemus. Another possibility is that it was a Sogdian version of Euthydemus’s coins, for it is believed that, before his kingship, Euthydemus acted as satrap of Sogdia, which might explain the other language version of his coins.