Menander I Soter (saviour) ruled an Indo-Greek Kingdom from 165/155–130 BCE and extended his territory the farthest into India of any of the Indo-Greek kings. As his name shows, he was a Greek, born to the descendants of Alexander’s troops that settled in the East as well as the Greeks that immigrated after Alexander’s campaign established centres of Hellenism throughout Asia. His exact birthplace is recorded in the Indian philosophical text Questions of Milinda as Kalasi (modern-day Bagram, Afghanistan). Milinda is the Indian form of the Greek name Menander.
Menander’s coins were produced with at least three different obverses: traditional right-facing portraits where he wears the diadem that symbolised Hellenistic kingship and a crested helmet to symbolise his success in war, as well as a non-traditional left-facing portrait that shows Menander viewed from behind with his head turned to the left and the aegis draped across his shoulders, holding a spear ready to throw in his raised right hand. The reverse features the advancing Athena Alcidemus that also featured on the reverse of Ptolemy’s coins. She holds her father’s thunderbolt in her raised right hand and a shield in her left, and wears the crested helmet and swallow-tail shawl. Unlike the Athena of Ptolemy’s coins she is advancing leftwards and is viewed from behind. Menander was the first to introduce Athena to Indo-Greek coinage and she became a constant from then on.
Menander’s coins buck the trend of inscriptions being only on the reverse by placing the Greek inscription on the obverse instead, in order to place an inscription in Kharosthi on the reverse. Kharosthi was a script used by different peoples all throughout modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan from the fourth century BCE until the third century CE. Menander’s coins are a fantastic visual example of the blending of East and West that occurred because of the spread of Hellenism across Asia by Alexander’s campaign: featuring a Greek-style portrait, a Persian diadem, the Macedonian Athena Alcidemus, and an Indian script.
