Telephus Euergetes

Introduction

Telephus Euergetes was a late Indo-Greek ruler active in the region of Gandhara; modern authorities place him around 75–70 BCE (Bopearachchi) while another assessment (Senior) dates his rule to about 60 BCE. He appears among the brief, weak successors of the Indo-Scythian king Maues; his coinage preserves only two monograms that he inherited from Maues, and he overstruck coinage of the earlier king Archebius.

His extant coinage is rare and idiosyncratic. Silver issues, mostly drachms with a few tetradrachms, feature on the Greek side a serpent-footed monster holding the stems of two plants and on the Kharoshthi side two deities usually identified with Helios and Selene. Bronze coins display a seated Zeus on the obverse and a squatting man holding either a spear or a palm branch on the reverse. None of his coins bear his portrait, an uncommon feature in Indo-Greek numismatics; this absence has led some scholars to propose a non-Greek, possibly Saka, background, but his dynastic ties remain undocumented. His epithet Euergetes, meaning “the Benefactor,” is otherwise unattested among Indo-Greek rulers. Telephus’s rule is chiefly remembered through these distinctive and rare coins; the serpent-monster motif later reappears on bronzes of Hippostratus. The circumstances of his death and precise succession are not securely recorded.