A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Μένανδρος), king of BACTRIA, was, according to Strabo (11.11), one of the most powerful of all the Greek rulers of that country, and one of those who made the most extensive conquests in India. Plutarch tells us that his rule was mild and equitable, and that he was so popular with his subjects, that the different cities under his authority, after vying with each other in paying him funeral honours, insisted upon dividing his remains among them. (De Rep. Ger. p. 821.) Both these authors term him king of Bactria; but recent inquirers are of opinion that he did not reign in Bactria Proper, but only in the provinces south of the Paropamisus, or Indian Caucasus. (Lassen, Gesch. d. Bactr. Kön. p. 225, &c.; Wilson's Ariana, p. 282.) According to Strabo (l.c.), he extended his conquests beyond the Hypanis or Sutlej, and made himself master of the district of Pattalene at the mouths of the Indus. These conquests appear to have been related by Trogus Pompeius in his forty-first book (see Prol. Lib. xli.), but they are omitted by Justin. The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean sea, commonly ascribed to Arrian, tells us (p. 27, ed. Huds.) that silver coins of Menander and Apollodotus were still in circulation in his day among the merchants of Barygaza (Baroach); and they have been discovered in modern times in considerable numbers in the countries south of the Hindoo Koosh, and even as far east as the Jumna. (Wilson, p. 281.) The period of his reign is wholly uncertain.

[E.H.B]