Antimachus I

Antimachus I
Indo-Greek king
Portrait of Antimachus I.
Reign	171–160 BCE

Anthimachus I Theos (Greek: Ἀντίμαχος Α΄ ὁ Θεός; known as Antimakha in Indian sources) was one of the Greco-Bactrian kings, generally dated from around 185 BC to 170 BC.

Tarn and numismatist Robert Senior place Antimachus as a member of the Euthydemid dynasty and probably as a son of Euthydemus and brother of Demetrius. Other historians, like Narain, mark him as independent of Euthydemid authority, and probably a scion of some relation to the Diodotid dynasty. He was king of an area covering parts of Bactria and probably also Arachosia in southern Afghanistan (see under coins). Antimachus I was either defeated during his resistance to the usurper Eucratides, or his main territory was absorbed by the latter upon his death.

Apparently adding to the argument against direct Euthydemid familial connections, is a unique tax-receipt that states:

"In the reign of Antimachos Theos and Eumenes and Antimachos... the fourth year, month of Olous, in Asangorna, the guardian of the law being... The tax collector Menodotus, in the presence of... who was also sent out by Demonax, the former... , and of Simus who was... by the agency of Diodorus, controller of revenues, acknowledges receipt from... the son of Dataes from the priests... the dues relating to the purchase." A tax receipt from Hellenistic Bactria.

That Antimachus would list his own associate kings argues strongly against the suggestion that he was appointed as a Northern associate ruler of Euthydemus and Demetrius, an idea that anyway is more or less unprecedented among Hellenistic kings. Eumenes and Antimachus could be his heirs; it was standard by Ptolemaic and Seleucid kings to include their sons as joint regents, with variable formal or actual power. While Eumenes never issued any coins; a king named Antimachus II Nikephoros later appeared in India. It seems plausible that the Indian Antimachus was identical with the son of Antimachus I, but it is unclear whether his reign in India overlapped with his father' reign in Bactria.