INDO-SCYTHIAN KINGS

Metal
No.

Obverse

Eeverse

AZES AND AZILISES

(a) Type: goddess with palm; silver > round

M
319 *

BAISAEni BASIAEflN
MEfAAOY AZOV

King r. on horseback; holds
couched lance.

Cp. B. M. Cat., PL XXXII. 9.

W. 151.
S. 1.

Unrepresented types:

(i) As on No. §19, but AZfAilOY

instead of AZOV.
Cunningham, Coins of the Sakcts,

PI, VII. 2.

Didrachm. Now in B. M. M
(ii) Similar to (i), but king holds

whip.

B. M. Cat., PI. XX. S.
Hernidrachm. JR

(iii) Herakles with wreath, club, and

lion's skin ; legend as on (i).
N. S. XIV. Cp. Nos. 254, 357.

Eect. M

Kh. legend Maharajasa raja-
rajasa maJiatasa Ayilisasa.

Goddess standing to 1.; holds
in r. hand flames and in 1. palm
bound with fillet.

Kh. mi in r. field; in 1. field
Kh. sam and M. 28.

PL XIII.

Pallas hurling thunderbolt to I.
Kh. legend as on No. S19, but Ayasa
instead of Ayilisasa.

Zeus Nikephoros; Kh. legend as
on (i).

Horse ; legend as on (i).

1 This coin is of the common type of the silver currency of Azilises and is also of
a well-known silver type of Azes. The reverse design is that of a standing female figure
with knotted hair. She does not wear a mural crown. Sir A. Cunningham remarks in
his Coins of the Sakas that it is very doubtful for whom this female figure is intended.
Professor H. H. Wilson calls her Victory, while Professor Gardner suggests a city (B. M. Cat.1).
Cunningham himself inclined to Demeter, or Tyche (Fortune). The object held on the
outstretched right hand is regarded as uncertain by Cunningham and Gardner; Mr. Vincent
Smith suggests a brazier with fire (I. If. Cat., vol. i). A comparison with the gold coins
of Huvishka on which the deity Pharro is depicted, e. g. B. Jf. Cat, PL XXVIII. 26, will,
I think, leave little doubt that the object is a representation of flames, possibly issuing from
some such receptacle as a brazier, if not from the hand itself.

In connexion with the joint coinage of Azes and Azilises, I may mention the theory of
G. Hoffmann—Ausmge aussyrischen Aktenpersischer Martyr &r, Leipzig, 1880, p. 142—that the names
are the same, one being a contraction of the other. He apparently was led to this erroneous
conclusion because he did not recognize the existence of what is really a joint type. Such
types are well known in the Indo-Greek series, e. g, joint types of Lysias and Antialkidas, of
Vonones and his relatives, and of Spaliri^es and Azes.