Агафокл I: Греко-бактрийлік патша және монеталарының тарихы

Agathocles I Dicaeus (Ἀγαθοκλῆς Δικαῖος, the epithet means "the just") was a Greco Bactrian/Indo Greek king, who reigned between around 190 and 180 BC, likely of the dynasty of Diodotus I, due to his commemoration of Antiochus Nicator.

There is a near complete lack of written sources except an extensive coinage. Agathocles was first discovered by Johann Martin Honigberger in 1834, with hordes of coins being discovered at a rapid pace. No sooner had Desiré Raoul Rochette held him to be the founder of the Bactrian dynasty than he was rejected by Christian Lassen, who felt that Agathocles was a contemporary of Demetrius and Eucratides I. Legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ, ("King Agathocles")</small>]]
Agathocles' father may have been Diodotus II, and he would therefore have been illegitimate. Bronze and silver mints were commonplace. Copper mints having significant Nickel were discovered by Flight in 1868; François Widemann believes them to have had an intermediate value between bronze and silver.

Agathocles issued a series of coins mentioning a variety of rulers. 1. Zeus standing with goddess Hecate. This coin is in bronze. 3. Hindu god Balarama Samkarshana with attributes. Greek: "King Agathokles". 4. Hindu god Vāsudeva Krishna with attributes. Brahmi: "Rajane Agathukleyasa", "King Agathokles". In 1880, a coin of the same kind struck by Agathocles but "commemorating" Alexander, Son of Philip was published by Percy Garnder of British Museum. In the early mid 1900, Hugh Rawinson and William Tarn would extrapolate Gardner's ideas to further their visions of a grand Hellenistic past where Agathocles had faked his pedigree and Eucratides I was carrying out the orders of Antiochus IV to reestablish the Seleucid control. More varieties of these coins would be discovered later. The precise context of minting and significance is still not clear. Monolingual coinage (in Kharosthi) of similar kinds have been discovered. These finds have led scholars to conclude that Agathocles favored socio religious tolerance.

On 3 October 1970, six Indian standard silver drachmas were discovered at the administrative quarters of Ai Khanoum from a pilgrim's water vessel by a team of French archaeologists. These coins are the first numismatic representations of Vedic deities and serve as key evidences about Bhagavatism being the first form of Vaishnavism in early India. The coins display early Avatars of Vishnu: Balarama Sankarshana with attributes of pestle and plow on reverse, and Vāsudeva Krishna with attributes of Shankha and Sudarshana Chakra on obverse. These coins used the symbolism of Dionysos with a thyrsus over his left shoulder and his panther, which were his type for smaller coinage. It has long been suggested that the nickel contained in the coins of Agathocles was ultimately of Chinese origin (Chinese Baitong, 白铜, "white copper"), and that they were indicative of the existence of trade links with China around that time. However, a recent archaeometallurgical study of trace elements has shown that nickel in these coins actually came from natural nickeliferous copper ore.

[[File:Agathukleyasa Agathokles. jpg|thumb|upright=1|Identical regnal names Agathuklayesa (Brahmi: 𑀅𑀕𑀣𑀼𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀮𑁂𑀬𑁂𑀲) and Agathokles (Greek: ΑΓΑΘΟΚΛΕΟΥΣ) on a bilingual coin of Agathocles, used by Christian Lassen to decipher securely the first Brahmi letters. The first successful attempts at deciphering the ancient Brahmi script of the 3rd 2nd centuries BCE were made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen, who used the bilingual Greek Brahmi coins of Indo Greek kings Agathocles and Pantaleon to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters. The task was then completed by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company, who was able to identify the rest of the Brahmi characters, with the help of Major Cunningham. In a series of results that he published in March 1838 Prinsep was able to translate the inscriptions on a large number of rock edicts found around India, and provide, according to Richard Salomon, a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet.