In order to save much repetition in the text, the principles followed in this book on these two matters are set out here.

It has been widely believed that the monograms on the Greek coins from Bactria and India, or most of them, denoted mint-cities; and even to-day, I understand, it is thought that some of them must be mints, though one numismatist has stated that they may sometimes ‘denote the name of the local magistrate under whose authority the coin was struck’. Yet Cunningham's laborious effort to work out the mint-cities from these numerous monograms was a complete failure, and it is admitted that, after many years of study, no single monogram of any mint has been identified, while on the other hand the types of at least two mint-cities, the ‘Zeus enthroned’ of Alexandria-Kapisa and the humped bull of Pushkalāvati, are perfectly certain.

Why it was ever supposed that the Greek kings in the East would make such a radical breach with Seleucid custom I cannot imagine; the continuity between the eastern Greek kingdoms and the Seleucid realm is as marked as that of other Seleucid Succession states, indeed in many ways more so; this book has, I trust, shown the trouble taken by both houses, that of Euthydemus and that of Eucratides, to prove that they were Seleucids. No one seems ever to have doubted that the Seleucid monograms represent moneyers, and the Seleucid system of monograms at the Antioch mint has been elucidated by Mr E. T. Newell; the monograms are those of continuing mint-masters and changing city magistrates.