Editing Sophytes

{{Infobox royalty
| name            =Sophytes<br />ΣΩΦΥΤΟΥ
| title           =Ruler or Satrap
| image= [[File:Sophytes hemidrachm.jpg|300px]]
| caption         =Coin of Sophytes.<br />'''Obv:''' Sophytes in profile with tight helmet and wreath.<br />'''Rev:''' Cock standing to right, with [[caduceus]], and legend in Greek: ΣΩΦΥΤΟΥ "of Sophytes".
| reign           =circa 300 BCE
| coronation      =
| full name       =
| predecessor     =
| successor       =
| spouse          =
| issue           =
| royal house     =
| dynasty         =
| father          =
| mother          =
| birth_date   =
| birth_place  =
| death_date   =
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| date of burial  =
| place of burial =
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|}}
'''Sophytes''', or '''Saubhuti''',<ref name="Rapson1955">{{citation|last=Rapson|first=Edward James|title=The Cambridge History of India, Volume 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gYg8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PR23|year=1955|publisher=CUP Archive|pages=23–|id=GGKEY:FP2CEFT2WJH}}</ref> was the name of a king in [[Bactria]] or the northwestern [[Indian subcontinent]] during the time of the [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]]'s invasion. Sophytes surrendered to Alexander and was allowed to retain his kingdom. Probably another Sophytes, who was [[satrap]] in the eastern territories conquered by [[Alexander the Great]], minted his own coins in the Greek style circa 300 BCE.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Holt |first1=Frank Lee |title=Alexander the Great and Bactria: The Formation of a Greek Frontier in Central Asia |date=1988 |publisher=Brill Archive |isbn=9004086129 |pages=96–97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VSA4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA96 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sastri |first1=Kallidaikurichi Aiyah Nilakanta |title=Age of the Nandas and Mauryas |date=1988 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=9788120804661 |page=127 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YoAwor58utYC&pg=PA127 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Frye |first1=Richard Nelson |title=The History of Ancient Iran |date=1984 |publisher=C.H.Beck |isbn=9783406093975 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0y1jeSqbHLwC&pg=PA163 |language=en}}</ref> [[E. J. Rapson|Rapson]] and some others have considered them as the same person.<ref name="Rapson1955"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sastri |first1=Kallidaikurichi Aiyah Nilakanta |title=Age of the Nandas and Mauryas |date=1988 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |isbn=9788120804661 |pages=126–127 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YoAwor58utYC&pg=PA126 |language=en}}</ref>

==Sophytes the Iranian ruler==
Sophytes is described in classical sources as a ruler in the [[Bactria]] and Punjab region between the [[Hydraotes]] and the [[Hyphasis]] in the area of the [[Salt Range]], who submitted to Alexander and was, thereby, permitted to retain his realms.<ref name="Heckel">Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great: Prosopography of Alexander's Empire, Waldemar Heckel
John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p.267 [https://books.google.com/books?id=NR4Wn9VU8vkC&pg=PT267]</ref> He made a demonstration of four Indian dogs fighting a lion to Alexander.<ref name="Heckel"/><ref name="Rapson"/>  Sophytes is described as ruling along the Indus during the campaigns of Alexander the Great, in the [[Bibliotheca historica|Bibliotheca]] of [[Diodorus Siculus]]. [[Quintus Curtius Rufus|Curtius]] also records an interview between the tall and handsome Sophytes and Alexander.

{{Blockquote|"Next he undertook a campaign against the cities under the rule of Sopeithes. These are exceedingly well-governed. All the functions of this state are directed toward the acquiring of good repute, and beauty is valued there more than anything. (...) Their king Sopeithes was strikingly handsome and tall beyond the rest, being over four cubits in height. He came out of his capital city and gave over himself and his kingdom to Alexander, but received it back through the kindness of the conqueror. Sopeithes with great goodwill feasted the whole army bountifully for several days." [[Bibliotheca historica|Bibliotheca]] of [[Diodorus Siculus]] Book 17<ref>[[Bibliotheca historica|Bibliotheca]] of [[Diodorus Siculus]] Book 17 [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/17E*.html]</ref>}}

Sophytes is mentioned by [[Diodorus]] (XVII.91-92), Curtius (IX.1.24-35) and [[Arrian]] (VI.3).

==Sophytes the satrap==
[[Image:EasternSatrapsAfterAlexander.jpg|thumb|Sophytes may have succeeded [[Stasanor]] in Bactria or ruled in a neighboring area.]]
Possibly another Sophytes is also known from his abundant Greek coinage dated circa 300 BCE. Little is known about him and hypotheses are numerous: Sophytes may have been a Hellenistic [[satrap]] who replaced [[Stasanor]] in [[Bactria]]-[[Sogdiana]], or may have ruled in a neighboring area;<ref name="Holt">Alexander the Great and Bactria: The Formation of a Greek Frontier in Central Asia, Frank Lee Holt, Brill Archive, 1988, p.97 [https://books.google.com/books?id=VSA4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA97]</ref> he may also have been a [[Satrap]] of [[Arachosia]].<ref name="Sartre">[https://books.google.com/books?id=y2FU_PS03MQC&pg=PT183 Histoires grecques, Maurice Sartre, Le Seuil]</ref>

His rich and formal Greek coinage is however generally considered as [[Bactria]]n due to the distribution of the finds, and due to the coin types, of [[Athena]] with owl and eagle reverses, which are a clear continuation of the [[Attic]] coinage and the preceding anonymous Bactrian coin types derived from it.<ref name="Holt"/>  The coinage of Sophytes is often dated to 305-294 BCE<ref>{{Cite web | title=Baktria, Kings, Sophytes - Ancient Greek Coins - WildWinds.com | url=http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/baktria/kings/sophytes/ | access-date=2024-12-24 | website=www.wildwinds.com}}</ref>

Sophytes may also have been the [[Mauryan Empire]] satrap of Arachosia, succeeding [[Sibyrtius]], after Seleucus had ceded the Hellenistic territory of Arachosia to [[Chandragupta Maurya]] in the [[Seleucid–Mauryan war]] (305–303 BCE).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bernard |first1=Paul |last2=Pinault |first2=Georges-Jean |last3=Rougemont |first3=Georges |title=Deux nouvelles inscriptions grecques de l'Asie centrale |journal=Journal des Savants |date=2004 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=301 ff |doi=10.3406/jds.2004.1686 |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/jds_0021-8103_2004_num_2_1_1686}}</ref>

<gallery widths="150px" heights="75px" perrow="4">
File:Attic drachm Athena type Middle East 4th century BCE.jpg|Attic drachm, Athena type, Middle East, 4th century BCE. A precussor of the Sophytes coins.
File:Bactrian imitation of an Athenian drachme.jpg|Pre-Seleucid Athenian owl imitation from Bactria, possibly from the time of Sophytes.
File:Attic drachm Athena type Central Asia 4th century BCE.jpg|Attic drachm, Athena type, Central Asia, 4th century BCE. A precussor of the Sophytes coins.
File:Sophytes CHI.jpg|Coin of Sophytes, clearly derived from these previous Attic coins.<ref name="Holt"/>
</gallery>

==Ethnicity==
[[File:Whitehead Coins of the Punjab Museum Plate IX Sophites.jpg|thumb|300px|Coin of Sophytes.
'''Obv:''' Sophytes in profile with tight helmet and wreath.
'''Rev:''' Cock standing to right, with [[caduceus]], and legend in Greek: ΣΩΦΥΤΟΥ "Sophytes".]]
Sophytos is not a Greek name.<ref name="Mair">The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry, Jan Kwapisz, David Petrain, Mikolaj Szymanski, Walter de Gruyter, 2013, p.284-287 [https://books.google.com/books?id=G1qXOcPy-dYC&pg=PA284]</ref> Scholars, including [[Sylvain Lévi]], have suggested, based on Panini, that the name Sophytes may be equated with the name Saubhūti, but there is no conclusive proof of this. It is not clear if this king Sophytes is the same as the individual named Sophytes on coins discovered in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, or whether he was a later dynast based in Bactria. E.J. Rapson thinks that they are one and the same.<ref name="Rapson">Ancient India: From the Earliest Times to the First Century AD, E. J. Rapson
Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.152 [https://books.google.com/books?id=AKn3p64hGycC&pg=PA152]</ref>

Sophytes has been subject to a lot of speculation, with Indian origin at one end of the spectrum and Greek at the other. Cunningham identifies him with the Indian King [[Fobnath]] of "Sangala," (a name some read as "Saka-town") while A. C. L. Carlleyle connects him with the same king's son [[Suveg]], which is more likely in light of the identification of Fobnath as a royal title rather than a name; potentially making him a [[Madra]] of [[Saka]]/[[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] origin. Cunningham believes the Sobii and Kathaei to have been his subjects, whom he asserts were Turanians, making them of the same stock as the [[Saka]] or [[Indo-Scythians]]. Sagala was the capital of the later [[Indo-Greek]] dynasty of [[Menander I]] for several generations, and that Menander himself struck several coins with a similar reverse, suggesting that his dynasty inherited the older king's mints when he took the city for himself.

[[John D. Grainger]] however, identifies him as a Greek dynast; [[Frank L. Holt]] speculating that he was a mercenary captain who minted coins simply to meet the needs of his troops. In light of his coin type, he may have been a local official, installed (although he may have been an older official, reinstated or simply recognized) by Seleucus after he took the region.

Another Sophytes is known from the [[Kandahar Sophytos Inscription]], who may or not have been related to this Sophytes.<ref name="Sartre"/>
==Alexandrian appraisal==
According to Strabo, a mining survey by Alexandrian mining engineer [[Gorgus]] of  the region under the newly conquered land from Sophytes by [[Alexander the Great]] had plenty of gold and silver, implying the lack of expertise in mining technology of the Indians under Sophytes.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=NR4Wn9VU8vkC&dq=gorgus+sophytes&pg=PT142 Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great] by Waldemar Heckel {{ISBN|978-1-4051-1210-9}} </ref>

==Sources==
* ''Age of the Nandas and Mauryas'', Nilakantha Shastri, Motilal Banarsidass (1967)
* ''Hellenism in Ancient India'', Gauranga Nath Banerjee, Munshiram Manoharlal.
* ''Archaeological Survey of India - Report of Tours in the Central Doab and Gorakhpur in 1874-75 and 1875-76'', A. C. L. Carrleyle and Maj. General Arthur Cunningham, Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. 
* ''Symbols: Their Migration and Universality'', Count [[Eugene Goblet d'Alviella]], Dover Publications.
* ''The Greeks in Bactria and India'', Sir W. W. Tarn, Ares Publishers.
* ''A Seleukid Prosopography and Gazetter'', John D. Grainger, Brill.
* ''Thundering Zeus: The Making of Hellenistic Bactria'', Frank L. Holt, University of California Press.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal |last1=Härtel |first1=Stefan |title=Thoughts on the Iconography of the Sophytos Coinage |journal=DABIR |date=2024 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=162–174 |doi=10.1163/29497833-20230008|url=https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/44061 }}

==External links==
* [http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/baktria/kings/sophytes/ Coins of King Sophytes]

[[Category:Year of birth missing]]
[[Category:294 BC deaths]]
[[Category:Indo-Greek kings]]
[[Category:Euthydemid dynasty]]