Menander I
Menander I Soter (Ancient Greek: Μένανδρος Σωτήρ, romanized: Ménandros Sōtḗr, lit. ' Menander the Saviour '; Pali: Milinda; sometimes called Menander the Great) was a Greco-Bactrian and later Indo-Greek King (reigned c. 165 /155 –130 BC) who administered a large territory in the Northwestern regions of the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia. Menander is noted for having become a patron and convert to Greco-Buddhism and he is widely regarded as the greatest of the Indo-Greek kings.

Menander might have initially been a king of Bactria. After conquering the Punjab, as far as Taxila, he established an empire which stretched from the Kabul River in the west to the Indus River in the east, and from the Swat River valley in the north to Arachosia (the Helmand Province).

According to Numismatist Joe Cribb and archaeologist Rachel Mairs, the accounts of Menander’s kingdom stretching as far as Sialkot, is hard to believe, as there is no numismatic evidence of him east of Taxila, even more hard is to believe is stretching even further east as thought earlier by historians based upon Indian references, which most likely are referring to Kushans.

Large numbers of Menander’s coins have been unearthed, attesting to both the flourishing commerce and longevity of his realm. Menander was also a patron of Buddhism, and his conversations with the Buddhist sage Nagasena are recorded in the important Buddhist work, the Milinda Panha ("The Questions of King Milinda"; panha meaning "question" in Pali). After his death in 130 BC, he was succeeded by his wife Agathocleia, perhaps the daughter of Agathocles, who ruled as regent for his son Strato I. Buddhist tradition relates that he handed over his kingdom to his son and retired from the world, but Plutarch says that he died in camp while on a military campaign, and that his remains were divided equally between the cities to be enshrined in monuments, probably stupas, across his realm.
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