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Amyntas Nicator

indo-Greek king

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ482098
Source-derived summary

Amyntas Nicator (Ancient Greek: Ἀμύντας Νικάτωρ, Amýntas Nikátōr, meaning "Amyntas the Victor") was an Indo-Greek king. His coins have been found both in eastern Punjab and Afghanistan, indicating that he ruled a considerable territory.

Date

Bopearachchi places Amyntas c. 95–90 BCE, whereas Senior places him c. 80–65 BCE.

Coinage

Amyntas struck mainly bilingual silver coins with a variety of portraits. The obverse of these coins show the king wearing either a diadem alone, a kausia hat, or two different types of helmets. Most of these bear the reverse of a sitting Zeus holding a victory palm and a small figure of Athena, which according to R. C. Senior may have indicated an alliance between the house of Menander I and the house of Antialcidas. Some of his coins feature the reverse of fighting Athena typical for Menander's descendants. The epithet Nikator (Victor) was previously used only on the Bactrian coins of Agathocles to commemorate a certain Antiochus, almost a century before Amyntas' reign.

Amyntas, likely meaning "defender", was a common Macedonian name.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Amyntas Nicator” is indo-Greek king. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Amyntas, Nicator and indo-Greek, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current 172-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date -0100. For this dossier, Amyntas, Nicator and indo-Greek is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “indo-Greek king” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q482098. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Amyntas Nicator”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Amyntas Nicator primary sources, Amyntas Nicator archive and Amyntas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Amyntas Nicator”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Amyntas Nicator” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.