| Classical Numismatic Group > Triton XXVII Online Sessions | Auction date: 17 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 5166 Price realized: 800 USD (Approx. 735 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | Show similar lots on CoinArchives Find similar lots in upcoming auctions on  |
| Lot description: KINGS of PONTOS. Mithradates VI Eupator. Circa 120-63 BC. AR Tetradrachm (32mm, 16.01 g, 11h). Pergamon mint. Dated month 9, year 223 BE (June 74 BC). Diademed head right / Stag grazing left; to left, star-in-crescent above monogram; to right, ΓKΣ (year) above monogram; Θ (month) in exergue; all within Dionysiac wreath of ivy and fruit. Callataÿ dies O48/R7, a (this coin); HGC 7, 340; DCA 692; SNG Ashmolean 201 (same obv. die); Davis 186 (same obv. die); Pozzi 2100 (same obv. die). Toned, broken and repaired, areas of heavy scratches, edge marks. Near VF. SOLD AS IS, NO RETURNS. From the Kalevala Collection. Ex Kunker 376 (18 October 2022), lot 4608; Münz Zentrum XLVI (21 April 1982), lot 107. Mithradates was a fascinating Hellenistic at a time with Roman power was ascendent. His career, driven by megalomaniacal ambitions, led to murderous assaults upon family and followers alike and disastrous foreign adventures against superior forces. His portraiture attempts to mimic the gods with its bold staring gaze and unruly, free-flowing hair, but at its most extreme is a personification of hysteria in its Dionysiac sense. At the age of 18, Mithradates overthrew his mother's regency and embarked on a career of conquest, bringing most of the lands around the Black Sea into his domain. His expansionist aims inevitably brought him into conflict with Rome, and in preparation for the coming war he built up the largest army in Asia, unleashing it in 88 BC in what would be the First Mithradatic War. He sought to undermine the Roman power base by ordering the massacre of every Roman citizen in Asia in which nearly 80,000 people perished. The Romans were not intimidated, and when Mithradates crossed over to Greece proper as 'Liberator', the Roman legions under Sulla smashed his army. Mithradates retreated to Pontus, from where he continued to skirmish with the Romans, suffering more defeats to the general Lucullus. In 63 BC, having suffered a final defeat by Pompey and facing a revolt by his own son Pharnakes, the elderly king tried to commit suicide by taking poison, but he had inured himself to its affects by years of small counterdoses, and so had to be stabbed to death by one of his mercenaries. Estimate: 500 USD |  |
