Numismatica Genevensis SA
Auction 9 14 December 2015
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The East. The Kingdom of Bactria, Eukratides, c. 170 - 145 BC. Stater, Merv, later 160s BC. (Gold, 8.47g., 18.9mm). Diademed and draped bust of Eukratides to right, wearing Macedonian helmet adorned with bull's horn and ear / ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ / ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ The Dioskouri galloping to right, each holding spear and palm branch; below right, monogram of ΔΙΦ. Bopearachi series 5, 26. Mitchiner 176.
Extremely rare, a lightly toned and splendid example. Good extremely fine.
Provenance: Numismatica Genevensis SA V, 2 December 2008, 146.
Eukratides I was probably the most powerful and important of all the Greek kings who ruled in both Bactria and in India. He overthrew the existing dynasty of the Euthydemids, very possibly with Seleucid help; in fact he may have been related to them since a special issue of coins showing his parents depict his father Heliokles as being bare-headed while his mother, Laodike, has a royal diadem (and Laodike was the name of a number of Seleucid princesses). The gold coinage of Eukratides is exceptionally magnificent: not only is there the famous and unique twenty-stater piece that has been in Paris since the 1860s, but there are very rare gold staters, as this one. These coins, which show him helmeted as a conqueror on the obverse and with his patron gods, the Dioskouri, on the reverse, must have been designed, as were so many ancient gold coinages, to pay for military needs.
Extremely rare, a lightly toned and splendid example. Good extremely fine.
Provenance: Numismatica Genevensis SA V, 2 December 2008, 146.
Eukratides I was probably the most powerful and important of all the Greek kings who ruled in both Bactria and in India. He overthrew the existing dynasty of the Euthydemids, very possibly with Seleucid help; in fact he may have been related to them since a special issue of coins showing his parents depict his father Heliokles as being bare-headed while his mother, Laodike, has a royal diadem (and Laodike was the name of a number of Seleucid princesses). The gold coinage of Eukratides is exceptionally magnificent: not only is there the famous and unique twenty-stater piece that has been in Paris since the 1860s, but there are very rare gold staters, as this one. These coins, which show him helmeted as a conqueror on the obverse and with his patron gods, the Dioskouri, on the reverse, must have been designed, as were so many ancient gold coinages, to pay for military needs.