Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XIX 26-27 Mar 2020
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Kingdom of Pontos. Mithradates VI Eupator AV Stater. Pergamon, dated month 12, year 223 BE (September 74 BC). Diademed head right / Stag grazing left; BAΣIΛEΩΣ above, MIΘPAΔATOY EYΠATOPOΣ in two lines below; to left, star-in-crescent above ΓKΣ (year); two monograms to right, IB (month) in exergue; all within Dionysiac wreath of ivy and fruit. Callataÿ Supp. fig. 1 and O12/R1 var. (month 13); cf. HGC 7, 335 (unlisted date); cf. DCA 691 (same); Triton XXIII, lot 294 = Roma XV, lot 284 (same dies); CNG 106, lot 292; Roma XII, lot 356 = Roma VII, lot 757; CNG 94, lot 339; CNG 93, lot 399 (same dies); NAC 92, lot 184 (same dies). 8.35g, 22mm, 12h.
Good Extremely Fine; struck on a generous flan. Extremely Rare; one of only seven known examples with this date.
From the collection of Vladimir Leonenko.
A beautifully idealized portrait of the ageing king, this issue was unknown until as recently as 2013; the same obverse die of this coin was also used to strike a previously unrecorded stater dated with the intercalary month ΙΓ (October 74 BC; see Roma Numismatics VII, 22 March 2014, lot 758). The fact that the obverse die was reused and the paucity of surviving specimens both suggest that the issue was a small one. Additionally, this coin stands out for having been issued more than ten years after the main series of staters had ended in 85 BC. This revival of gold issues by Mithradates can only be explained by the events unfolding at the time. One of the very last-struck gold staters of Mithradates of which we are currently aware, this issue (like that of intercalary month ΙΓ = October 74 BC) was produced on the very eve of Mithradates invasion of the new Roman province of Bithynia and the start of the Third Mithradatic War (73-63 BC). The death of Nikomedes IV of Bithynia in 75 left no heirs to the kingdom, and in his will he instead bequeathed the state to Rome. Faced with the prospect of losing a coveted territory to his old enemy who would now share a border with his own lands, Mithradates began renewed preparations for war.
This conflict would result in great devastation being wrought on Pontos, betrayal on the part of Mithradates' son Machares who allied himself with Rome, and rebellion by another son Pharnakes (see lot 765) who assumed control of the army and forced his father to commit suicide. Armenia, which under Tigranes 'the Great' had supported Mithradates in his war on Rome, suffered several heavy defeats and the loss of its capital; it ended the war as a client state of Rome. Pontos would cease to exist as a kingdom, and would be declared to be a Roman province by a victorious Pompey.
Although some sources cite the initial battles of the Third Mithradatic War taking place in 74 BC, more recently the Battle of Chalkedon and the siege of Kyzikos have been dated to 73 BC. Cicero supports this dating, as he places Lucullus in Rome in November of 74 BC – Lucullus was only dispatched after reports of Mithradates invasion into Bithynia had reached Rome. Appian also supports the dating of hostilities to early in 73, stating that Mithradates spent 'the remainder of the summer and the whole of the winter' before the outbreak of war in building ships and augmenting his army.
The great rarity of Mithradates' magnificent Pergamene gold staters is therefore curious, as is the small number of obverse dies used. One might have expected Mithradates' preparations for war to have necessitated a massive expenditure of both gold and silver coin (and thus their production on a prodigious scale); the treasury captured by Pompey at the war's end (36,000 talents - roughly 1200 metric tons - of gold and silver) certainly indicates no shortage of precious metal. Instead Mithradates appears to have attempted to reform the Pontic coinage on a massive and fundamental level, by introducing brass coinage as a new (overvalued) financial mechanism for the state. As such, Mithradates was the first ruler to make use of brass coinage, it previously having been thought that the Romans were the first to introduce this metal into general circulation (see S. Christodoulou, The Pontic Kingdom Under Mithridates VI [2015] and T. N. Smekalova, The Earliest Application of Brass and Pure Copper in the Hellenistic Coinages of Asia Minor and the Northern Black Sea Coast [2009]). Pure copper coins may also have been intended to partly substitute silver coinage, and it is also likely that pure copper was meant for use specifically in the region of Cimmerian Bosporos. Thus the minting of silver and gold coinage was evidently conducted on a relatively limited basis; it is also possible and indeed likely that in the aftermath of Mithridates' defeat what gold and silver coinage existed was scoured and expunged from general circulation.
Good Extremely Fine; struck on a generous flan. Extremely Rare; one of only seven known examples with this date.
From the collection of Vladimir Leonenko.
A beautifully idealized portrait of the ageing king, this issue was unknown until as recently as 2013; the same obverse die of this coin was also used to strike a previously unrecorded stater dated with the intercalary month ΙΓ (October 74 BC; see Roma Numismatics VII, 22 March 2014, lot 758). The fact that the obverse die was reused and the paucity of surviving specimens both suggest that the issue was a small one. Additionally, this coin stands out for having been issued more than ten years after the main series of staters had ended in 85 BC. This revival of gold issues by Mithradates can only be explained by the events unfolding at the time. One of the very last-struck gold staters of Mithradates of which we are currently aware, this issue (like that of intercalary month ΙΓ = October 74 BC) was produced on the very eve of Mithradates invasion of the new Roman province of Bithynia and the start of the Third Mithradatic War (73-63 BC). The death of Nikomedes IV of Bithynia in 75 left no heirs to the kingdom, and in his will he instead bequeathed the state to Rome. Faced with the prospect of losing a coveted territory to his old enemy who would now share a border with his own lands, Mithradates began renewed preparations for war.
This conflict would result in great devastation being wrought on Pontos, betrayal on the part of Mithradates' son Machares who allied himself with Rome, and rebellion by another son Pharnakes (see lot 765) who assumed control of the army and forced his father to commit suicide. Armenia, which under Tigranes 'the Great' had supported Mithradates in his war on Rome, suffered several heavy defeats and the loss of its capital; it ended the war as a client state of Rome. Pontos would cease to exist as a kingdom, and would be declared to be a Roman province by a victorious Pompey.
Although some sources cite the initial battles of the Third Mithradatic War taking place in 74 BC, more recently the Battle of Chalkedon and the siege of Kyzikos have been dated to 73 BC. Cicero supports this dating, as he places Lucullus in Rome in November of 74 BC – Lucullus was only dispatched after reports of Mithradates invasion into Bithynia had reached Rome. Appian also supports the dating of hostilities to early in 73, stating that Mithradates spent 'the remainder of the summer and the whole of the winter' before the outbreak of war in building ships and augmenting his army.
The great rarity of Mithradates' magnificent Pergamene gold staters is therefore curious, as is the small number of obverse dies used. One might have expected Mithradates' preparations for war to have necessitated a massive expenditure of both gold and silver coin (and thus their production on a prodigious scale); the treasury captured by Pompey at the war's end (36,000 talents - roughly 1200 metric tons - of gold and silver) certainly indicates no shortage of precious metal. Instead Mithradates appears to have attempted to reform the Pontic coinage on a massive and fundamental level, by introducing brass coinage as a new (overvalued) financial mechanism for the state. As such, Mithradates was the first ruler to make use of brass coinage, it previously having been thought that the Romans were the first to introduce this metal into general circulation (see S. Christodoulou, The Pontic Kingdom Under Mithridates VI [2015] and T. N. Smekalova, The Earliest Application of Brass and Pure Copper in the Hellenistic Coinages of Asia Minor and the Northern Black Sea Coast [2009]). Pure copper coins may also have been intended to partly substitute silver coinage, and it is also likely that pure copper was meant for use specifically in the region of Cimmerian Bosporos. Thus the minting of silver and gold coinage was evidently conducted on a relatively limited basis; it is also possible and indeed likely that in the aftermath of Mithridates' defeat what gold and silver coinage existed was scoured and expunged from general circulation.