Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XX 29-30 Oct 2020
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Kingdom of Cappadocia, Ariarathes IX Eusebes Philopator AR Tetradrachm. Eusebeia Tyana (or Amphipolis?), circa 101/96-89/86 BC. Diademed head of Ariarathes IX to right / Pegasos grazing to left on ground line, star-in-crescent to left, AMΦI monogram to right; ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΡΙΑΡΑΘΟΥ above, ΕΥΣΕΒΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ below; all within wreath of vine leaves. Simonetta 2007, p. 139 1a (same dies); SNG von Aulock 6299 (same dies); SNG Lockett 3085 (same dies); Jameson 1636 (this coin); HGC 7 843 (same obv. die); de Callataÿ pl. XLIII (D1/R1b), p. 180, d (this coin). 16.61g, 30mm, 12h.
Near Extremely Fine; beautiful old cabinet tone. Extremely Rare; one of only fourteen specimens known of which just seven are in private hands.
This coin published in F. de Callataÿ, L'histoire des guerres Mithridatiques vue par les monnaies (Louvain-La-Neuve, 1997);
This coin published in Collection R. Jameson, Monnaies grecques antiques, Vol. II, (Paris, 1913-1932);
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (Crédit Suisse), Monetarium List 56, Autumn 1991, no. 108;
Ex Numismatica Ars Classica AG, Auction 4, 27 February 1991, lot 157;
Ex Bank Leu AG, Auction 20, 25 April 1978, lot 155;
Ex Münzen & Medaillen AG Basel, Auction 19, 5 June 1959, lot 517;
Ex Frédéric Robert Jameson (1861-1942) Collection;
Ex Athanasios Rhousopoulos Collection, Dr. Jacob Hirsch, Auction XIII, 15 May 1905, lot 4417.
Some decades before the present coin was struck, under the reign of the child-king Ariarathes VI (130-116 BC), the Kingdom of Cappadocia had fallen under the sway of the neighbouring Kingdom of Pontos. The young king's maternal uncle Mithradates V of Pontus attempted to assert control over Cappadocia by marrying his first daughter Laodike to Ariarathes. We must assume that the influence Laodike was able to assert over her husband was insufficient to turn Cappadocia into a reliable satellite of Pontos, or that her hold over him diminished as he grew older; thus when Mithradates VI succeeded his father to the throne of Pontos, he conspired to have Ariarathes murdered by a Cappadocian merchant named Gordius, in time replacing Ariarathes VI with the murdered king's son, Ariarathes VII. He too proved insufficiently compliant to Mithradates' will, objecting to his father's murderer being handed a prominent role in the government of Cappadocia, and so was promptly assassinated too in his turn.
Mithradates placed his infant son on the throne of Cappadocia, paying lip service to the deposed dynasty by renaming him as Ariarathes, but early in his reign the Cappadocian nobility rebelled, overthrowing Mithradates' son and installing instead the second son of Ariarathes VI, brother of Ariarathes VII. This revolt was quickly put down and Ariarathes VIII was exiled. Mithradates' young son was restored to the throne as Ariarathes IX.
Under the kingship of Ariarathes IX, Mithdratates' hold over the Kingdom of Cappadocia was always tenuous at best; both the Kingdom of Bithynia and the Roman Republic attempted, with limited success, to detach Cappadocia from Mithradates' grip, who was aided by his son-in-law Tigranes II, the powerful king of Armenia. Ariarathes IX was three (possibly four) times deposed and replaced with the Roman-appointed candidate, Ariobarzanes, yet in 89 BC Ariarathes IX was sent back into Cappadocia at the head of a powerful Pontic army and reinstalled, which together with Mithradates' massacre of 80,000 Roman and Italian citizens in the Asiatic Vespers shortly thereafter led directly to war with the Roman Republic.
This beautiful coin was struck at an uncertain point in time but securely in the context of the First Mithradatic War, fought between the great powers of Rome and what may reasonably be called the last great Hellenistic empire, the Kingdom of Pontos. It makes no attempt to disguise the fact that Cappadocia was little more than an extension of Mithradates himself; the style of the obverse portrait being great in resemblance to that of the Pontic king, and the reverse type also mirroring that of Mithradates.
The suggestion that the minting location of this issue was not in Cappadocia but rather a 'military' mint located at Amphipolis was made by T. Reinach (Numismatique Ancienne: Trois Royaumes De L'asie Mineure, 1888) and accepted in BMC Galatia and (with a question) by Head (Historia Nummorum). However this has been considered doubtful on the basis that this monogram had not been ever used before at Amphipolis, and the similarly-located monograms on Mithradates' coinage most likely refers to mint officials. That being said, the nature of this type and the possible circumstances for its production speak for reconsideration of the possibility. Amphipolis itself was captured by Pontic forces under the command of Mithradates' general Taxiles, likely in early 86 BC, leaving open the possibility that a brief issue, known to have been struck from only two die combinations, might have been issued there in the name of Ariarathes for his immediate requirements. These must have been small, considering the extreme rarity of this issue struck from so few dies, and Ariarathes' absence from Roman histories pertaining to the war. The surviving (Roman) accounts are confused; Plutarch (Parallel Lives, Sulla XI.1) apparently mixes up Ariarathes with his older brother Arcathias, who commanded the king's 10,000 Armenian cavalry alongside his father's generals (see also Appian Mith. 35, 41). The records captured by Pompey (Plutarch Pompey XXXVII.1) suggest Ariarathes was poisoned by his father, possibly while campaigning in Thessaly, circa 87/6 BC, the latter end of which year would not discount the Amphipolis hypothesis. This however is only conjecture.
Near Extremely Fine; beautiful old cabinet tone. Extremely Rare; one of only fourteen specimens known of which just seven are in private hands.
This coin published in F. de Callataÿ, L'histoire des guerres Mithridatiques vue par les monnaies (Louvain-La-Neuve, 1997);
This coin published in Collection R. Jameson, Monnaies grecques antiques, Vol. II, (Paris, 1913-1932);
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (Crédit Suisse), Monetarium List 56, Autumn 1991, no. 108;
Ex Numismatica Ars Classica AG, Auction 4, 27 February 1991, lot 157;
Ex Bank Leu AG, Auction 20, 25 April 1978, lot 155;
Ex Münzen & Medaillen AG Basel, Auction 19, 5 June 1959, lot 517;
Ex Frédéric Robert Jameson (1861-1942) Collection;
Ex Athanasios Rhousopoulos Collection, Dr. Jacob Hirsch, Auction XIII, 15 May 1905, lot 4417.
Some decades before the present coin was struck, under the reign of the child-king Ariarathes VI (130-116 BC), the Kingdom of Cappadocia had fallen under the sway of the neighbouring Kingdom of Pontos. The young king's maternal uncle Mithradates V of Pontus attempted to assert control over Cappadocia by marrying his first daughter Laodike to Ariarathes. We must assume that the influence Laodike was able to assert over her husband was insufficient to turn Cappadocia into a reliable satellite of Pontos, or that her hold over him diminished as he grew older; thus when Mithradates VI succeeded his father to the throne of Pontos, he conspired to have Ariarathes murdered by a Cappadocian merchant named Gordius, in time replacing Ariarathes VI with the murdered king's son, Ariarathes VII. He too proved insufficiently compliant to Mithradates' will, objecting to his father's murderer being handed a prominent role in the government of Cappadocia, and so was promptly assassinated too in his turn.
Mithradates placed his infant son on the throne of Cappadocia, paying lip service to the deposed dynasty by renaming him as Ariarathes, but early in his reign the Cappadocian nobility rebelled, overthrowing Mithradates' son and installing instead the second son of Ariarathes VI, brother of Ariarathes VII. This revolt was quickly put down and Ariarathes VIII was exiled. Mithradates' young son was restored to the throne as Ariarathes IX.
Under the kingship of Ariarathes IX, Mithdratates' hold over the Kingdom of Cappadocia was always tenuous at best; both the Kingdom of Bithynia and the Roman Republic attempted, with limited success, to detach Cappadocia from Mithradates' grip, who was aided by his son-in-law Tigranes II, the powerful king of Armenia. Ariarathes IX was three (possibly four) times deposed and replaced with the Roman-appointed candidate, Ariobarzanes, yet in 89 BC Ariarathes IX was sent back into Cappadocia at the head of a powerful Pontic army and reinstalled, which together with Mithradates' massacre of 80,000 Roman and Italian citizens in the Asiatic Vespers shortly thereafter led directly to war with the Roman Republic.
This beautiful coin was struck at an uncertain point in time but securely in the context of the First Mithradatic War, fought between the great powers of Rome and what may reasonably be called the last great Hellenistic empire, the Kingdom of Pontos. It makes no attempt to disguise the fact that Cappadocia was little more than an extension of Mithradates himself; the style of the obverse portrait being great in resemblance to that of the Pontic king, and the reverse type also mirroring that of Mithradates.
The suggestion that the minting location of this issue was not in Cappadocia but rather a 'military' mint located at Amphipolis was made by T. Reinach (Numismatique Ancienne: Trois Royaumes De L'asie Mineure, 1888) and accepted in BMC Galatia and (with a question) by Head (Historia Nummorum). However this has been considered doubtful on the basis that this monogram had not been ever used before at Amphipolis, and the similarly-located monograms on Mithradates' coinage most likely refers to mint officials. That being said, the nature of this type and the possible circumstances for its production speak for reconsideration of the possibility. Amphipolis itself was captured by Pontic forces under the command of Mithradates' general Taxiles, likely in early 86 BC, leaving open the possibility that a brief issue, known to have been struck from only two die combinations, might have been issued there in the name of Ariarathes for his immediate requirements. These must have been small, considering the extreme rarity of this issue struck from so few dies, and Ariarathes' absence from Roman histories pertaining to the war. The surviving (Roman) accounts are confused; Plutarch (Parallel Lives, Sulla XI.1) apparently mixes up Ariarathes with his older brother Arcathias, who commanded the king's 10,000 Armenian cavalry alongside his father's generals (see also Appian Mith. 35, 41). The records captured by Pompey (Plutarch Pompey XXXVII.1) suggest Ariarathes was poisoned by his father, possibly while campaigning in Thessaly, circa 87/6 BC, the latter end of which year would not discount the Amphipolis hypothesis. This however is only conjecture.