To my considerable regret, I've lately been too busy with personal negotium to post much — I'm never too busy to spend too much money on stuff I don't need, though. In that vein, I present my recentest acquisition, from last month's Roma auction: Eucratides I Megas, c. 170-145BC: O: draped, cuirassed, diademed, helmeted bust right, bead-and-reel border / the Dioscuri mounted right, each holding lance and palm, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ, monogram in right field. Seller's photo. Absolutely impeccable style on this one, I feel — the portrait lacks the charming cragginess of some specimens but it's quite perfectly rendered to my eyes. This will be a very short post because I think one would have to be rather brave, or foolhardy, to venture much about this fellow — for all his numismatic fame his biography is (to put it mildly) fairly obscure. He was, we can say for certain, a powerful monarch of the Bactrians. His dates, as conventionally given, are circa 170 to 145 BC. The date of his accession comes from the brief, confused account of his reign given by the late Roman historian Justin. The end date comes from archaeology — excavations at what is thought to have been his capital city turned up an object dated to year 24 of someone's reign (and surely only he was so long-lasting) in the destruction stratum. So start at about 170 and count forwards about 25 years. He was a successful general and a minor collateral member of the Seleucid dynasty, or of the Euthydemid dynasty, or both, or neither. He launched a coup against the ruling Euthydemid king (Demetrius I, or Demetrius II, or someone else), made himself master of Bactria, and from there pushed into India. In India he may have fought the famous Menander I Soter: if he did, he was either beaten by him, or was forced to retire back into Bactria to confront rebellions and foreign invasions there. In the end, he was killed and posthumously humiliated by his own son (Eucratides II, or Plato, or Heliocles I, or none of these), or possibly by the son of one of his rivals (Demetrius II, avenging Demetrius I?), or that story may be a fantasy and he died in a completely different way. His capital was, or wasn't, the city of Eucratidea, which was, or wasn't, the same city as the ephemeral Alexandria on the Oxus, which is or isn't the same site as the modern Ai-Khanoum. Excavations there turned up the "year 24" fragment mentioned above. Moving back into the present day, the packaging this came in was sehr swanky: And this is the end of my ramble. Post your Graeco-Bactrians or Graeco-Indians or whatever works for you (or, in the spirit of this history, post something else entirely, or nothing) Edit: quote in the title is from Frank Holt, I forgot to mention — his Lost World of the Golden King is a highly informative (and frequently amusing) trip through the relevant scholarship.
Magnificent! One of his tetradrachms is on my bucket list; I'll have to finish some sets and take a sabbatical of a year or two before I'm ready to seriously pursue Greek tets, however. I did own a nice bronze of his, which I sold no-reserve for regrettably about half of what I figured it ought to have...
That's a nice piece for sure. One day I will get one, but for now I'll be happy with my 1/24th tetradrachm.
Congrats on the awesome coin @Trebellianus that is a gorgeous tetradrachm of Eucratides. The tets of Eucratides are some of the most iconic of Hellenistic coins. I have always wanted to add one of his coins to my collection. The only Indo-Greek coin I have is a drachm of Menander I, which I have shown before. Menander I Soter AR Drachm 155-130 BC. 18mm, 2.46 g. Obv: Diademed heroic bust left, seen from behind, wearing aegis and brandishing spear. Rev: Athena Alkedimos advancing left, holding shield and thunderbolt; monogram to right. Bopearachchi 7A
Unlike Finn, I am not tempted to sell my square AE hemiobol (7.97g) of Eukratides for half or double what I paid. I paid too much but nothing approaching what those tetradrachms are bringing these days! I agree. Many of these have a barbarous look and there are no small number of fake ones making the rounds. A good one with no problems is a joy to behold. These have quite an array of control marks but my best book covering them is Mitchiner and I am less than certain I am matching properly when I read my coin as Chach. Does anyone have a handle on these marks?
Congrats on your win! Excellent coin and presentation. Do all coins from prestigious auctions come in such fancy packaging?
Very nice @Trebellianus ! Super capture. I do not have a lot from Baktria... Baktria Greco-Baktrian Kingdom Eukratides I Megas 170-145 BCE Dioscuri AE Quadruple Unit Indo-Greek Baktria Menander I Soter BC 155-130 AR Tet 26mm 9.6g Diademed Athena Alkidemos tbolt Gorgon shield SNG ANS 764-767 Baktria Apollodotos I 180-160 BCE Square AR Drachm 20mm 2.4g Elephant Zebu SNG ANS 324-327
Thats a beautyfull coin congrats Trebellianus. Here are 2 drachmas , came in a lot I bought , mediocre coins:
Hahahaaa you had me LOL'ing! Posts like these are why I keep coming back to CoinTalk. Does anyone know the brand of the frames Roma is using? I've found this kind (also on Amazon & eBay) but I don't know if it's the same. Anyone have battle-tested recommendations?
they look like the same ones we got from China on ebay for about a buck and a half...i got a couple and sent some out as stocking stuffers
Great coins everyone! @Alegandron 's square drachm is particularly adorable. I'm far from an expert on these matters but, as I understand, current thinking has the monograms on Graeco-Bactrian coins as denoting magistrates or mint superintendents rather than mints — there's thought to be too many different symbols for each one to correspond to a different location. The hoard evidence is (I believe) thus far unhelpful towards tying down particular monograms to particular areas where, in theory, these magistrates would have resided. A tetradrachm reverse die was dug up at (probably) Ai-Khanoum, but the monogram on it is rarely found on coins dug up around Ai-Khanoum, to further confuse matters. The point is far from decided, at any rate. I wrote this facetiously, of course, but legitimately this area abounds with known unknowns and unknown unknowns (as one of the Graeco-Bactrians of our era once said). Which means most of the fascinating discoveries are still ahead of us, at any rate (hopefully)!
@Trebellianus - lovely tet. Holt's "Into the land of Bones" about Alexander the Great in the area is also interesting . My tets : Greco-Baktrian Kingdom, Antimachos I Theos AR Tetradrachm. Circa 180-170 BC. Diademed and draped bust right, wearing kausia / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIMAXOY, Poseidon, laureate, standing facing, holding trident and filleted palm; monogram to inner right. Bopearachchi 1D; Mitchiner 124b; SNG ANS 276-7.HGC 12 106 Some scholars suggest Antimachos was a member of the Euthydemid dynasty and thus possibly a son of Euthydemos and brother of Demetrios. Other historians disagree however, and propose him as being independent of Euthydemid authority, probably a scion of some relation to the Diodotid dynasty. Antimachos was either defeated during his resistance to the usurper Eukratides, or his main territory was absorbed by the latter upon his death. Or not. Indo-Greek Kingdom, Philoxenos Aniketos AR Tetradrachm. Circa 125-110 BC. BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANIKHTOY ΦΙΛOΞENOY, diademed, helmeted, draped and cuirassed bust right / 'Maharajasa apadihatasa Philasinasa', Philoxenos, in military attire, on horse rearing right; monogram to lower right. Bopearachchi 5C; SNG ANS 1183-6; HGC 12 268 Philoxenus Anicetus (Greek: Φιλόξενος ὁ Ἀνίκητος; epithet means "the Invincible") was an Indo-Greek king who ruled in the region spanning the Paropamisade to Punjab. Philoxenus seems to have been quite an important king who might briefly have ruled most of the Indo-Greek territory. Bopearachchi dates Philoxenus to c. 100–95 BCE and R. C. Senior to c. 125–110 BCE. Historians have not yet connected Philoxenus with any dynasty, but he could have been the father of the princess Kalliope, who was married to the king Hermaeus.