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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ed Snible, post: 3677355, member: 82322&quot;]I believe this is the earliest numismatic portrait of the Mt. Argaeus:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]987536[/ATTACH] </p><p>CAPPADOCIA, Caesaria (AKA Eusebia), 36 BC - 17 AD or 101-89 BC(?), 7.04g, AE17</p><p><br /></p><p>Obv: Facing gorgoneion within aegis</p><p>Rev: Mount Argaeus/Argaios (a volcano), below ΕΥΣΕΒΕΙΑ/Τ</p><p>Ref: Lindgren III 945, Sear 5706 </p><p>Ex: Purchased from H. C. Lindgren, Summer 2001.</p><p><br /></p><p>Imhoof-Blumer believed that this aegis copies aegis/Nike bronzes of Mithradates the Great. The authority who issued these coins is still unclear today. Most authorities attributed to Archelaus, a Roman client and Cappadocia’s last king. H. Herrli believes this coinage was struck after 101 BC when Mithradates the Great’s eight-year-old son Ariarathes IX governed Cappadocia.</p><p><br /></p><p>François de Callataÿ told me “... the attribution to Ariarathes IX is fragile to the extreme and unconvincing since it entirely lays on the reading of a monogram.”</p><p><br /></p><p>I can’t speak on the monogram but the Ariarathes IX attribution seems reasonable. It seems unlikely that Archelous, a Roman puppet, would use one of Mithradates’ coin types. Herrli’s assignment of the coin to Ariarathes IX, who reigned 101-89 BC, implies that the aegis design was used in Cappadocia directly <b>before</b> its adoption by Mithradates VI on his massive Pontic bronze issue. That is the opposite of Imhoof-Blumer and E. A. Sydenham’s speculation about the direction of the inspiration.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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