What can I say, I like Parthian facing portraits... Parthian Kingdom. Seleukia-on-the-Tigris mint. Artabanos II (or III, or IV) (10-38 AD). Debased AR tetradrachm (26.4mm, 12.51g). Obverse: King's diademed bust facing, with beard, mustache, and shaggy long hair. Reverse: King on horseback left, receiving palm branch from Tyche; four-line Greek legend around Basileos/Arsakou/Dikaiou/Epiphanous, year in front of and behind head, month-monogram below horse. Dated Gorpiaios, 338 Seleucid Era (= August, AD 27). Sellwood 63.5, Shore 336. This coin: Agora Auctions Sale 66, lot 66. Artabanos II (or III, or IV- I'm not going to choose a number for him) took the Parthian throne about 10 AD, during an unsettled time for the region. Vonones I had spent much of his life in Roman territory and proved too Hellenized for the Parthian nobles- he didn't like hunting, feasting, or (the real deal-breaker) horseback-riding. The nobles induced Artabanos to give up his job as king of the Parthian dependency Media Atropatene (Azerbaijan) and fight Vonones for the throne. Vonones was forced to flee back to the Romans, and Artabanos took up the Parthian crown. During a later dispute with the Romans over Armenia, Artabanos was forced from the throne, and spent some time living with the nomadic Dahae east of the Caspian, raising an army there which formed the nucleus of his forces when he reclaimed the throne. He died in 38 AD, after an eventful reign. In his book, David Sellwood enthuses about this coin type: "The rare series of tetradrachms of Artabanos with facing bust show a fierce warrior-king, certainly an image we would expect from a king who regained his throne wearing the rags he wore as a solitary hunter in exile. They probably present a clearer picture of what a Parthian really looked like than any other portrait coin." These tetradrachms exist with dates for each of the five months from April to August of AD 27. I like my specimen- the reverse is off center, though not too badly, but the portrait is very well preserved. This was one of the few major types I did not have in my previous Parthian collection, so I am happy to add it now.
What a GREAT capture @Parthicus ! Cool portrait, history, and rare to boot! You are really beginning to get me interested in these Parthians...
Sellwood lecturing about the type: Great pickup, Parthicus. I like the front-facers too. My Arta II is a Sellwood 63.2:
A very interesting and expressive portrait. Love your new coin! Thanks for posting the lecture @Bob L.
That's a great coin by any standards. But I usually find Parthians unartistic. This one seems to soar above the rest. What's with the Parthians, repeating the same coin for centuries when the Greeks and Romans were so varied? And why this exception? Are there any good background books on Parthian civilization/art that anyone can recommend?
I know, right?! I mean, they all look EXACTLY the same! If I didn't know better, I'd think these were all the same coin:
Am I being mean to Parthians? I guess they do better than a lot of hammered medieval coins! But the reverses are pretty same-y, and the artistic style quite consistent. That is a nice group though.
Re: Why didn't the Parthians vary the coinage more: Well, the reverses of the bronze coins are a lot more varied. But, we could reframe the question, why change the coins so frequently as the Romans and Greeks did? Switzerland has been using the same coin designs for over a century now, and they seem to be doing fine. Why was this particular design used? Good question. There does seem to be a correlation between Parthian kings who issued facing portrait coinage and kings with origins in Media Atropatene- Phraates III, Artabanos II, and Vonones II all issued facing coins and came from, or served as king of, that region before taking the Parthian throne. Only Vologases V seems to have no connection to Media Atropatene but issued facing coinage anyway. However, the connection between the region and a preference for facing portraits remains obscure. There isn't any obvious connection between the five-month period these tetradrachms were issued and the major political events in Artabanos II's life that we know of. Good books on Parthia: Finding good, readable books about Parthia is not easy. The best, most comprehensive and entertaining book on Parthian history that I've read is George Rawlinson's "Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Volume 6: Parthia". You can even download a Kindle version at Amazon.com for free! One tiny drawback: It was written in 1873, so it is just a tiny bit out of date in many places. Fred Shore's "Parthian Coins and History: Ten Dragons Against Rome" from 1993 has good historical and cultural sections, as well as the catalog of the author's comprehensive Parthian coin collection. Naturally, such a useful book is long since out of print and used copies are hard to find. Most other comprehensive books about Parthia are also out-of-print; the most recent in-print books tend to be more closely focused scholarly works. The excellent parthia.com website has an annotated bibliography at http://www.parthia.com/parthia_biblio.htm which you can peruse for more sources.
Thank you - really interesting. I will look up those books. The Fred Shore looks great, exactly what I'm looking for ... if only I can find it. I like reading nineteenth century history books, too.
Update: I've ordered some books from Amazon that cover Parthia in passing. Shore's book is way too expensive, annoyingly. David Sellwood's 'An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia' is in my library. Is that worthwhile, or overtaken by Shore?
A series with so many coins attributed by clues rather than openly marked like the Romans will always go out of date a bit whenever a new student decides it is necessary to reorganize things. Sellwood may have some variations in ruler attributions but I still enjoy and benefit from it. Book lovers may want it just for the fact that it is reproduced from the author's hand written original rather than being typeset. Is it worth the current used price? Someone needs to write a new book but who wants to lose all that money. Authoring coin books is not lucrative. https://pictures.abebooks.com/CALIBOOK/18260948434_4.jpg
That's great. Ol' Artabanos really does look like a Tommy-Chong-esque hippie dude. That coin has "character" all over it. Keep this up, and you might turn me on to Parthians just a tiny bit. I've only had one ever- as I recall, it was in an NGC AU58(?) slab, and I got it from @Zohar444 over on Collectors Universe, I think, but the rest of the details are murky and I no longer have pix of it.
