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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 3085871, member: 81887&quot;]Here&#039;s a recent win from a John Anthony auction:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]777880[/ATTACH] </p><p>Parthian Kingdom.&nbsp; AR drachm (3.9 g, 20 mm).&nbsp; Mithradates III (c.57-54 BC).&nbsp; Mithradatkart mint.&nbsp; Obverse: Diademed bust of Mithradates left.&nbsp; Reverse: Seated archer (Arsakes I), Mithradatkart mintmark, slightly crude Greek inscription in 8 lines around &quot;Basileos basileon Arsakou megalou dikaiou epiphanous theou eupatoros kai philellenos&quot; (Of the Great King of Kings, Arsakes, the just, beneficent, well born of the God, and lover of the Greeks).&nbsp; Sellwood 41.5, Shore 200, Sunrise 356v.&nbsp; This coin: Ex John Anthony auction, ex Sallent collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>(Obligatory Parthian king naming and attribution note:&nbsp; Mithradates III has been promoted to Mithradates IV in recent scholarly work.&nbsp; Also, the timing and sequence of his coin issues is complicated and uncertain, as I will point out below.&nbsp; If you want simple, unchanging attributions, go collect Lincoln cents.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Mithradates III and Orodes II were two sons of the Parthian king Phraates III.&nbsp; In 57 BC, they teamed up to assassinate their father and take over the throne.&nbsp; The assassination part worked, but unsurprisingly the two brothers soon quarreled, and Mithradates was forced to flee to Roman Syria.&nbsp; (Mithradates was said to have been &quot;cruel&quot;, but that hardly distinguished him from most rulers of the time.)&nbsp; In Syria he sought the help of the Roman governor, Aulus Gabinius.&nbsp; Gabinius and his troops marched with him to the border at the Euphrates, but at that point received a more tempting offer to help restore Ptolemy XII to the Egyptian throne, and abandoned Mithradates.&nbsp; Despite the loss of Roman assistance, Mithradates was able to capture territory in Mesopotamia, including Babylon and the capitol city of Seleukia on the Tigris.&nbsp; The troops of Orodes, led by a great general known to history only by his family name of Surena, eventually reconquered all of Mithradates&#039; territory and captured him alive.&nbsp; Mithradates was executed in either very late 55 or early 54 BC.&nbsp; Despite his short reign, he did leave a lasting legacy in setting a precedent of sons assassinating their father to take the Parthian throne; this pattern would continue for a long time in Parthian history.</p><p><br /></p><p>Given the relatively short amount of time that Mithradates III held the throne, his drachms from mints on the Iranian plateau (including this example from Mithradatkart, and also Ekbatana, Nisa, Rhagae, and others) seem to be a lot more common than expected.&nbsp; Fred Shore suggests (in a lengthy footnote to Type 189 in his book) that Mithradates may have been granted a co-regency in the latter part of his father&#039;s life, and issued the bulk of his coinage before assassinating his father.&nbsp; This is an interesting idea, but there is no literary evidence for it, and G.R.F. Assar doesn&#039;t accept this idea in his essay in the Sunrise catalogue.&nbsp; I feel unqualified to make a final judgment; I merely note the anomaly.</p><p><br /></p><p>This specimen is in reasonably high grade, and the obverse centering is higher than normal- the bottom end of the diadem is normally off the flan.&nbsp; On the reverse, you can see details of the archer&#039;s face, which I also find appealing.&nbsp; Overall, it&#039;s a nice coin of a not-so-nice guy.&nbsp; Post your relevant coins here.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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