Nomos 15

KINGS OF PARTHIA. Mithradates II, 121-91 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 30 mm, 15.99 g, 12 h), Seleukeia on the Tigris mint, 119-109 BC. Diademed bust of Mithradates to left, wearing torc and elaborate robes. Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ Arsakes I seated to right on omphalos, holding bow; to right, palm branch; [below, ΤΥ]. Sellwood 24.4. Shore 67. Sunrise 284. Same dies as Triton XVII, 7 January 2014, 438. An attractive toned coin. Extremely fine.

From the German RGG collection, formed prior to 1978.

This is actually one of the most impressively foreign-looking portraits to be found on all of the major Hellenistic regal coinages of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Executed by either a Greek or a Greek-trained engraver of great talent, we have a middle-eastern ruler whose head is both reminiscent of the heads of the winged bull-men so well-known from Babylonian and Assyrian sculpture, and also the even older portrait heads of the great Akkadian rulers, Sargon and Naram-Sin!.