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Drachm - Mithridates IV
| Issuer | Parthian Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 58 BC - 55 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | Sellwood#40.8, Shore#197, Sunrise#352 |
| Obverse description | Diademed bust of Mithridates IV facing left, rendered in the Hellenistic tradition with fine detail. The king wears a royal diadem with flowing ends and a segmented or beaded necklace adorned with a central medallion pendant. The portrait displays characteristic Parthian artistic style with elongated facial features and a pronounced eye. The bust is set within a beaded border, with the field showing the typical die-cut irregularity of hammered coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The royal Arsacid archer deity seated in three-quarter view to the right upon an omphalos throne, holding a strung bow in the right hand in the canonical Parthian manner. A Greek letter K appears beneath the bow, serving as a mint control mark identifying the Kangavar mint. The figure is surrounded by a Greek legend arranged in multiple lines filling the field, rendered in the cursive script characteristic of late Arsacid coinage. The reverse design follows the long-established Parthian iconographic tradition of the enthroned archer, symbol of dynastic legitimacy. |
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| Additional information |
Mithridates IV ruled as a usurper, seizing the Parthian throne from his brother Orodes II sometime around 58 BC with backing from a faction of the Parthian nobility. The arrangement didn't hold. Orodes, supported by the powerful general Surena, reclaimed power within a few years, and Mithridates was eventually besieged at Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, where he died around 54 BC. The brevity and violence of his tenure makes this drachm series genuinely scarce — Sellwood records only a handful of die combinations under type 40, and clean examples are rarely encountered.