Drachm - Vardanes I Ecbatana

Vardanes I spent much of his reign fighting his own brother Gotarzes II for control of the Parthian throne — a civil war that drew in Armenian factions and eventually prompted Roman diplomatic intervention under Claudius. The Ecbatana mint, one of the empire's oldest and most consistently active silver-striking facilities, continued output through this instability largely uninterrupted, which is why drachms of Vardanes survive in reasonable numbers despite his short and contested rule.

Sellwood 64.31 sits at the tail end of a recognized stylistic decline in Ecbatana fabric, with progressively more schematic die cutting visible across the type sequence.