Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Hemidrachm - Tissaphernes Mysia satrapy
| Issuer | Mysia, Satrapy of |
|---|---|
| Year | 445 BC - 395 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Bearded male head facing right, rendered in archaic Greek style with characteristic curly hair and robust facial features. The portrait, likely representing the satrap Tissaphernes or a local deity, displays the naturalistic yet stylized workmanship typical of late 5th-century BCE Asia Minor coinage. The flan is irregular and slightly beveled at the edges, consistent with hammered silver coinage of the period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | AΣTYPH |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Tissaphernes served as Persian satrap of Lydia, Caria, and parts of Ionia — not a man who minted coins out of administrative habit. These fractional issues almost certainly served military pay functions, funding the mercenary networks he juggled with notorious duplicity throughout the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath. He played Sparta against Athens with calculated ambiguity for years before Cyrus the Younger arrived and undercut his influence entirely.
His execution in 395 BC, ordered by Artaxerxes II after Agesilaus of Sparta humiliated Persian forces in Asia Minor, marks the hard terminus of this type.