Obol - Shapur II

Shapur II's reign of 70 years — the longest of any Sasanian king — began before his birth, according to tradition, when nobles crowned his mother's pregnant belly after the death of his father Hormizd II. He would go on to wage three separate wars against Rome and conduct brutal campaigns against Arab tribes along the Persian Gulf. This obol falls early in that reign, when the young king was still under regent control and the coinage was in transition from the types of his immediate predecessors.