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!
Stater - Rheskuporis IV Valerian and Gallienus
| Issuer | Bosporan Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 265 |
| 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 | Draped and diademed bust of Rhescuporis IV facing right, with a trident symbol positioned before the effigy in the field. The Greek legend ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΡΗCΚΥΠΟΡΙΔΟC ('Of King Rhescuporis') encircles the portrait. The style is characteristic of late Bosporan Kingdom coinage, exhibiting the schematic, somewhat degenerate portraiture typical of the mid-third century AD. The surface shows the irregular flan and rough fabric inherent to hammered billon issues of this period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Facing jugate or side-by-side laureate and draped busts of co-emperors Valerian I and Gallienus, presented frontally in the Bosporan commemorative tradition. A globe appears between or below the imperial effigies, with the Bosporan regnal date rendered in Greek numerals in the lower field. The legend ΑΞΦ, denoting Bosporan year 561 (corresponding to 265 AD), is the primary inscription. The treatment of the imperial portraits is highly stylised, consistent with the provincial engraving conventions of late Bosporan stater coinage. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
By 265 AD the Bosporan stater had shed nearly all its silver content — what MacDonald catalogs as the final gasps of a coinage tradition stretching back to the Spartocid dynasty. Rheskuporis IV maintained the fiction of Roman alliance by naming Valerian and Gallienus as co-rulers on his coinage, even though Valerian had been captured by Shapur I at Edessa in 260 and was presumably still alive in Persian captivity when these dies were cut. The gesture was political theater, not administration.
Billon by this date meant something close to bronze with trace silver. MacDonald 620/1 is among the terminal issues of the kingdom, which collapsed within a generation under Gothic and Herulian pressure.