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Tetrachalkon - Mithridates VI

Issuer Amisos
Year 85 BC - 65 BC
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Weight 8.87 g
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Obverse description Bare head of Mithradates VI Eupator, portrayed in the guise of the young Dionysos, facing right, with luxuriant curling hair bound by an ivy wreath with berries and leaves. The portrait exhibits a youthful idealized quality characteristic of the Hellenistic royal tradition, with finely rendered facial features and flowing locks falling to the neck. The field is plain, with no legend or inscription on the obverse.
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Edge Plain
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Additional information

Amisos occupied an unusual position during Mithridates VI's long conflict with Rome: a nominally Greek city on the Pontic coast that the king effectively absorbed into his kingdom while allowing it to retain civic coinage rights — a political concession that kept the merchant class cooperative. This issue falls within the period bracketed by Sulla's settlement after the First Mithridatic War and the final collapse following Pompey's campaigns, a span during which the city changed hands more than once.

The Malloy 26g designation places this among the later die groupings of the type, struck when Pontic control was tightening again ahead of the Third Mithridatic War.

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