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Tetradrachm - Mithridates VI Eupator
| Issuer | Kings of Pontos |
|---|---|
| Year | 74 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Tetradrachm (4) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Bare-headed, diademed portrait of Mithridates VI Eupator facing right, rendered in the Hellenistic idealized style with youthful, heroic features. The king's long, wavy hair streams dramatically behind him in animated locks, a hallmark of the portraiture associated with this ruler. A diadem is tied about the head, its ends visible above the neck. The effigy is boldly struck in high relief, filling the flan with confident, sculptural modeling characteristic of Pontic royal coinage. The field is otherwise plain. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Mithridates VI issued this tetradrachm during the Third Mithridatic War, the year Roman forces under Lucullus drove him from his kingdom of Pontos entirely. By 74 BC he had already survived two previous wars against Rome and outlasted multiple Roman commanders through a combination of military pragmatism and relentless propaganda — coinage among the primary tools of that propaganda. SNG von Aulock 6682 places this piece within the late Pontic series struck at a time when the mint was operating under genuine military pressure.
Mithridates would not be captured. He fled to Armenia, then to the Crimean Bosporus, where he died in 63 BC — allegedly unable to poison himself after decades of prophylactic mithridatism.