Tetradrachm - Mithridates VI Eupator A E

This issue dates to 88 BC, the year Mithridates VI launched his first war against Rome and ordered the massacre of an estimated 80,000 Italian residents across Asia Minor in a single coordinated day — an event known to ancient sources as the Asiatic Vespers. The tetradrachms struck in that year functioned partly as a propaganda instrument, circulating through newly seized Greek cities eager to frame Mithridates as a liberator from Roman tax collectors and publicani.

De Callataÿ's die study remains the essential reference for sorting the chronology of Pontic silver, placing this piece within the earliest phase of the Bithynian era dating system adopted by Mithridates after his annexation of that kingdom.