Tetradrachm - Mithridates VI Eupator Pergamon

Mithridates VI launched his first invasion of the Roman province of Asia in 89 BC, and within months had orchestrated the Asiatic Vespers — the coordinated massacre of an estimated 80,000 Roman and Italian civilians across the province. The Pergamon mint, now under his control, struck these tetradrachms as the city that had been Rome's most loyal ally in the East became the administrative capital of his expanding Pontic kingdom.

The coin belongs to the so-called stephanophoric series, produced on the Attic weight standard to ease commerce across Greek-speaking Asia Minor. Pergamon itself had been bequeathed to Rome by Attalos III in 133 BC — Mithridates' appropriation of its mint was as much a political act as a financial one.