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Tetradrachm - Mostis
| Issuer | Caeni (Thrace) |
|---|---|
| Year | 113 BC - 87 BC |
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| Reference(s) | CN type#5205, 5318 1#C4500 3.2#1727 , DCA#585 , Moush`12#5764-5766 Luynes#1822 , Zhuyuetang#112 Copenhagen#1172 Sea#309 |
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| Reverse description | Athena Nikephoros seated on a throne to the left, wearing helmet and chiton, holding Nike in her extended right hand and a long spear in her left; a round shield rests at her feet against the throne. The royal legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΟΣΤΙΔΟΣ runs in the field, with the magistrate's name (e.g. ΕΠΙ ΣΑΔΑΛΟΥ) and the regnal year date (e.g. ΕΤΟΥΣ ΙΓ) inscribed in the exergue or inner field; on some specimens a monogram appears in the inner left field. The composition closely follows the Attic tetradrachm tradition of the late Hellenistic period. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
The Caeni were a minor Thracian tribe whose coinage is almost entirely defined by a single political reality: proximity to the expanding Macedonian and later Roman spheres of influence forced them to produce silver on a Greek weight standard to remain viable in regional commerce. Mostis, whose name appears on these tetradrachms, is known only through his coins — no literary source records him. Whether he was a dynast, a tribal chief, or something in between remains unresolved.
The type's wide distribution across major collections from Copenhagen to the Zhuyuetang suggests reasonably broad circulation for a tribal issue, yet the Caeni left no successor coinage after the late first century BC.