Tetradrachm - Orodes II

Orodes II secured the Parthian throne by having his brother Mithridates III hunted down and executed, then spent the following decade consolidating a kingdom that would deliver Rome its most humiliating eastern defeat. The battle of Carrhae in 53 BC — where Crassus lost seven legions and his head to Surena's cavalry — falls just a few years before this issue, and the coins of Orodes from this period circulated through a court flush with Roman prisoners and looted eagles.

Sellwood 46.1 is assigned to the Seleucia-on-the-Tigris mint, the former Seleucid administrative capital that Parthia retained as its principal silver-striking facility.