Tetradrachm - Orodes II King on omphalos

Orodes II secured the Parthian throne through fratricide — he and his brother Mithridates III fought a civil war that ended with Mithridates besieged and executed around 54 BC. Within a year, his general Surena annihilated Crassus and seven Roman legions at Carrhae in 53 BC, the worst Roman defeat in a generation. The omphalos type belongs squarely to this period of Parthian ascendancy, struck as Rome was reeling and Parthia controlled everything east of the Euphrates.

Billon rather than pure silver signals gradual debasement across Orodes' long reign — a trend that accelerated under his successors.