Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 630. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SASANIAN KINGS of PERSIA. Bahram IV. 388-399 AD. AR Drachm (4.16 gm). HRYDY or HLYDW (Herat) mint. "The Ma[z]da worshipper Bahram, the king" in Pahlavi, crowned and cuirassed bust right / No legend, fire altar (no flames) with attendants and ribbon, bare-headed bust right on altar; mint signature on central column. Göbl I/1; Paruck 286 var. (legends); Alram 840; MACW 937 var. (no legend on altar); cf. De Morgan pg. 698, 161. Good VF, toning around devices. Artistic dies. Rare. ($500)

Ex Malter 55 (7 November 1993), lot 471.

Bahram appears to have ascended the throne during the conflict with Rome over Armenia. By this time, though, the Romans, accustomed to twenty years of peace with their long-standing adversaries, decided it was better to negotiate, rather than fight. Bahram and the Roman emperor, Theodosius I, agreed to a partition of Armenia that endured (even under the Byzantines) until the fall of the Sasanian empire.