167, Lot: 58. Estimate $300. Sold for $356. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of CAPPADOCIA. Ariarathes VII Philometor. Circa 112/0-100 BC. AR Tetradrachm (29mm, 16.94 g). In the name of Antiochos VII of Syria. Struck c. 104-102 BC. Diademed head of Antiochos VII right / Athena standing left, holding Nike in right hand, shield and spear in left; monogram above A in outer left field, O L in inner fields, all within wreath. Lorber & Houghton, “Cappadocian Tetradrachms in the Name of Antiochus VII”, NumChron 2006, Series 1, Issue 3 (unrecorded obverse die). Good VF, light porosity on reverse.

Lorber & Houghton identify a series of Seleukid style tetradrachms that are linked to the Cappadocian regal series by shared control marks and hoard finds. The series belongs to the confused period in Cappadocia after the assassination of Ariarathes VI around 112 BC, when Mithradates VI of Pontus and Nicomedes III of Bithynia contended for influence over the strategic kingdom. Nicomedes had married the widow of Ariarathes VI, but Mithradates drove both of them out and installed Ariarathes VII as a puppet ruler, only to have him murdered a few years later. The tetradrachms were probably struck to pay the mercenary armies employed during the time of troubles.