Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 507. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Arsakes II. 211-185 BC. AR Drachm (4.14 g, 12h). Rhagai-Arsakeia(?) mint. Head left, wearing bashlyk and earring / APΣAKOY, archer (Arsakes I) seated right on omphalos, holding bow; to right, eagle standing facing, head left, with wings displayed. Sellwood 6.1; A&S Type 6, 12 (same rev. die); Shore 4. Near EF.

From the Todd A. Ballen Collection.

Arsakes II, son of Arsakes I, ascended the Parthian throne about 210 BC. At roughly the same time, the Seleukid king Antiochos III (223-187 BC) marched out of Ecbatana to recover the eastern Seleukid provinces that were lost to the young Parthian kingdom. Justin (41.5.7) comments that Arsakes II fought with admirable gallantry against Antiochos, and finally became his ally. Whether the Parthians resumed minting after the return of Antiochos returned to Ekbatana in 205 BC, after his Baktrian expedition, cannot be ascertained. It is possible that, until his defeat by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 190/189 BC, Antiochos held sway over Iran at least as far east as the Baktrian frontiers and thus suppressed the circulation of non-Seleukid currencies. Unfortunately, the exact date and circumstances of the death of Arsakes II are unknown.

The superb condition of the great majority of S6 drachms of Arsakes II implies that they were minted and almost immediately interred at around the time of Antiochos III’s eastern expedition to Parthia and Baktria in 209 BC.