Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 549. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $6000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Artabanos “the Younger”. 122-121 BC. AR Tetradrachm (15.78 g, 1h). Seleukeia on the Tigris mint. Diademed and draped bust right, wearing sort beard, earring, and torque; all within bead-and-reel border / BAΣIΛEΩΣ]/APΣAKOY down right field, EΠIΦANOVΣ/ΦIΛEΛΛHNOΣ(sic) down left, goddess enthroned left, holding Nike, who crowns her with wreath, in extended right hand and cornucopia in left; winged Tritoness forms base of her throne; TY and monogram in exergue. Assar, Genealogy II, fig. 22 (same obv. die); Sellwood 23.2 (Mithradates II) corr. (rev. legend); Shore -. VF. Overstruck on uncertain undertype. Rare.

From the Todd A. Ballen Collection.

The king following Artabanos I on the Parthian throne was probably his younger son, who inaugurated his reign by striking S23 tetradrachms, perhaps in celebration of the re-imposition of Arsakid suzerainty over the southern and south-eastern satrapies of the empire after the death of his father. This issue had previously been taken to be either the coinage of Himeros, a minion of Phraates II and his appointed governor of Babylonia in 128 BC, or the very first coinage of Mithradates II. However, the significant disparity between the royal portraiture on S23 and that on S24 of Mithradates II, the contiguity of S23 and S24 tetradrachms, confirmed by their common mint magistrate monogram TY (cf. S24.4 and S24.6-7), and the fact that S23.4 bronzes of Mithradates II, dated 191 SE (122/1 BC) depict him fully bearded, led Dr. Assar to assign the S23 type to a new prince. Dr. Assar has called him Artabanos “The Younger” on the assumption that apart from the brevity of his rule (circa Apr./May – Oct. 122 BC), one reason for Justin’s conflation of the reigns of this king and his predecessor was that the two kings were homonymous. Like his father, Artabanos I, the young king Artabanos also appears to have fallen in a battle against the Sakae raiders.