Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 830. Estimate $500.
Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.
Sold For $700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee. |
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KINGS of ELYMAIS. Kamnaskires IV. Circa 63/2-54/3 BC. AR Drachm (3.51 g, 12h). Travelling (Court) mint. Bearded bust left, wearing diadem / BAIIΛEωI [KA]MNAIKEIP[OY] [TO]Y EΓ BAII[ΛEωN] [KA]MNAIK[EIPOY], Zeus Nikephoros seated left; monogram to inner left. van’t Haaff 8.2.2-1b = PDC 33936 (this coin); Alram 459. Good VF, toned. Extremely rare.
From the Todd A. Ballen Collection. Ex Peus 386 (26 April 2006), lot 363.
PARTHIAN VASSAL KINGDOMS As the Seleukid empire contracted from its height of influence in the 3rd century BC a host of successor kingdoms arose in the resulting power vacuum. The most important of course was the Parthian empire in Persia proper, but numerous other sub-kingdoms arose around the periphery, all to some degree or another vassels to the Parthian "King of Kings", but in reality virtually independent realms. Pliny states that the Parthian realm was comprised of 18 sub-kingdoms, several of which held the right to strike coinage. The oldest and most prominent of these kingdoms, Persis, was founded by Bagadat (Bayadad) in the early 3rd century and held the heartland of the ancient Persian empire centered on Persepolis. This region was the locus of the worship of the Persian god Mazda, and gave the dynasty legitimacy as the true successors of the Achaemenids. The fire altar of Mazda was featured prominently on the coins of the Persid kings, who probably regarded the Parthians as barbarian upstarts. A descendant of the Persid kings, Ardashir, would eventually supplant the Parthians and establish a new, truly Persian, empire, that of the Sasanians.
Further to the south in the highland above Susa and the lower reaches of the Euphrates two other sub-kingdoms possessed imtermittent autonomy. The Elymaians had harassed both the Achaemenids and the Seleukids from their home in the Zagros mountains; both Seleukid kings Antiochos III and Antiochos IV died in the course of campaigns against the fierce tribesmen. Sometime around 147 BC Kamnaskires I took the city of Susa itself and established his capital there, founding a dynasty that would last for some three hundred years. In the same decade of the 140's BC, Hyspaosines gained autonomy for the Characene region, setting his capital at Spasinou-Charax. Both of these kingdoms were absorbed into the renascent Persian kingdom of the Sasanids in the 3rd century AD. To the east, the former Indo-Greek Baktrian kingdom had been superceded by states created in the wake of the Scythian invasions of the mid 2nd century BC; those that pledged themselves as vassels of the Parthians have been termed the Indo-Parthians. The sub-kingdom formed by Gondopharnes lasted only a few decades before falling in turn to the rising Kushans. Many of the details of these sub-kingdoms' histories remain unclear; only scattered references to them exist in the works of the ancient authors, and much of the archaeological evidence is dependent on the numismatic record and sparse surviving epigaphy. As more coin finds appear, especially new types with royal names and clear dates, our understanding of the history of these obscure regions is advanced.
