CNG 85, Lot: 51. Estimate $150. Sold for $410. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of COMMAGENE. Mithradates I Kallinikos. Circa 96-70 BC. Æ (16mm, 5.10 g, 11h). Eagle standing right; palm frond to left / Palm frond. Bedoukian, Coinage 23; AC 190; Alram 245. Near VF, dark green patina. Rare.

From the R.A. Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group XXVII (29 September 1993), lot 26.

Rising from the disintegrating Seleukid Empire, the Kingdom of Commagene was declared independent by Ptolemy, its former Seleukid satrap, in 162 BC. Though dynastically related to Parthia from its inception, Mithradates I embraced the Hellenistic culture through his marriage to the Syrian princess Laodice VII Thea in the early first century BC. From this point onward, the kingdom had closer ties to the west than the east. From AD 17, the status of Commagene changed greatly, as Tiberius annexed it as a Roman province, only to have Caligula later reinstate it as an independent kingdom. Caligula then rescinded this order, with Claudius yet again reinstating it a few years later. Ultimately, the kingdom was finally and definitively made a part of the Roman Empire by Vespasian in AD 72.