Extremely Rare – One of Two Possibly Known

CNG 99, Lot: 416. Estimate $1000. Sold for $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BAKTRIA, Greco-Baktrian Kingdom. Uncertain. Early-mid 1st century BC(?). AR Obol (11mm, 0.49 g, 1h). ANTIΓ(quadrate O)N(quadrate O)(quadrate C) down right, Nike standing right, holding wreath and palm frond / The Dioskouroi on horses rearing right, each holding palm frond; traces of [(quadrate Θ)]E(quadrate O)Y in exergue. Zeno 143458 (this coin) and note; otherwise unpublished in the standard references. Near VF, lightly toned. Extremely rare, one of two possibly known.

This extremely rare obol is somewhat of an enigma. One of probably two known (another example is reported to have been found in 2000), it provides the name of a heretofore unknown individual named Antigonos. While the obverse is similar to drachms of Antimachos II, the reverse type derives from the tetradrachms and drachms of Eukratides I, but includes the partially visible legend ΘEOY in the exergue, an epithet unknown for Eukratides or Antimachos II, but which had been used by Antimachos I.

The obverse legend ANTIΓONOC is especially problematic, as it cannot refer to the Macedonian rulers of that name, none of whom are recorded as having been connected with this region's politics. The use of the nominative ANTIΓONOC, rather than the genitive ANTIΓONOY typical of Hellenistic royal issues (cf. Triton XVIII, lot 261, for example), is particularly important, since the nominative form appears more commonly on numerous Greek civic coins issued by their various magistrates (see W. Leschhorn, Lexicon der Inschriften auf griechischen Münzen, Band II [Wien, 2009] for examples). The use of the nominative form then suggests that Antigonos may have been a local magistrate or affluent individual who was able to issue these small silver coins of fine Greco-Baktrian style. The quadrate omicrons and sigma in the legend, both of which began to appear on Parthian and the Indo-Skythian issues of the early first first century BC, suggest that this obol was struck at the turn of the first century BC, during a time when small pockets of Greco-Baktrians still held out against the influx of the Yuëzhi and their allies into Baktria. It was during this period of transition in the early to mid-first century BC that an otherwise unknown local Greco-Bactrian magistrate or aristocrat named Antigonos celebrated a small, if ephemeral victory against those interlopers who would eventually absorb Baktria into their own kingdom. By striking this obol, Antigonos proclaimed his victory and recalled the the halcyon days of a Greco-Baktrian kingdom that would soon be no more.