Extremely Rare Stater of Andragoras, Usurper King of Parthia

Triton XX, Lot: 341. Estimate $75000. Sold for $65000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Andragoras. Usurper king of Parthia, circa 245-239/8 BC. AV Stater (16mm, 8.50 g, 6h). Diademed head right, drapery around neck; monogram to left / Nike, holding kentron in extended right hand, reins in left, driving fast quadriga right; behind her, warrior standing right; three pellets below horses’ forelegs, ANΔPAΓOPOY in exergue. BMC Arabia p. 193, 2; MIG Type 19; NAC 59, lot 652. EF, light scratch at edge of obverse, slight die shift on obverse. Extremely rare.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 78 (26 May 2014), lot 337; Triton XVI (8 January 2013), lot 550. Previously, in a private collection in England since the 1990s, seen by Professor Osmund Bopearachchi in 1994, and reportedly from the second Mir Zakah deposit.

At least six gold staters of Andragoras are known, struck from one obverse die and two reverse dies. No. 1 below is struck from the same obverse die but a different reverse die as the present coin. Nos. 2-5 are struck from the same obverse and reverse dies as the present coin, which is no. 6:

1. London. British Museum (acquired 1879): BMC Arabia, North East Persia No. 1, p. 193 (pl, xxviii, 1); NC 1879, p. 1, pl. I, 1; Head, Historia Numorum (2nd ed.), p. 825, fig. 361; Mitchiner Type 19 (illustrated on the right); ex Oxus Treasure.
2. London. British Museum (acquired 1888): BMC Arabia, North East Persia No. 2, p. 193; Mitchiner Type 19 (illustrated on the left); ex Cunningham collection.
3. Berlin. H. Dressel, ZfN 21 (1898), 231 (see http://www.smb.museum/ikmk/object.php?objectNR=0&size=0&content=0&side=1)
4. Numismatica Ars Classica 59 (4 April 2011), lot 652; Paris Match magazine, 15-22 June 2005, p. 73.
5. Private Collection, unpublished.
6. Present coin.

The coins of Andragoras (gold staters and tetradrachms) have been objects of controversy since both types were first reported from the Oxus hoard. The identification of the issuer has been a matter of debate. Justin mentions two people by the name of Andragoras: (1) a noble Persian appointed by Alexander the Great as governor of Parthia (xii.4.12), and (2) a Seleukid governor of Parthia about the middle of the 3rd century who was defeated by Arsakes (xli.4.7). It has been suggested that the gold belongs to the first Andragoras and the silver to the second Andragoras (see Rapson in NC 1893, pp. 204-206), but most scholars prefer to attribute both coinages to the same issuer, and the presence of the same monogram on the gold and silver would seem to confirm this view. George Francis Hill, after a comprehensive study of all the evidence (BMC Arabia cxlviii-clx), favored a date for the coinage in the late 4th century to the early 3rd century, which would be consistent with an issue by the first Andragoras, who was appointed as governor of Persia by Alexander the Great, but may well have remained in his position for some time. More recent scholarship, however, has convincingly shown that the coins were struck by the second Andragoras. (For the most detailed and current study on Andragoras, his position in the history of the region, and his coinage, see Jeffrey D. Lerner, The Impact of Seleucid Decline on the Eastern Iranian Plateau [Stuttgart, 1999], pp. 13-31.)

Due to a number of political miscalculations by the Macedonians in the period following the conquest of the old Achaemenid Empire by Alexander III of Macedon, many loyal Persians must have felt embittered, and resistance to Macedonian power may already have begun before the invaders left to pacify the eastern Achaemenid satrapies and then attack India. These problems were exacerbated by Alexander’s Seleukid successors. Sometime during the mid-third century BC, revolts broke out in the eastern Seleukid territories of Baktria (under Diodotos I), in Parthia and Hyrkania under Andragoras, who was subsequently defeated and killed by Arsakes I. The difficulty in establishing just who Andragoras was and what role he played in the events of the region during the mid-third century BC is due to the scarcity of contemporary evidence, apart from his coins. What literary evidence exists derives from the later Greco-Roman historians of Alexander (Arrian and Curtius), as well as the first century AD historian, Pompeius Trogus (known later through Justin). One possible contemporary piece of evidence – a Greek inscription from Gurgan – mentions an Andragoras as a high official under Antiochos I (see J. Wolski, “Andragoras était-il Iranien ou Grec?” Studia Iranica 4 [1975], pp. 166-69). During his brief rule, Andrargoras may have formed a diplomatic alliance with the breakaway Baktrians under Diodotos I, and issued his gold and silver coinage. While most of his known coinage employed the Greek legend ANPAΓOPOY, this legend was apparently abandoned in favor of one that was more localized. On two staters his name was transliterated into Aramaic as ’nrgwr, while the epithet wḥšwwr – a reference to his association with the local god Vaxšu – was included on the reverse (see I.M. Diakonoff and E.V. Zeimal, “Pravitel ‘Parfii Andragor i ego monet,” VDI 4 [1988], pp. 4-19). Likely this shift was the result of Andragoras’ precarious political situation and an attempt to foster support for his rule among the local populace. Andragoras’ territory was overrun from the north by the nomadic Parni (who became the Parthians), and he was defeated and killed by Arsakes I, who thereafter founded the Arsakid dynasty of the now independent kingdom of Parthia.

The authenticity of Andragoras’ coins has occasioned at least equal debate. The first published coin of Andragoras (no. 1 above) was reportedly from the Oxus treasure, and other coins of Andragoras soon came onto the market. However, doubts about authenticity were expressed in respect to some of the reported specimens, based on the fact that many, if not all, of the Oxus finds passed through the hands of the Rawalpindi goldsmiths, who made copies that were sold into the market along with the genuine items. Cunningham, who published a description in 1881 of the coins that were said to come from the Oxus hoard (J.A.S.B., 1881, pp. 169-182), said that he had seen no fewer than seven forgeries of Andragoras gold staters. He had two Andragoras gold staters in his own cabinet that he believed to be genuine, but only one came to the British Museum with his collection (no. 2 in the list above).

Hill changed his view over time about the authenticity of the Cunningham gold stater (no. 2 above). In his article in the Atti Memorie dell’ Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 3 (1919), pp. 23-33, Hill expressed doubt about the coin’s authenticity. However, by the time he wrote the BMC Arabia volume in 1922, he had been persuaded that his doubts were not justified (p. cxlviii, note 2). Hill apparently had been troubled by the fact that the obverses of the two British Museum specimens (nos. 1 and 2 above) were struck from obverse dies that were extremely similar yet not quite the same, noting that “although the obverses are almost line for line the same, the head on the Cunningham coin is on a much larger scale and in flatter relief” (p. cli). We will return to the Cunningham coin below.

In 1994, Professor Osmund Bopearachchi examined and authenticated the present coin. He noted that, while making investigations in Pakistan on the second Mir Zakah deposit, he had learned from a reliable source that the present coin was found in that deposit along with two other Andragoras gold staters (private letter, 8 November 1999). We can now surmise that the examples listed initially above as nos. 4 and 5, which later appeared in trade, are the other two coins – in addition to the present coin – from the second Mir Zakah deposit. However, when the present coin was offered in trade in London in the 1990s, it was taken to the British Museum for comparison and was found to differ from the Cunningham example, which was apparently from the same dies but on which the design details were larger. This difference in design size raised doubts about the authenticity of the present coin.

Recently, we undertook to revisit the question of authenticity that had arisen following the comparison of the present coin with the Cunningham example, and we took the present coin and the example listed above as no. 5 (kindly provided by the owner) to the British Museum for direct comparison with the two examples in the Museum collection. The results were illuminating.

Comparing the four available coins (nos. 1, 2, 5, and 6 above), it is clear that all four were from the same obverse die, based on the identity not only of design details but also on the identity of numerous small die flaws and die irregularities that simply could not be the same on different dies. All but one (no. 1) were from the same reverse die. The no. 1 example, with a different reverse die from all other known examples, was actually a later strike than any of the other pieces, for the obverse die has developed two new die flaws behind the head: a linear flaw projecting diagonally from the hair left into the field, and a small horizontal flaw just above the monogram. In addition, the obverse detail is overall less crisp than on the other coins.

However, we noted -- as Hill had noted earlier (see above) – that the Cunningham example had a significantly larger design than the other three examples. We measured fixed points in the obverse design on the four coins and found that coins 1, 5, and 6 were identical in measurement to each other but that the Cunningham piece has a design that is approximately 5% larger than the others.

Leaving the Cunningham piece aside for a moment, the other three coins formed a clear progression. The present coin, no. 6, had the sharpest obverse detail. No. 5 had slightly less sharp detail on both sides, apparently the result of die wear, and must be a somewhat later strike. No. 1, as noted above, was clearly an even later strike, when significant flaws had developed in the obverse die and the reverse die had been replaced. Among the three coins, the fabric as well as the design details seemed consistent, and our opinion is that all three coins appear to be genuine.

The Cunningham piece was anomalous not only in the size of the design, but in addition the shape of the flan appears slightly distorted or bowed. How can these anomalies be explained? One suggestion is that perhaps the Cunningham piece was once placed under pressure in some way that caused the coin to spread slightly. There is no apparent damage to confirm this, but the slight distortion in shape may support this theory. We do not express any further conclusion here on the Cunningham example, except to note – as Hill did in 1919 – that it has characteristics difficult to reconcile with the other known examples.

The final argument in favor of the authenticity of the three examples reportedly from Mir Zakah (nos. 4-6 above including the present piece) is that there is no known model from which they could have been made. The only other known examples from the same dies are nos. 2 and 3 above, but those are both in lesser condition and could not have served as the model. Accordingly, there seems no convincing reason to doubt the authenticity of the three Mir Zakah specimens.