Apodakos Succeeds His Father Hyspaosines
CNG 108, Lot: 404. Estimate $1000.
Sold for $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee. |
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KINGS of CHARACENE. Hyspaosines. Circa 127-124 BC. AR Tetradrachm (31.5mm, 15.63 g, 12h). Lifetime or Posthumous issue. Charax-Spasinu mint. Dated SE 188 (125/4 BC). Diademed head right / Herakles seated left on rock, holding club on knee; monogram to outer left; HΠP (date) in exergue. Assar fig. 15 var. (date); Alram 491 var. (date); cf. De Morgan 1 (date listed as SE 188, but illustration SE 190); BMC –; Sunrise –. VF, a few cleaning marks.
The Astronomical Diary gives us the precise date for the death of Hyspaosines on 10/11 June in year 188 of the Seleukid Era (124 BC). We are told further that Hyspaosines’ widow, Talasi’asu ordered that their minor son Apodakos should “sit on the royal throne of his father” (see A.J. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia. Vol. III: Diaries from 164 B.C. to 61 B.C [Wien :Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wien, 1996]), pp. 282-283:
Astronomical Diary No. -123A (BM 33024+33045)
Obverse: Month III 188 SE = 2/3 June – 30 June/1 July 124 BC:
18: [.... Asp]asine, king of [M]esene, .... [....] .... the 5th day (6/7 June 124 BC) of this month he became ill and on the 9th (10/11 June 124 BC) he died of illness. Afterwards, the nobles [....]
19: [....] .... [....] .... [....] these apprentices must not give any decision. At the command of Talasi’asu, his wife, the nobles [....]
20: [....] .... Afterwards, she made one small (minor) boy, his son, sit on the royal throne of his father Aspasine [....]
As a minor, however, Apodakos did not immediately become king, and hence he issued coins in his father’s name until at least SE 193 (see this coin and the next lot). The present group of tetradrachms spans the period from the lifetime of Hyspaosines through the minority of Apodakos and finally the period when Apodakos issued coins in his own name (see lots 402-405). For a more detailed discussion , see G.R. Assar, “A Revised Parthian Chronology of the Period 165-91 BC), Electrum 11 (2006), 87-158 (at 126) [who generously supplied the information for this note].
