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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
196, Lot: 71. Estimate $300.
Sold for $655. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of PARTHIA. Artabanos I. 126-122 BC. AR Drachm (20mm, 4.13 g, 12h). Ekbatana mint. Diademed bust left / Archer (Arsakes I) seated right on omphalos, holding bow. Assar, Genealogy, fig. 21; Sellwood 20.1; Shore 59. Good VF, lightly toned. Struck on a broad flan with full obverse visible, rare thus.


Artabanos I was probably an older son of Mithradates I and a half-brother, not the uncle, of Phraates II. Hence the epithets ΘΕΟΠΑΤΩΡ, "Son a Deified Father," on his S19 drachms, and ΦΙΛΑΔΕΛΦΟΣ, "Loving His Brother," on S20, S22.1-2 and S22.4 drachms. During his short four year reign, Artabanos remained chiefly preoccupied with repeated unrest in the southern provinces of Mesene and Elam, and the nomad attacks in north-east Parthia. Although largely successful in extending Arsakid jurisdiction over the southern regions of the empire (confirmed by his S18.2 tetradrachm from Susa and S21 series from Seleukeia), and in pushing the northern invaders as far as Margiane (attested by his S20.5-6, S22.4, and Shore 64 drachms), he seems to have ultimately succumbed to a poisoned arrow he received in his arm while fighting the "Tochari" in eastern Parthia about April or May 122 BC.