The empty treasury When Saladin died at Damascus on 4 March 1193, his secretary and biographer Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad set down what the sultan left behind. His generosity, Baha ad-Din wrote, was too public to need recording, and the proof sat in the treasure chest: "when he died, in his treasure chest were found only forty-seven Nasiri dirhams of silver and a single Tyrian gold coin, the weight of which was unknown to me" - Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya,

Today's history starts in the Roman Republic with Lucius Cornelius Sulla and finds it's way the the Paris of Louis XIV. The coins that inspired this romp across time are from the court of Ivan the Terrible and his successors. MEDIEVAL RUSSIA. a mix of silver dengas or kopecs from Ivan IV Vasilyevich Grozny (the Terrible, 1547-1584) & (1598-1605) of Boris Godunov . AR Denga. Obv : Ivan, raising sword, on horseback right. Rev : Legend in four lines. Possibly other rulers. (16

"Portrait of Cicero", A sculpted bust of Roman Orator, Lawyer, Philosopher and Statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero. Featured in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy. Sculpted from marble by an unknown artist after Cicero's death. Derived work from an image by Liam Clarkson-Holborn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BC), the Roman orator, lawyer and consul of 63 BC, wrote hundreds of letters that still survive. They cover the years from 68 BC un

The Origins of the Muzaffarids The Muzaffarid dynasty arose in the Yazd region of central Iran, particularly at Meybod, from a family whose earlier ancestry was traced to Khwaf in Khurasan. Its earliest known forefather, Ghiyāth al-Din Hāji, migrated westward to the Yazd region during the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. His descendants built up influence there by serving both the local Atabegs of Yazd (hereditary regional governors) and the Mongol Ilkhanid authorities

The Prophecy Croesus, King of Lydia, sent envoys to the oracles at Delphi and at the shrine of Amphiaraos. Herodotos gives their question and the answer: “Croesus, king of Lydia and other nations, believing that here are the only true places of divination among men, endows you with such gifts as your wisdom deserves. And now he asks you whether he is to send an army against the Persians, and whether he is to add an army of allies.” Such was their inquiry; and the judgment giv

The Macedonian Empire, 336-323 B.C. Map showing Thrace north of Macedonia with the Skythians north of Thrace. Public Domain from the "Historical Atlas" by William R. Shepherd, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1923. Skythians and Thracians faced each other across the lower Danube. Their royal houses intermarried, the Thracians nearest the river fought Skythian-style as mounted archers, both peoples were prized as fighters, and both tattooed their bodies, the Thracians as a m

Meherdates grew up a hostage in Rome. Tacitus, our primary source, does not say when Meherdates arrived in Rome or how long he had lived there however, by 49 AD, but he had evidently grown to adulthood away from the Parthian court...

Seleuci Epiphanis Nikatoris, Seleucidarum imperium Jean Foy-Vaillant, 1632-1706 Today's coin of interest is a rare Seleucid drachm that carries an unusually well documented recent history. It sold at Roma Numismatics in March 2023 for 417 USD, then resurfaced six more times through a single successor firm, The Coin Cabinet, in October 2024, March 2025, October 2025, November 2025, February 2026, and August 2026, hammering each time in a narrow band between 344 and 505 USD. T

The Ionian Revolt Phokaia (modern Foça, Turkey) was a Greek maritime city on the coast of Ionia. Harpagos, campaigning for Cyrus, conquered the city in about 545 BC. Many citizens abandoned their homes rather than submit to Persian rule, though Herodotos says more than half of them later turned back ( (Herodotos, Histories 1.164-1.165). Those who lived there under a foreign administration paid tribute and military service. The city was severely depleted of resources and manpo

These two silver discs come from the same mountains and from the same silver bearing province and were struck at most twenty years apart. The coins The first coin names a Samanid amir who was dead when at least one of its dies was cut. Samanid, Mansur I b. Nuh (AD 961-976/AH 350-365) AR multiple Dirham, Ma'din mint. Undated issue, Double reverse issue. Ref: mule of Album 1465+1465A see Zeno 308820. This Mansur I bin Nuh piece has no obverse. A workman set two reverse dies, on

The Coins Today's coins of interest are two silver fractions from the same janapada, a third and a half, each with an elephant among its four punches. Both are fractions of a karshapana attributed to the Vidarbha janapada, the date on these is circa sixth to fifth century BC with some placed as late as fourth century. The coins belongs to a series that recent finds now assign to Vidarbha, the eastern arm of Maharashtra around modern Nagpur. A janapada is a people together wit

On the obverse, a veiled woman wears a city's walls as a crown, a weak strike enhancing the effect of the veil. On the other side, two felt caps under two stars, tied with ribbons and wreathed in laurel. A word below ΣΟΛΕΩΝ, "of the people of Soloi" with an AΠ monogram below. The veiled woman is Tyche goddess of fortune. The Greek word tychē itself translates directly as "luck", "fortune", or "chance". It is derived from the Greek verb tynchanō (τυγχάνω), which means "to hap

The Coin and Its Date In the year SE 165 [148/7 BC] Demetrius the Second, the son of Demetrius the First, left Crete and arrived in Syria, the land of his ancestors. When King Alexander heard about this, he was worried and returned to Antioch, the capital of Syria. -1 Maccabees 10:67-68 Seleukid Kingdom, Phoenicia, Sidon, Alexander I Balas (King, 152–145 BC), AR Tetradrachm (16.76 g, 31 mm), dated SE 165 (148/7 BC). Obv: Diademed head of Alexander I right. Rev: ΘΕΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ ΕΥΕ

E. Babelon, Coinage of the Roman Republic, 1885 The Coin Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius), circa 32 to 31 BC AR denarius (3.39 g, 19 mm), legionary mint moving with the army in western Greece, probably Patrai Obv: ANT AVG III VIR R P C, praetorian galley right, a filleted scepter on the prow Rev: CHORTIS SPECVLATORVM, three standards, each hung with two wreaths and a ship's prow Ref: Crawford 544/12; Babelon, Antonia 103; Sydenham 1214 Cabinet toning, banker's mark on the obvers

The city of Elis administered the sanctuary of Olympia and the Olympic games for most of antiquity. Sulla plundered the sanctuary's treasures in 86 BC to pay his armies during his War with Mithridates of Pontus...

The Heracles Papyrus (Oxford, Sackler Library, Oxyrhynchus Pap. 2331), a fragment of 3rd century Greek manuscript of a poem about the Labors of Heracles. Public Domain Image via WikimediaCommons. Before I dive in, a confession: I like books. Old, slightly yellowed books especially. This note started with a single question: Are books dead? By the end, you won't get a simple "yes" or "no", however, you will get a tour through ancient Latin words and a few data points. A Roman

When I read about the men who presided over the end of the Roman Republic, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, Octavian, Cassius, Brutus, the same question echoes: who was good and who was bad? I want to choose sides with Brutus. He was on the side of liberty - was he not? His coins say so in so many words - protecting Rome from the tyranny of Caesar. And then there are the events in Lycia, which question the practice of sorting historical figures into good and bad. Marc Antony's Oration

Ancient coins from auctions always have a dealer's attribution, sometimes tucked into the flip in tidy abbreviations. It can sometimes be dressed up to be very authoritative-looking and very often unreliable. Auction houses vary in their expertise, and even the best of them cannot be specialists in every series; everyone, eventually, makes a mis-call. The ticket is a starting point, as today's coin will illustrate. Here's what the dealer described Greek Mysia, Pergamon, AE ,

The Latin term dextrarum iunctio literally translates to "the joining of right hands" and serves as a symbol of fidelity, loyalty, reconciliation or unity of factions. Being a Roman emperor in the half-century after 235 did not promise a long and profitable career. The empire ran through some twenty-six emperors, nearly all of whom died by violence, most at the hands of their own soldiers. In 260, Valerian was taken alive by the Persian king Shapur, the only Roman emperor ev

An arched structure of access to the cavea of the Aigai theater. A canting type is a coin design that makes a pun on the name of the issuing authority, almost always a city, by depicting an object, animal, or plant whose Greek name sounds like (or is identical to) the city's name. The term "canting" is a modern name borrowed from heraldry, where "canting arms" (armes parlantes) do the same thing for a family name. Ancient visual puns: the city's name, spoken in pictures. You