Today's coin of interest starts with a symbol that takes on new meaning as we move from a mosaic in the Trident House in Delos, Greece ...

In the words of Tom Petty, “even the losers get lucky sometimes”. You have to love an auction where you lose and still get the coin you ...

What do Perseus, St. Paul, and Antoninus Pius have in common? My coin of interest this week is another AE from Asia Minor, the Roman...

This "Greek" coin from Pergamon is the coin of interest for this week. Mysia, Pergamon, 159-133 BC, Æ (16.6mm,5.36g, 12h) Obv: Helmeted...

I will start the story of this coin with Homer's Odyssey, and the passage where Odysseus and his crew are navigating between Charybdis, a...

It's been a while since I last purchased a Roman republican coin. Although my interest hasn't moved away - the coins that I am looking...

Greeks and Scythians were different cultures, my most recent coin comes from the intersection of these cultures at Olbia. Plutarch shares...

As I was updating this post, written earlier this year, I stumbled on a 2014 blog entry with a photo that seems to be the two votive...

Rare is not rare in Roman Provincials, and affordable condition and rarity are benefits of wandering off the most well worn paths of...

Mên, illustrated in this marble Roman relief from the 2nd Century AD, is the Moon god of Roman Anatolia, perhaps connected with the...

On 21-Feb-1787, The provisional government of the United States, established under the Articles of Confederation, agreed to a resolution...

Octavian (aka Augustus) conquered, or annexed, Egypt when Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide after the battle at Actium. Between 30...

A 1/5th tetradrachm? this is not a coin I had noticed before this one. A 2.55g coin of Philip III, son of Philip II of Macedon,...

The depiction of Artemis and portrait of Zeus on this 14mm, 2.0g, AE coin were the reason I purchased the coin. It wasn’t until it...

Sinope, Paphlagonia in Northern Anatolia is on the southern shores of the Black Sea and it is still a city today in modern Türkiye see map . This coin was issued in Sinope during the reign of Mithridates VI of Pontus, aka Mithriadates the Great, during the first century BC. Mithridates VI was born in Sinope around 135 BC to Mithridates V and Laodice VI. His father was poisoned in Sinope in 120 BC. Attributing this AE20 coin isn't too challenging - ΣINΩΠHΣ, Zeus and an eagle

This denarius, gives me a reason to return to the story of Sulla and the War with Mithridates VI of Pontus. After hastily wrapping up...

After the first Social War (91-88 BC), in which Lucius Cornelius Sulla distinguished himself as a general especially in his defeat of the Samnites. He was elected consul in 88 BC with Quintus Pompeius Rufus. In the same year, his partnership with Pompeius was cemented with the marriage of Cornelia, the daughter of Sulla and his first wife Julia, and Q. Pompeius Rufus, the son of the co-consul. Sulla, 50 years old, was married to his third wife, Cloelia, whom he pushed aside o

Attributing Parthian coins to a king and time period, can be complicated. This coin, 30.16, is assigned by Sellwood to an Unknown King (II), and by Shore as 134 it is mapped to Orodes I , and Sear maps it to Gotarzes I , and Mitchiner to Mithradates II , and Wroth to Artabanus II , and Gardner, Plate II #9 , to Phraates II . So clearly there has been some discussion over the years about who this type belongs to. Aside from the question of “who” is on this coin, this Parthian

This story of the first diplomatic contact between Rome and Parthia, is illustrated with three coins. The story begins around 101 BC when the first coin, a Roman republican denarius, was minted in Rome by L Sentius. The obverse is one of several that declare that the coin is made from the state treasury: "ARGentum PVBlicum" is abbreviated on the obverse as ARG PVB. Why some issues declare this is not known. Sentius was brother to C Sentius Cf, praetor urbanus in 94, the seni

“The cistophorus, with its writhing serpents and over-elaborate ornamentation, is perhaps the ugliest coin in the Greek series. ...