A Mercenary Tetradrachm of Odessos
- sulla80
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Odessos (modern Varna, Bulgaria) began as a Milesian apoikia (colony) on an older Thracian settlement in the late 7th-early 6th century BCE and became a leading member of the Pontic Pentapolis, trading between the Aegean world and inland Thrace.
By the first century BCE it remained an important exporter of grain, timber, and salted fish while importing wine and manufactured goods. Politically, the city stood in a contested corridor: Thracian dynasts pressuring from inland and Mithridates VI of Pontos asserting control along the Black Sea, with Roman power pressing in from Moesia and Macedonia.
Sitting in the middle of these three forces, Odessos needed coinage that could bridge across several monetary cultures. Alexander‑type tetradrachms in good silver on an Attic‑derived standard filled that need: mercenaries, Pontic officials, and Roman officers all recognized and accepted them with confidence. The decision to continue striking large silver in Alexander’s name, rather than purely civic types, was an economic strategy.
Today's coin, minted during the Second Mithridatic War, physically embodies the city's precarious position between two superpowers: the expanding Roman Republic and the Kingdom of Pontus under Mithridates VI. The portrait on this coin brings to the table an ongoing question mark: have the features of Herakles have been altered to resemble King Mithridites VI? Profess loyalty to Pontus and the anti-Roman cause while maintaining plausible deniability.
Financing the Mithridatic War
This coin falls in Group 3 issues from Odessos in Callataÿ’s die study and he dates them circa 80–72/1 BCE based on style, weight, and die‑links, as well as their alignment with other coinage of the regions under Pontic influence. Note that this coin comes in teh period in which Sulla stepped down as dictator and soon after died. These coins were minted on a slightly reduced Attic standard, in line with other late Hellenistic Alexander issues, and show careful but not obsessive control of weight. The modest spread of weights seen today likely reflects both minor mint tolerance and wear from circulation.
Appian describes these coastal cities oscillating between Mithridatic and Roman control making clear the fiscal pressure on ports like Odessos: they had to feed armies, pay garrisons, and provision fleets. These Group 3 coins belong to a distinct, monetary episode: a burst of Alexander‑type production tied to the contested Mithridatic-Roman frontier. My coin is 0.07g less than the average of 16.2g based on 38 known specimen
The Obverse
The obverse shows Heracles facing right, in the familiar Alexander-type, wearing the lion skin headdress. Catalogues increasingly note that in some Group 3 specimens the head of Heracles seems to share traits with portraits of Mithridates VI - sharper nose, fuller facial modeling - raising questions about intentional portraiture with at least three competing interpretations:
Evolution of Alexander's Portrait. The portrait is simply a late Hellenistic rendering of the traditional Alexander/Heracles type; any similarity to Mithridates is coincidental.
Mithridates as a new Alexander. Local engravers subtly display the Heracles head with Mithridatic features, aligning Odessos visually with Pontic power while keeping the safe Alexander legend.
Obverse Die Match from Callataÿ Pl. XXVII Group 3 D2 Rev Die R2 p.89 not illustrated. Deliberately Ambiguous. To a Greek civic elite, the coin remains Alexanderic; to a Mithridatic partisan, it hints at their king in heroic guise; to a Roman officer, it is merely familiar tetradrachm silver. The flexibility of interpretation is itself politically useful.
The Reverse
The reverse shows Zeus Aëtophoros sitting left, holding an eagle and sceptre, surrounded by BAΣIΛEΩΣ AΛEΞANΔPOY, with ΛAK in the left field and OΔH in the exergue. The ethnic unequivocally ties the coin to Odessos, while ΛAK is best understood as the abbreviated name of the magistrate ΛAKΩN, whose tenure frames the emission.
Conclusion
This Odessos Group 3 tetradrachm is primarily as instrument of wartime finance however their may also be some careful political positioning. In a port city wedged between Thracian power inland, Mithridatic authority on the coast, and Roman expansion from the west, the Alexander-type offered a trusted monetary language intelligible across rival camps. Struck on a slightly reduced Attic standard during the Second Mithridatic War, it reflects the practical demands Appian describes: provisioning fleets, paying garrisons, and sustaining armies in a corridor where control could change abruptly.
The coin’s most intriguing feature - the Heracles head that may (or may not) echo Mithridates VI - captures the same strategic logic. Whether the resemblance is stylistic evolution, intentional royal allusion, or a cultivated ambiguity, the effect is the same: the type could signal alignment with Pontic power without sacrificing the wide acceptability and “safe” authority of Alexander’s name. On the reverse, Odessos still signs its work through OΔH and the magistrate ΛAKΩN, asserting civic agency within an international iconographic framework.
References
Appian. Roman history (translation from Laten written 2nd century CE)
Callataÿ, F. de. (1997). L’histoire des guerres mithridatiques vue par les monnaies (Numismatica Lovaniensia 18). Peeters.
Marinescu, C. A., & Lorber, C. C. (2012). The “Black Sea” tetradrachm hoard. In I. Paunov & K. Filipova (Eds.), ΗΡΑΚΛΕΟΥΣ ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ ΤΗΣΙΩΝ: Studia in honorem Iliae Prokopov (pp. 197–259). Faber.
Price, M. J. (1991). The coinage in the name of Alexander the Great and Philip Arrhidaeus (Vols. 1–2). British Museum Press.
Varna Municipality / Archaeological Museum Varna. (n.d.). Odessos (Ancient Varna). In Cultural heritage of Varna. Local museum and municipal publications.
HGC 3. Handbook of Greek Coinage Series, Vol 3: Macedonia and Thrace. Lancaster: Classical Numismatic Group; 2016.
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