An interesting imitation of a rare Cilician stater depicting Artaxerxes III

[Kaleun96]

For those familiar with Cilician staters, in particular those from Tarsos, you'll be quite used to seeing the seated Baaltars obverse from several types produced in the 4th century BC. Minor changes can be seen in his posture, or in what he's holding, or the symbols found in the fields, but you can always identify Baaltars whether it's from a type minted under Pharnabazos or under Balakros 50 years later.

There exists, however, a very rare issue of staters that feature a different seated person on the obverse, or at least one that appears different from Baaltars. The individual has a different headdress, hair style, clothing, throne, posture, physique, and holds a lotus flower in his hand in addition to the lotus-tipped sceptre. This naturally calls back to the King of Kings depicted on the relief of Apadana, who holds a lotus flower in one hand and a sceptre in the other.

The usual depiction of Baaltars on a stater issued by Mazaios while Satrap of Tarsos. NOT MY COIN.

The type in question, a rare stater likely issued under Mazaios' rule somewhere between 361 and 334 BC. NOT MY COIN.

Relief of Apadana, possibly Darius the Great.

The significant difference between this depiction and the usual depiction of Baaltars has led many to hypothesise that the individual on this rare type of coins is in fact Artaxerxes III rather than Baaltars. Though the obverse legend still reads "Baaltars", the individual otherwise seems incongruous with the Tarsiote deity.

CNG has the following to say on the type:

Quote

 

The appearance of Baaltars on this issue is significantly different from the relatively standard depiction of the deity on other coins of Tarsos. While the diety is typically shown nude to his waist, here the figure is fully clothed with attire that closely resembles that on the figure that appears on the royal Persian coinage struck at Sardes. More importanly, though, is the headdress on the figure. Baaltars typically wears a laurel wreath or no headdress, while this portrait shows the figure wearing an elaborate headdress. In a recent article, Frank Kovacs analysed the type, and argues that this figure is actually the Great King Araxeres III Ochos, in the guise of Baaltars, and the headdress is the combined crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, thus his appearance here is as pharaoh of Egypt (cf. F. Kovacs, "Two Persian Pharaonic Potraits" in JNG L [2000]; see also M. Thompson, in MN XII [1968], pp. 11–2, who notes the figure wearing a "high crown of Egyptian type"). This is plausible, as Araxerxes was the first pharaoh of the Thirty-First Dynasty of Egypt, and the date of his rule there, 343-338 BC, comports well with this issue under Mazaios.

O. Casabonne, while acknowledging that the figure here may represent a synthesis of Baaltars and the Great King, disagrees with the identification of the headdress as the Egyptian crown. Instead, he views the headdress as being a Phrigian style cap that is often depicted in contemporary art as being worn by warriors (cf. Casabonne, p. 121, fig. 8), but is here shown with the cheek guards in a raised position.

Nonetheless, it is doubtless that the figure here is a synthesized portrait of Baaltars and the Persian Great King. The fractional silver of this issue (see the following lot), interestingly, may be most instructive, as the headdress on the figure is shown wearing a crown that is identical to that on the figure of the royal Achaemenid coinage and his robes have interlocking circles reminiscent of the darics of Carradice Type IV Late (cf. M. Thompson, op. cit. , p. 12).

 

 

Now, on to my coin and why I've written the above! I noticed a coin with the rare Artaxerxes III obverse type at a Pars auction sometime last year, where it eventually went unsold. It reappeared again this year at another one of their auctions and I decided to pull the trigger. Why the hesitation? The reverse type. The reverse type is not known to have been paired with this obverse, instead it belongs to a different Mazaios type that features a lion attacking a stag. This odd combination, in addition to the poorer style, led me to think it was likely an imitation, even though it was not described as such.

An imitation of the "Artaxerxes III" type stater issued during the time of Mazaios' satrapy 361-334 BC.

Additionally, after some sleuthing I found an obverse die match to another example but this one was paired with a different reverse type! This reverse type was even more odd as it was one not used since the time of Pharnabazos and Datames, Mazaios' predecessors. This reverse depicts a portrait of a helmeted bearded male, often thought to be Ares. The obviously poor style of this example made it pretty certain in my mind that we're dealing with an imitation. I eventually discovered another obverse die match, this time to a coin that had been previously listed at auction by Gorny & Mosch (2016) and Ira & Larry Goldberg (2018), where it had since picked up some artificial toning, before being sold at Leu Numismatik in 2019 for a whopping 2,800 CHF.

Strangely, this second die match coin had a third reverse type - this time the *correct* reverse type: a recumbent lion with a bow placed above. So we now have one obverse die paired with three different reverse dies, all of which are different types. Very odd indeed. One wonders why a group imitating this type would have gone to these lengths.

Blue lines link to the authentic non-imitative versions for the obverse and reverse of my coin. The red lines indicate obverse die matches to other examples of my coin, one of which was sold three times (all photos listed).

 

There's always the possibility that these are not imitations but modern forgeries, though I'm inclined to think it's more likely to be the former. Not only due to the treatment my coin has received, and its convincing surfaces and condition, but also because the imitative style is quite similar to that found on other imitations of both Tarsos staters and also Babylion lion staters. Anyhow, I'll leave it up to you to decide and I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

[DANTE]

Interesting coin to have. Congratulations. Given that Pars and Gorny have a good reputation it's not likely that they're modern forgeries. Judging by the missing border the third example probably has been zealously cleaned, other than that I don't see anything wrong with them. They could well be imitations. I've seen some crude imitations from Soloi struck for Tarsos as tribute, so it's not unheard of. (although this was probably not under Mazaios, but earlier. These Soloi coins were probably stuck to help finance Pharnabazos' Egyptian expedition. They had the 'Ares' warrior on the obv. and the typical grape bunch from Soloi on the rev.) So tribute/tax from a neighboring city is a realistic possibility. It would certainly help explain the crude style and the odd combination of reverses and types ( note that on the third 'official' specimen you show the lion faces right instead of left: that's unusual in itself.) Running the capital of a double satrapy and maintaining a fleet is a costly affair, so taxes had to be paid. It's not impossible that a neighboring city paid their taxes in imitational coinage rather than in bullion or in their own local coinage. The Soloi analogy suggests that it was an acceptable practice at the time. I don't see any reason why this couldn't be another example of the phenomenon. (If only I had kept the auction photograph of the Soloi example... Seeing your coin makes me sorry I didn't). It's the best explanation I can come up with.

FWIW: could it be that the whole point of the king on the obverse of these coins was to emphasize loyalty and submission to the Achaemenid Empire? This was the time right after the Satrapal Revolt, so a period when the rights and authority of the Persian king had to be re-established. What better way to show your loyalty and submission than to depict not Baal, but Artaxerxes himself on the throne? Just a thought I got when seeing your coin. ...🙂I may be wrong, of course.

[Kaleun96]

5 hours ago, DANTE said:

Interesting coin to have. Congratulations. Given that Pars and Gorny have a good reputation it's not likely that they're modern forgeries. Judging by the missing border the third example probably has been zealously cleaned, other than that I don't see anything wrong with them. They could well be imitations. I've seen some crude imitations from Soloi struck for Tarsos as tribute, so it's not unheard of. (although this was probably not under Mazaios, but earlier. These Soloi coins were probably stuck to help finance Pharnabazos' Egyptian expedition. They had the 'Ares' warrior on the obv. and the typical grape bunch from Soloi on the rev.) So tribute/tax from a neighboring city is a realistic possibility. It would certainly help explain the crude style and the odd combination of reverses and types ( note that on the third 'official' specimen you show the lion faces right instead of left: that's unusual in itself.) Running the capital of a double satrapy and maintaining a fleet is a costly affair, so taxes had to be paid. It's not impossible that a neighboring city paid their taxes in imitational coinage rather than in bullion or in their own local coinage. The Soloi analogy suggests that it was an acceptable practice at the time. I don't see any reason why this couldn't be another example of the phenomenon. (If only I had kept the auction photograph of the Soloi example... Seeing your coin makes me sorry I didn't). It's the best explanation I can come up with.

FWIW: could it be that the whole point of the king on the obverse of these coins was to emphasize loyalty and submission to the Achaemenid Empire? This was the time right after the Satrapal Revolt, so a period when the rights and authority of the Persian king had to be re-established. What better way to show your loyalty and submission than to depict not Baal, but Artaxerxes himself on the throne? Just a thought I got when seeing your coin. ...🙂I may be wrong, of course.

Very interesting, I didn't know about those imitations. Do you know how it was determined that they're likely Soloi tributes struck for Tarsos rather than just a usual imitation in the traditional sense? I think if you're right and they were struck to be used somewhat officially, that would be a really useful to angle to then look at these Artaxerxes III imitations by.

Is this one of the Soloi imitations?

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=9338362

 

Your theory about the Artaxerxes III sounds familiar, perhaps Moysey or such has theorised something similar. It would be useful to know exactly when that type was produced, if closer to 361 BC than 334 BC, it would certainly make sense that it could be a response to the Satrap's revolt. Around the time of that revolt, we also saw Datames issue a type that bucked the trend, supposedly depicting himself in Persian attire on a Persian throne. Perhaps Artaxerxes III, or maybe even just Mazaios, was well aware of the effect of that propaganda and responded in kind once he came to power in 359/8 BC. Though this is a bit earlier than is suggested by Frank Kovacs, who suggests that Artaxerxes III headdress is Egyptian and thus more likely to have been minted after he became ruler of Egypt in 343 BC.

[Theodosius]

Great thread, very interesting. Wish I had some relevant coins to share.

John

[DANTE]

That's the coin.🙂

The bad news is that it is all really speculation on my part. The thought behind it was quite simple and intuitive:  the reverse grape type that's unmistakenly from Soloi in combination with a crudish obverse that unmistakenly imitates Tarsos from the time of Pharnabazos. With that in mind, is it really surprising that one's thoughts and speculations should turn in the direction they went? A coinage struck in Soloi as tribute/tax for the Egyptian expedition. It's an almost inevitable conclusion. But pure speculation, of course. And without the context of similar types. When I saw your imitation coins above my thoughts immediately turned to the 'Soloi' coin. Like the Soloi coin, the Artaxerxes imitations combine unusual/unmatching types,they are both rather crudely executed, and they are from roughly the same place and not too far off from each other in time. You can see why I thought I saw a pattern. But the 'Soloi' likely predates Artaxerxes, because It still has an incuse reverse (although you never know for sure, it's an imitation, after all). Could what I suggested about your coin and the 'Soloi' be true? Sure. But is it a theory I can support with evidence? No. But I hoped the 'Soloi' could provide some context for your coin.

This of course leaves the mystery of why the Great King should replace Ba'al on the issue that your coin copies. Not surprisingly, I have no answers, but I agree with you that the narrowing down of the dating of them would be all-important for their interpretation. Also, I learned that there is some discussion about the headdress, some suggest an Egyptian crown as you mentioned, others suggest a Phrygian cap. Deciding which one it is will have a big impact on how you interpret the coin. (conquest of Egypt vs. the warrior king ). 

My loose suggestion about the depiction of Artaxerxes as a way of re-asserting authority is inspired by an article I read called: 'Datames and Mazaeus: the Iconography of Revolt and Restoration in Cilicia'. In it the writer attempts to interpret the coinage of Tarsos as political and propaganda tools during and after the Satrapal revolt. A worthwhile read, I thought. ( Here's the link: Datames and Mazaeus: The Iconography of Revolt and Restoration in Cilicia on JSTOR).

Either way, it's an intriguing and coin. But then again, I've always liked the coins of Tarsos. Intriguing and mysterious types with a unique and beautiful iconography. What more do you want?🙂    

Here's an oldie: