DOI issue:
Artykuły
DOI article:De Callatay͏̈, François: Byzantion over Mithradates Eupator: how the Pontic king paid his Thracian mercenaries after the Treaty of Dardanos (85 BC)
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31072#0097
Tom VII!
Kraków 2013
ziPEi ntznicn
FRANęOtS DE CALLATAY
Royal Library of Belgium, Bruxeł!es
Byzantion over Mithradates Eupator.
How the Pontic King Paid His Thracian
Mercenaries after the Treaty of Dardanos (85 BC)
In May 2013, the hrm Classical Numismatic Group sold a late posthumous
tetradrachm of Lysimachus struck at the mint of Byzantion (PI. 1, Fig. 1).'
This tetradrachm belongs to the last group of my classihcation: Group 4, dated
"ca 80-76 BC." As for Groups 2 and 3, Group 4 testihes to an abundant and tight
production with an estimate of morę than 100 obverse dies engraved in less than
a decade. Put in perspective (with Athens for example), this clearly supersedes by
a considerable margin the needs of a city such as Byzantion and 1 have linked the
bulk of this production of late Byzantine Lysimachi (Group 3 and 4) with the hrst
Mithradatic war (89-85 BC): "From the above chronology, it also appears that
the strike of the numerous Lysimachi of Group 3 seems to coincide with the hrst
Mithradatic War (or just after?) while Groups 2A and 2B would have been struck
some years before. It is less easy to connect Group 4 with a precise event. It seems
to have started too soon to be linked with preparations for the third war which, from
the exceptionally well dated testimony of Pontic coins, were launched in February
75 BC. This stop, just before the third and )ast condict, is also remarkabie. It rein-
forces the presumption that late posthumous Lysimachi were used to pay the (Thra-
cian) mercenaries in the service of Eupator, sińce Plutarch precisely teils us that the
king of Pontus dismissed these barbarian hordes before iaunching his last war."-
The end of the First Mithradatic War was concluded by a treaty signed in late
85 BC by Sulla and Eupator in Dardanos (between Abydos and Sestos). Having
' Classical Numismatic Group, sale 83, 22 May 2013, no. 101 (16.26 g - 36 mm - 12 h).
* F. DE CALLATAY, Ł'/n'.s7o/re <7<?s gMgrres w;7/?/7<7a/Z<yMgs /as wonna/gs, Louvain-!a-Neuve
1997, p. 137 (my translation) with reference to Plutarch, Z,MCM//MS, 7.5.
95
Kraków 2013
ziPEi ntznicn
FRANęOtS DE CALLATAY
Royal Library of Belgium, Bruxeł!es
Byzantion over Mithradates Eupator.
How the Pontic King Paid His Thracian
Mercenaries after the Treaty of Dardanos (85 BC)
In May 2013, the hrm Classical Numismatic Group sold a late posthumous
tetradrachm of Lysimachus struck at the mint of Byzantion (PI. 1, Fig. 1).'
This tetradrachm belongs to the last group of my classihcation: Group 4, dated
"ca 80-76 BC." As for Groups 2 and 3, Group 4 testihes to an abundant and tight
production with an estimate of morę than 100 obverse dies engraved in less than
a decade. Put in perspective (with Athens for example), this clearly supersedes by
a considerable margin the needs of a city such as Byzantion and 1 have linked the
bulk of this production of late Byzantine Lysimachi (Group 3 and 4) with the hrst
Mithradatic war (89-85 BC): "From the above chronology, it also appears that
the strike of the numerous Lysimachi of Group 3 seems to coincide with the hrst
Mithradatic War (or just after?) while Groups 2A and 2B would have been struck
some years before. It is less easy to connect Group 4 with a precise event. It seems
to have started too soon to be linked with preparations for the third war which, from
the exceptionally well dated testimony of Pontic coins, were launched in February
75 BC. This stop, just before the third and )ast condict, is also remarkabie. It rein-
forces the presumption that late posthumous Lysimachi were used to pay the (Thra-
cian) mercenaries in the service of Eupator, sińce Plutarch precisely teils us that the
king of Pontus dismissed these barbarian hordes before iaunching his last war."-
The end of the First Mithradatic War was concluded by a treaty signed in late
85 BC by Sulla and Eupator in Dardanos (between Abydos and Sestos). Having
' Classical Numismatic Group, sale 83, 22 May 2013, no. 101 (16.26 g - 36 mm - 12 h).
* F. DE CALLATAY, Ł'/n'.s7o/re <7<?s gMgrres w;7/?/7<7a/Z<yMgs /as wonna/gs, Louvain-!a-Neuve
1997, p. 137 (my translation) with reference to Plutarch, Z,MCM//MS, 7.5.
95