KINGS OF ARMENIA MINOR. M. Antonius Polemo, 34/3-31/0 BC. Tetrachalkon (Bronze, 20 mm, 5.64 g, 11 h), uncertain mint in Armenia. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓ Μ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΟΥ ΠΟΛΕΜΩΝΟΣ Diademed head of Polemo to right.
Rev. ΙΟΥΛΙΑΣ ΜΑΜ[ΜΑΙΑΣ] ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΗΣ Diademed head of Julia Mammaea to right. Kovacs 298. RPC I 3844. H. Seyrig, Scripta Nummaria (1986) 156-8, fig. 1 (attributed to Polemo II of Pontus). P. Thonemann, Epigraphica Anatolica (2004), 147, n. 19 (attributed to M. Antonius Polemo of Olba). Extremely rare, apparently only the fourth known example. Patina stripped and with some surface cracks and a small drilling hole on the obverse
, otherwise, good fine.
From an important collection of Armenian coins.
Kovacs reattributed this extremely rare and important issue to M. Antonius Polemo, a dynast of Iconium and ally of Mark Antony, who received Armenia Minor in 34/3 from the Roman general as a reward for his loyal support during the retreat from the failed campaign against Parthia in 36 BC. After the downfall of Mark Antony, Octavian removed Polemo from Armenia Minor and made him king of the Regnum Bospori, where he ruled from 15/4-8 BC, before being killed in battle by the Aspurgiani, a tribe of the Maeotae living to the east of the Cimmerian Bosporus.
