BITHYNIA. Kios (as Prusias ad Mare). Orsobaris Musa, daughter of Mithradates VI Eupator, circa mid to late 1st century BC. Tetrachalkon (Bronze, 21 mm, 6.65 g, 12 h), circa 30-22 BC (?). BAΣIΛIΣΣHΣ / OPΣOBAPIOΣ - MOYΣHΣ Diademed head of Orsobaris Musa to left. Rev. ΠPOYΣIEΩN TΩN / ΠPOΣ ΘAΛAΣΣHI Bearded head of Herakles to left. RG 26 and pl. L, 7. RPC I 2020. Extremely rare and very likely the finest known example, with a beautiful green patina. Minor deposits and cleaning scratches, otherwise, good very fine.


The dates of Orsobaris Musa's birth and death are unclear, but Appian reports that she was a daughter of Mithradates VI of Pontos and brought to Rome in 61 BC, together with a number of other descendants of the Pontic king, to be presented in Pompey's great triumph (App. Mithr. 117). We also know that Orsobaris married Lykomedes of Comana, an unsuccessful contender for the Bithynian throne in 74 BC and priest-king of the temple-state of Comana in 47-30 BC, at an uncertain time in her life. The chronology is further complicated by the present coin type struck in the Bithynian city of Prusias ad Mare, presenting her name as 'Queen Orsobaris Musa', and another issue struck in the same mint for 'Orodaltis, daughter of Lykomedes' (RPC 2021). It seems apparent that Orodaltis was the daughter of Lykomedes and Orsobaris and that she lived in the city of Prusias ad Mare sometime in the late 1st century BC (possibly before, or until, the administrative reforms of Agrippa in Asia Minor in 22 BC).

Yet when then did her mother, being married to Lykomedes and likely living in Comana in 47-30 BC, rule the city? A likely assumption is that Orsobaris received the city of Prusias ad Mare as a principality from Augustus after the death of her husband in 30 BC, and that the types in her and her daughter's name form part of a single issue, produced at some point in the years thereafter. This reconstruction explains the striking stylistic similarities between the coinage for Orsobaris and for her daughter, most apparent in the rendering of the portraits and the curious placement of the legends, both of which indicate the hand of a single artist. Orsobaris, as the senior ruler, would thus have issued a larger denomination, naming herself 'queen' and associating herself with the founder of Kios-Prusias, Herakles, on the reverse, while her daughter, on the smaller half denomination, appears without any title and is called the 'daughter of Lykomedes' only.