Mithradates VI Eupator (of a Good Father) was of Persian and Greek descent, and ruled Pontus from 120-63 BCE. He vastly expanded the territory of Pontus and was the most prominent eastern enemy of the expanding Roman Empire in the Mithradatic Wars (between 88 and 63 BCE).
Like Ptolemy’s portrait of Alexander wearing an elephant scalp, Lysimachus’ image of Alexander produced its own iconographic standards for coinage, including the hair that had been on Ptolemy’s coins. Most portraits reproduced the curls which created a sense of movement and an interesting variation of the image’s height, but very few replicated the length of the curls, and the ones which did, did so in conscious imitation. Mithradates styled himself as a second Alexander in his conquests of Western Asia and in his opposition to the Roman Empire, and had himself depicted in statuary wearing the lion skin of Heracles. On his coins he instead employed the iconography of Alexander. Where Mithradates’ predecessors are depicted on coinage with beards and cropped hair, Mithradates has Alexander’s long curls and anastole (cowlick) exaggerated as if wind-blown in order to make the intent of the emulation clear. The upward gaze completes the emulation. The portrait is young and dynamic rather than dignified, capturing the personality of the king that brought glory back to Pontus and resisted the Roman Empire. This coin was minted just over 250 years after Alexander’s death, but Alexander clearly remained the benchmark of military achievement, and his portrait was emulated by those that wished to be seen as a accomplished conquerors.
The sinistroverse (written right to left) numeral “ΓΚΣ” (capitals of the Greek letters gamma, kappa, and sigma) gives the date 223 of the Bithynian era, which equates to 74/73 BCE in our Gregorian calendar. The “Δ” (delta) even gives the month as the 4th, i.e. about January on our calendar.
