Coins of the Mithridatic Wars: Mithridates VI, Pontus, and Rome

How to collect the coinage of Rome's great eastern rival without overstating what an individual coin can prove.

What coins are connected to the Mithridatic Wars? Collectors can pursue royal silver of Mithridates VI, civic bronze from Pontic cities such as Amisos and Sinope, coins of his Armenian ally Tigranes II, and contemporary Roman Republican silver. The strongest attribution comes from issuer, mint, type, and date—not from claiming that a particular surviving coin paid a named soldier or crossed a specific battlefield.

Who Was Mithridates VI?

Mithridates VI Eupator ruled Pontus from roughly 120 to 63 BC. His kingdom occupied much of the southern Black Sea coast and combined Persian dynastic traditions with a strongly Hellenistic political and artistic culture.

He expanded Pontic influence around the Black Sea and into Asia Minor, eventually colliding with Roman interests in Bithynia and Cappadocia. The resulting struggle became one of the longest and most difficult eastern conflicts of the late Roman Republic.

Ancient authors also associated Mithridates with multilingual ability and experiments involving poisons and antidotes. Those stories helped create his later legend, but the surviving literary accounts were written with their own agendas and should not all be treated as literal biography.

What Were the Three Mithridatic Wars?

The Asiatic Vespers: What Can Be Said Safely?

In 88 BC, Romans and Italians were massacred across parts of the province of Asia after orders attributed to Mithridates. Ancient sources give enormous casualty totals, often around 80,000 or more, but modern historians treat those figures cautiously. The event itself was real and politically decisive; the exact number of victims is uncertain.

Coins of Mithridates VI

Royal Silver Tetradrachms

Mithridates' silver tetradrachms are among the most recognizable royal coins of the late Hellenistic world. Their idealized portrait style deliberately evokes Alexander the Great and the visual language of Hellenistic kingship.

These are genuine coins issued under Mithridates, but even a coin struck during the wars cannot normally be assigned to a specific campaign unless it has unusually strong archaeological provenance.

Pontic Civic Bronze

For most collectors, civic bronze from cities under Mithridates offers the most affordable route into this period. Amisos produced numerous bronze types, including Ares, Zeus, Medusa, Perseus, and other mythological designs.

These types belonged to the monetary economy of Pontus under Mithridates. That is a strong historical connection on its own. It is better than inventing an individual journey for a surviving specimen.

From the Kinzer Coins Collection

Amisos Bronze with Ares under Mithridates VI, NGC Certified (120–63 BC)

The war god on the money of a kingdom at war: genuine civic bronze of Amisos from the age of Rome's great eastern rival.

$94.00 View This Coin

From the Kinzer Coins Collection

Amisos Bronze with Medusa under Mithridates VI, NGC Certified (120–63 BC)

The gorgon that guarded Pontic money: one of the most striking Amisos mythological types, certified and collector-ready.

$97.00 View This Coin

From the Kinzer Coins Collection

Amisos Bronze with Zeus under Mithridates VI, NGC Certified (120–63 BC)

Supreme authority in bronze: Zeus on the civic coinage of Amisos while Mithridates challenged Rome for the East.

$94.00 View This Coin

Roman Coins of the Wars

Roman Republican denarii and other silver issues formed an important part of the late Republican monetary system that supported state expenditure and military campaigning. Contemporary denarii can therefore represent Rome's side of the conflict.

What they usually cannot prove is that one particular coin was paid to a soldier under Sulla, Lucullus, or Pompey. Date and mint can establish contemporaneity; individual use generally remains unknowable.

Tigranes the Great and Armenia

Tigranes II of Armenia was Mithridates' son-in-law and most important royal ally. His silver and bronze coins, often showing him in a distinctive Armenian tiara, add an important second eastern kingdom to a Mithridatic Wars collection.

Lucullus defeated Tigranes near Tigranocerta in 69 BC, but the Roman campaign later stalled amid distance, supply problems, and discontent among the troops.

How to Build a Mithridatic Wars Collection

A collection organized by participants and regions tells the story more accurately than trying to label every coin as a battlefield relic.

A coin does not need an invented biography to be historically powerful.

Frequently Asked Questions