EARLY FOREIGN RELATIONS
39
possession of Babylon[1] and probably also of Seleucia. His only dated coins are from 124/23 b.c., and by the next year Himerus again controlled central Babylonia and the mint city of Seleucia.[2] He celebrated his victory by striking coins which bore a Victory and the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ,[3] and his assumption of the title "king"[4] probably dated from this time. With the Sacae in possession of the larger portion of the eastern empire, Himerus now occupied the most important territory still under Parthian control.
Other interesting details of this period are cited by Pinches from unpublished tablets in the British
- ↑ T. G. Pinches, "A Babylonian Tablet Dated in the Reign of Aspasinē," Babyl. and Or. Record, IV (1889/90), 131–35; Terrien de Lacouperie, "Hyspaosines, Kharacenian King of Babylon," ibid., pp. 136–44; Pinches, The Old Testament (2d ed.), pp. 481–84; Tarn in CAH, IX, 584.
- ↑ Until recently the attribution of certain coins to Himerus has been considered reasonably definite: Gardner, Parthian Coinage, pp. 7 and 34; Wroth, Parthia, pp. xxi, xxiii, and 23 (somewhat doubtful); E. T. Newell, "A Parthian Hoard," Num. Chron., 5th ser., IV (1924), 169 ff.; Newell, Mithradates of Parthia and Hyspaosines of Characene ("Numismatic Notes and Monographs," No. 26 [New York, 1925]), pp. 13 f.. Mr. Newell now prefers to assign them to Phraates II (in Survey of Persian Art, ed. Arthur Upham Pope, in press), following Maurice Dayet, "Un tétradrachme arsacide inédit," Arethuse, II (1925), 63–66. The problem hinges on the only dated coin of Himerus, 189 s.e., i.e., 123/22 b.c., now considered by Mr. Newell to be of questionable status.
- ↑ Wroth, Parthia, p. 23, No. 2; his other coins bear the title ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ. The titles at once suggest Mithradates II; but the portraits will not allow this identification, and, if Himerus is rejected, Phraates remains the only other possibility.
- ↑ Diod. Sic. xxxiv. 21 and the coins cited in the previous note.
