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Greek city of Pantikapaion in Cimmerian Bosporus
Silver Diobol 13mm (1.34 grams) Struck circa 450-437 B.C.
Reference: HGC 7, 34 (Rare R2); SNG Strancomb 580; SNG BM Black Sea 841; MacDonald 11/1; Anohin 20
Certification: NGC Ancients XF 4375823-269
Lion’s head facing.
Quadrapartitie incuse square with two raised compartments and two enclosing stellate pattern.
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Panticapaeum (Greek: Παντικάπαιον, Pantikápaion), present-day Kerch: an important Greek city and port in Taurica (Tauric Chersonese), situated on a hill (Mt. Mithridates) on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, founded by Milesians in the late 7th–early 6th century BC.
In the 5th–4th centuries BC, the city became the residence first of the Archaeanactids and then of the Spartocids, dynasties of Greek kings of Bosporus, and was hence itself sometimes called Bosporus. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian conquest of the steppes and the growing competition of Egyptian grain. The last of the Spartocids, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus.
This transition was arranged by one of Mithridates’s generals, a certain Diophantus, who earlier was sent to Taurica to help local Greek cities against Palacus of Lesser Scythia. The takeover didn’t go smoothly: Paerisades was murdered by Scythians led by Saumacus, Diophantus escaped to return later with reinforcements and to suppress the revolt (c. 110 BC).
Half of a century later, Mithridates himself took his life in Panticapaeum, when, after his defeat in a war against Rome, his own son and heir Pharnaces and citizens of Panticapaeum turned against him. In 63 BC the city was partly destroyed by an earthquake. Raids by the Gothss and the Huns furthered its decline, and it was incorporated into the Byzantine state under Justin I in the early 6th century AD.
Ruins of Panticapaeum in Kerch (Ukraine)
During the first centuries of the city’s existence, imported Greek articles predominated: potteryKerch Style), terracottas, and metal objects, probably from workshops in Rhodes, Corinth, Samos, and Athens. Local production, imitated from the models, was carried on at the same time. Athens manufactured a special type of bowl for the city, known as Kerch ware. Local potters imitated the Hellenistic bowls known as the Gnathia style as well as relief wares—Megarian bowls. The city minted silver coins from the mid 6th century BC and from the 1st century BC gold and bronze coins. The Hermitage and Kerch Museums contain material from the site, which is still being excavated.
- Noonan, Thomas S. “The Origins of the Greek Colony at Panticapaeum”, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 77, No. 1. (1973), pp. 77–81.
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