I have been inundated with requests to know more about the beautiful NewStyles from the nasty Mr L L
Sulla to it's demise under
Marcus Antonius or there abouts. Obverses at the Time of
Thompson and as now are shown)
Now when he laid siege to Piraeus and to
Athens "that was it "for the Mithradatic cause who controlled
Athens and its
port.
First Archelaus skipped out of the
port on a fast Trireme leaving
Athens to be defended by Aristion on the Acropolis, it didn't last long and
nor did Aristion surrounded by a destroyed
Athens.
It seems Mr Mithradates caused only about 3 obverses to be minted in
his name as first magistrate, maybe a few Mithradatic tetradrachms minted by him in
Athens and loads and loads of Fulminating
Zeus Bronze/Lead AE's. All useless when
Sulla won and most of the silver probably got eventually melted and much AE was chucked.
The NewStyle might have tentatively started in
Athens name but where the O Demos NO A :Greek_Theta_2:E)and the 2 Ear of grain
types "look a like" come in we don't know - who minted them, wher and when?
Often the less controversial Beatyl With Fillets starts the revival of the NewStyle proper and generally the obverses start to increase back to reasonable numbers reaching a quite respectable 17 obverses with Stag. Then declining to 6 with Bakhos. What caused this mini-revival is probably due to the short-lived 2nd Mithradatic war.
And then it plummets. In the list in the best order I know, the largest obverses is 4 obverses achieved 3 times , There is an occasion where it seems, no tetradrachms were produced. The last discovered NewStyle from the Hierprytena
hoard is a shambles a single known coin that is actually an over-strike on an unknown Alex the Great
tetradrachm. This smacks of desperation.
In my humble opinion, what real use is these small issues other than as personal issues, that probably possibly were financed by individuals or their organisations that they represent. Look at the 3 issues by Diokles, Diokles the 2nd and Diokles for the THIRD time as proclaimed on the coins.I own a Diokles To Dey ( for the 2nd Time) proclaiming
his services in the priesthood he was associated with. How personal can you get!
When M Anthony came to stay in
Athens as the NEW
DIONYSOS the coinage changed and the NewStyle became extinct.
GoD this is far more fascinating than a million
LRB's , but many or most think not!