Aristarchus of Colchis

[citation needed] Aristarchus was appointed, in 63 BC, by Pompey on his conquest of Colchis, a region on the Black Sea, in the course of the Third Mithridatic War which pitted Rome against Mithridates VI of Pontus.

The only other skeptouchos known by name, Olthaces, was made prisoner by Pompey and paraded in the streets of Rome as part of his triumphal procession.

He could have sat at Phasis, at modern Poti, the end-point of Pompey's Colchian campaign, or Dioscurias, an important Hellenistic city, probably near modern-day Sukhumi, where one of his coins has been found.

In the view of the Georgian numismatist Dundua, this depiction marries the traditional claim of the kings of Colchis to be descended from the sun-god to a political necessity to recognize Pompey as the source of Aristarchus's power.

[2][5] The seated female figure wearing a mural crown on the reverse is probably Tyche, a deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, accompanied by the legend ΑΡΙΣΤΑΡΧΟ(Υ) ΤΟΥ ΕΠΙ ΚΟΛΧΙΔΟ(Σ).