Pontic coinage
Later coinage is well known for its high decree of realism in portraits of the Pontic kings who were proud of their Iranian ancestry.
His rule and wars resulted in a wide expansion in number of mints and struck coinage.
Pontic coinage managed to gain a wide acceptance within eastern Mediterranean region.
Prior to the Kingdom of Pontus, the Pontic region had autonomous, mostly coastal, cities with Greek background.
[2][3] Mithridates III had issued substantial amount of silver coinage by the end of his reign.
Pontic ruling dynasty was very proud of its Iranian descent, and the portraits clearly show their oriental features.
The trend may have started from wishes of Mithridates V to show his Greek side more than his oriental background.
[8] It has been suggested that Mithridates VI's policy allowed more isolated cities of the kingdom from central Black Sea region to profit.
Amaseia became exceptionally, for a brief period of time, the only Pontic city allowed to strike its own silver and gold coinage.
[7] His coin portraits portray him as a young man with a flowing hair, long sideburns, a prominent nose and a narrow forehead.
His coinage shows the late Pontic style that abandoned oriental tradition of non-idealized portrayals of kings.
It has been suggested that after the Kingdom of Pontus expanded westward under his reign, the pegasus was abandoned and coins with a stag started to appear.
Mithridates VI did include in certain coins scenes about the myth of Perseus to emphasize his dual ancestry between Greece and Persia.
[1] During the wars between Rome and Pontus Mithridates VI funded his military campaigns by introducing new materials for coinage.
Romans later exploited, during monetary reforms of Augustus in 23 BC, the wide circulation of these new forms of currency.
Research conducted in 1970s revealed that brass was used half a century earlier than previously thought.
[6] One study that analyzed Pontic and Celtic brass coins found out that selenium is an important impurity as it can be used to track down ore sources from the eastern parts of the classical world.
