Drachm - Phraates IV

Phraates IV secured the Parthian throne by murdering his father Orodes II and then systematically eliminating his brothers — a purge that stabilized his reign but earned him lasting hostility among the nobility. He was eventually poisoned around 2 BC by his Italian slave-wife Musa, whom Augustus had gifted him as a diplomatic gesture. That same diplomatic relationship had produced the celebrated return of the Roman standards lost at Carrhae in 53 BC, which Augustus treated as a triumph without a battle.

Sellwood 53.6 is a late-reign type, placing this piece in the final years of that long, blood-soaked tenure.