PURSES OF MITHRIDATES’ MERCENARIES FROM THE CIMMERIAN BOSPORUS

Abstract

This article examines the numismatic sources from the Cimmerian Bosporus: hoards representing soldiers’ purses, cases of cash payments for rations, as well as the coinages minted to make these payments during the Mithridatic Wars. Several hoards of a military context came from this time, consisting of coins, which were precisely used for the allowances of soldiers. On the one hand, these hoards provide evidence of the payment made to Mithridates’ mercenaries who served in garrisons in cities and in their chora to protect the grain-producing areas that supplied the king’s army with bread. Such hoards consist of silver or bronze coinages specially minted for military payments in Bosporus. However, except for two cases of wage payment made to the garrison in silver (CH XI, 137, 138), using bronze coins for military payments is characteristic of the Bosporus in the Late Hellenistic period. On the other hand, at least five garrisons in Bosporus, whose existence has been attested due to finds of soldiers’ purses, are in Tyritace (IGCH 1145 = СΗ ΧΙ, 140), Myrmecium (CH XI, 116, 141), Patraeus (CH XI, 142), Phanagoria (CH XI, 145A-B) and the Vyshesteblievskaya 3 settlement, located in the grain-producing area subordinate to Phanagoria. These purses show that during the Mithridatic Wars, mercenaries were paid in Bosporan and Pontic bronze coins of significant denominations, which apparently amounted to less than an obol per day. The purses of mercenaries containing the same amount indicate the approximate level of their pay, equal to 22(?) obols per month. The case of Bosporus demonstrates the success of one of the major innovations of the Hellenistic period – the systematic use of bronze for military payment.