Parthia - Phraates IV - King: 38-2 B.C. of the Parthian Kingdom -
Silver Tetradrachm 30mm (13.3 grams) Struck 35-34 B.C.
Reference: Sear 7466; B.M.C. 23.99,2
His diademed and cuirassed bust left, with long, pointed beard.
King enthroned right, being presented with a palm-branch by Tyche standing left before him, holding cornucopia; above, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ; on right, ΑΡΣΑΚΟV / EVEPΓETOV; below, ΔΙΚΑΙΟV; on left,  ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟVΣ / ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ; beneath throne, Seleucid date.

Another son of Orodes II, Phraates became heir to the Parthian throne on the death of his brother Pakoros, and hastened his father's end in his eagerness for power. Early in his reign he successfully repulsed an invasion of Media by Mark Antony, and later established friendly relations with Augustus to whom he eventually restored the legionary standards captured from Crassus. This event was much commemorated on the contemporary Roman coinage. Phraates, like his father and grandfather before him, finally fell victim to his own son.

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King Phraates IV of Parthia, son of Orodes II, ruled the Parthian Empire from 37–2 BC. He was appointed successor to the throne in 37 BC, after the death of his brother Pacorus I. He soon murdered his father and all his thirty brothers.

Phraates was attacked in 36 BC by the Roman general Mark Antony, who marched through Armenia into Media Atropatene, and was defeated and lost the greater part of his army. Antony, believing himself betrayed by Artavasdes, king of Armenia, invaded his kingdom in 34 BC, took him prisoner, and concluded a treaty with another Artavasdes, king of Media Atropatene.

But when the war with Octavian broke out, Antony could not maintain his conquests; Phraates recovered Media Atropatene and drove Artaxias, the son of Artavasdes, back into Armenia. But by his many cruelties Phraates had roused the indignation of his subjects, who raised Tiridates II to the throne in 32 BC. Phraates was restored by the Scythians, and Tiridates fled into Syria. The Romans hoped that Augustus would avenge the defeat of the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus on the Parthians, but he contented himself with a treaty, by which Phraates gave back the prisoners and the conquered eagles; the kingdom of Armenia also was recognized as a Roman dependency.

Soon afterwards Phraates, whose greatest enemies were his own family, sent five of his sons as hostages to Augustus, thus acknowledging his dependence on Rome (the hostages included Tiridates III, whom the Romans later tried to install as a vassal king in AD 35). This plan he adopted on the advice of an Italian concubine whom he made his legitimate wife under the name of "the goddess Musa"; her son Phraates V, commonly called Phraataces (a diminutive form), he appointed successor. About 2 BC he was murdered by Musa and her son.