Category: Hellenistic Period
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Ptolemy V Epiphanes – A Young King Defeated, Then Immortalized in Stone
This piece stands as an anomaly in the 300-year series of Ptolemaic coinage. While nearly all Ptolemaic silver tetradrachms bear the portrait of the dynasty’s founder, Ptolemy I, this rare type depicts the current ruling monarch, the young Ptolemy V. The coin is complemented by attractive old cabinet toning throughout. Above: Ptolemy V Epiphanes (r.…
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Euthydemus of Bactria & Hellenistic Portraiture
Euthydemus himself was born around 260 BC in Ionia, on the west coast of Asia Minor, some 3,100 miles from the Bactrian capital at Ai Khanoum he would later rule from. This shows how fluid the Greek-speaking world was in the 3rdcentury BC – the height of Greek cultural influence across western Asia. Migration –…
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The Roman Conquest of Macedon & Beginning of the End for Ancient Greece
Roman involvement in the Hellenistic East continued later in the decade with Scipio’s even more staggering victory over Seleucid king Antiochus the Great at Magnesia in December 190 BC; the Romans were reported to have lost less than 400 men compared with 53,000 Seleucid dead. After Magnesia, Rome was probably the most powerful state in…
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Athens After its Golden Age
All who love ancient coins know the iconic design of the mid-mass Athenian owls (440-404 BC), but the New Style owls struck in the second and first centuries BC are much scarcer and more valuable. They possess a level of artistic refinement emblematic of the Hellenistic Age, boasting a more graceful Athena than the mid-mass…
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The Coinage of Athens in… Central Asia? & the Andragoras-Sophytes Hoard
Its design imitates the famous issues of Athens, probably the most recognizable coin in the world at the time. Imitations of Athens tetradrachms were struck in Egypt and the Near East in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, but they were of a style very similar to Athens issues. The Bactrian coins, though retaining the…
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The Extremely Rare Seleucid Usurper Timarchus
Timarchus ruled in the twilight era of the Hellenistic period in Iran. He styled himself Great King, the traditional title of Persian kings, perhaps in an effort to curry favor with the local Iranian nobility in his province. His coins, including this piece, thus bear the legend “Basileus Megas.” Certainly orienting to the east, his…
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Lysimachus Tetradrachms – Pinnacle of Hellenistic Royal Portraiture
But the magnificent portraits of the Hellenistic period are also strong contenders, and perhaps none more so than the tetradrachms of Lysimachus that feature a true portrait of Alexander the Great. Often struck in high relief and from dies of remarkably advanced style, they are among the most popular tetradrachms of the Hellenistic Age.