Dichalkon - Demetrios II Nikator Antioch

Demetrios II came to power in 145 BC by defeating the usurper Alexander Balas with Ptolemaic backing — his father-in-law Ptolemy VI supplied both troops and legitimacy. His first reign at Antioch was marked almost immediately by the rise of the Parthian threat in the east, and by 138 BC he had marched against Mithridates I personally, only to be captured and held at the Parthian court for nearly a decade. Bronze civic coinage from this compressed first reign is consequently limited in issue span, and examples attributable to the Antioch mint fall within a politically turbulent window before the mint passed to his rival Tryphon.