Antigonus I Monophthalmus — "the One-Eyed" — struck these drachms in the name of Alexander III as a deliberate political fiction. By 310 BC, the legitimate Argead line was extinct: Roxane and the young Alexander IV had been murdered on Cassander's orders that same year. Antigonus continued issuing coinage under Alexander's name anyway, asserting himself as the rightful steward of an undivided empire against the other Diadochi. The mint at Abydos, controlling the Hellespont crossing, was strategically indispensable to his Aegean ambitions.
Price 1528–1530 distinguishes the Abydos issues by specific monograms and control marks in the field.
Antigonus I Monophthalmus — "the One-Eyed" — struck these drachms in the name of Alexander III as a deliberate political fiction. By 310 BC, the legitimate Argead line was extinct: Roxane and the young Alexander IV had been murdered on Cassander's orders that same year. Antigonus continued issuing coinage under Alexander's name anyway, asserting himself as the rightful steward of an undivided empire against the other Diadochi. The mint at Abydos, controlling the Hellespont crossing, was strategically indispensable to his Aegean ambitions.
Price 1528–1530 distinguishes the Abydos issues by specific monograms and control marks in the field.