Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Drachm - Demetrius I Soter
| Issuer | Seleucid Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 162 BC - 150 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Drachm (1) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Bare diademed head of Demetrius I Soter facing right, rendered in the Hellenistic portrait tradition with finely detailed hair swept back from the forehead and secured by a royal diadem whose ties fall behind the neck. The portrait displays a youthful, idealized physiognomy characteristic of Seleucid royal coinage. The field is plain, with no legend on the obverse. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (162 BC - 150 BC) |
| Additional information |
Demetrius I came to power not through inheritance but through audacity — he escaped from Rome, where he had been held as a political hostage since childhood, and seized the Seleucid throne by executing the regent Lysias and the child-king Antiochus V in 162 BC. His coinage was minted during a reign consumed by dynastic warfare, Maccabean revolt, and the slow hemorrhage of eastern territories to Parthia. The drachm series served the practical demands of a king perpetually on campaign.
He was ultimately killed in 150 BC by Alexander Balas, a pretender backed by Rome, Egypt, and Pergamon — rivals who found a weakened Seleucid throne more useful than a competent one.