Stater - Ptolemy IV

Ptolemy IV Philopator is among the most poorly regarded of the Ptolemaic kings — ancient sources, particularly Polybius, paint him as dissolute and disengaged, leaving real power to his ministers Agathocles and Sosibius. Yet his reign produced a genuine military crisis: the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, where he defeated Antiochus III in one of the largest engagements of the Hellenistic world. The silver coinage of his later years, including this stater, was struck against a backdrop of domestic instability and the first serious native Egyptian uprisings in the Delta.