Tetradrachm - Antiochos II Theos Seleuceia ad Tigrim

Antiochos II inherited a kingdom already at war — the First Syrian War had barely concluded before his reign opened the Second, fought against Ptolemy II over control of Coele-Syria and the Levantine coast. The epithet "Theos" (god) was granted to him not by his own court but by the Milesians, in gratitude for freeing them from the tyrant Timarchus. Seleuceia ad Tigrim, the mint producing this issue, sat at the eastern core of Seleucid power, making it one of the more politically stable production centers during a reign defined by dynastic turbulence at its western margins.

His death in 246 BC — possibly by poisoning, allegedly at the hands of his first wife Laodice — immediately triggered the Third Syrian War.