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Tetradrachm - Asklepiades
| Issuer | Abydos |
|---|---|
| Year | 100 BC - 65 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Orientation | Medal alignment ↑↑ |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | An eagle displayed with wings spread stands to right upon an uncertain base; to the right, a cista mystica with a serpent coiled around or emerging from it, emblems associated with Dionysiac and Samothracian mystery cult iconography. The entire design is enclosed within a laurel wreath border. The ethnic and magistrate's name appear as the principal legend. |
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| Mintage | ND (100 BC - 65 BC) |
| Additional information |
Abydos, positioned at the narrowest crossing of the Hellespont, retained enough commercial relevance in the late Republican period to sustain a local silver coinage well into the first century BC — no small feat for a city increasingly absorbed into Roman provincial administration. The magistrate name Asklepiades appearing on this issue places it within a sequence of civic tetradrachms that scholars have used to reconstruct the city's administrative calendar, though the precise chronology of individual magistrates remains contested.
The series to which this piece belongs drew on Lysimachean weight standards, a deliberate archaism signaling continuity with earlier Hellenistic monetary convention even as that convention was rapidly becoming obsolete.