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Tetradrachm - Demetrios I Poliorketes Amphipolis
| Issuer | Kingdom of Macedonia |
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| Year | 290 BC - 289 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 16.89 g |
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| Obverse description | Diademed head of Demetrios I Poliorketes facing right, his divine status emphasized by a bull's horn rising above the forehead — an attribute associating the king with Poseidon. The portrait is rendered in the Hellenistic style, with fine naturalistic modeling of the facial features, and the diadem ties falling behind the neck. The field is plain, with no legend on the obverse. |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Demetrios I Poliorketes seized Macedonia itself in 294 BC after murdering Alexander V, but his reign lasted barely five years before his own troops deserted him to Pyrrhus and Lysimachus in 288 BC. This Amphipolis issue falls in his final years of Macedonian control, when the mint was running hard to fund an increasingly desperate military position. Demetrios died a prisoner of Seleucus I in 283 BC, having drunk himself to death in captivity.
The Newell classification for this type is among the more rigorously documented in Hellenistic numismatics, with die linkage studies placing Amphipolis as his most productive mint during this window.