Tetradrachm - Demetrios I Soter Antioch

Demetrios I came to power not through inheritance but through escape — he had been held as a political hostage in Rome for years before slipping away in 162 BC, landing in Syria, and deposing the boy-king Antiochus V with minimal resistance. His reign was marked by relentless military pressure from Rome, which had backed rival claimants, and by a prolonged war against the Maccabees in Judea. The Antioch mint was his primary instrument of legitimacy, and production under his name was substantial enough that examples survive in reasonable numbers today.

SC2 1638 represents the main Antioch series attributable to his reign, catalogued by Houghton and Lorber within the Seleucid Coins corpus.