Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Tetradrachm In the name of Lysimachus
| Issuer | Byzantion (Thrace) |
|---|---|
| Year | 190 BC - 175 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Athena Nikephoros seated left upon a throne, holding a small Nike in her extended right hand and resting her left arm upon a large round shield set beside the throne; a long transverse spear stands in the background. The royal legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ runs along the right and left fields respectively. A monogram appears in the inner left field, the civic ethnic BY is inscribed below the throne denoting the Byzantion mint authority, and an ornate trident — the civic symbol of Byzantion — occupies the exergue. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Byzantion issued posthumous tetradrachms in the name of Lysimachus — the Macedonian general who died at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC — decades after his death, a common practice among cities seeking to leverage his political brand for commercial credibility. By the early second century, these coins functioned less as royal propaganda than as a trusted trade currency across the Black Sea and Aegean networks, where the Lysimachan type had earned wide acceptance among merchants who cared more about silver content than the issuing authority's politics. Byzantion's position controlling the Bosphorus strait made its coinage particularly consequential for eastern grain trade.