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Tetradrachm In the name of Lysimachus
| Issuer | Byzantion (Thrace) |
|---|---|
| Year | 150 BC - 120 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Athena Nikephoros seated left on a throne, wearing a crested helmet and chiton, holding a small Nike in her extended right hand and resting her left arm on a large round shield decorated with a lion-head device; a spear leans against her left shoulder. The legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ is arranged vertically in two columns flanking the central type, reading right to left on the left and left to right on the right. The Byzantion civic monogram ΒΥ appears in the lower central field, serving as the mint identifier. A monogram or control symbol is visible beneath the throne. The composition follows the canonical reverse type of Lysimachean tetradrachms, adapted here for posthumous civic coinage struck at Byzantion. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Byzantion struck posthumous tetradrachms in the name of Lysimachus well over a century after his death at Corupedium in 281 BC — a calculated political move by a city that understood the commercial weight his image carried across the Aegean trading world. By the mid-second century, these coins functioned less as royal propaganda than as trusted trade currency, their types so widely recognized that Byzantion's own civic magistrates added control marks to distinguish local issues from the broader flood of Lysimachean coinage circulating from dozens of mints. Marinescu's classification of this piece as #463 places it within a tightly sequenced group attributable to Byzantion's own dies.