Tetradrachm - Lysimachus Lampsacus

Lysimachus minted these tetradrachms at Lampsacus — a strategically vital city on the Asian side of the Hellespont — as part of a deliberate monetary policy to project authority across his fragmented kingdom after Antigonus Monophthalmus fell at Ipsus in 301 BC. By placing Alexander's deified image on his coinage rather than his own portrait, Lysimachus was making a political argument: that he was the legitimate heir to Alexander's legacy in Thrace and Asia Minor. The gambit worked well enough that posthumous issues bearing this same type continued circulating for over a century after his death at Corupedium in 281 BC.