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Tetradrachm - Seleukos I Nikator Alexander III Type
| Issuer | Seleucid Empire |
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| Year | 311 BC - 305 BC |
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| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
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| Obverse description | Right-facing bare head of Herakles in three-quarter profile, wearing the Nemean lion's scalp headdress, the open jaws framing the hero's crown; the mane rendered in deeply cut, flowing locks cascading around the neck. The facial features are finely modeled in the late Classical tradition, with a strong jaw and aquiline nose. A beaded border surrounds the design field. The portrait type, derived from Alexander III's coinage, served as the canonical obverse image for this posthumous series struck under Seleukos I at Susa. |
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| Reverse lettering | BAΣIΛEΩΣ / AΛEΞANΔPOY MP MI |
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| Additional information |
Seleukos I struck these tetradrachms in the Alexander type during the years immediately following the Wars of the Diadochi, a deliberate political choice: by issuing coinage indistinguishable in type from Alexander's own issues, he legitimized his authority in the eastern satrapies without provoking the suspicion that a new dynastic identity might have invited. The window closes in 305 BC when Seleukos took the royal title and began transitioning to explicitly Seleucid types.
Price 3746 is attributed to a Syrian mint, most likely Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris or an early Antioch issue, though attribution for this transitional series remains contested among specialists.