MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. Demetrius I Poliorcetes (306-283 BC). AR tetradrachm (29mm, 16.93 gm, 4h). NGC

Description

MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. Demetrius I Poliorcetes (306-283 BC). AR tetradrachm (29mm 16.93 gm 4h). NGC Choice Fine 5/5 – 4/5 brushed. Posthumous issue Corinth in the name and types of Alexander III the Great of Macedon ca. 310-290 BC. Head of Heracles right wearing lion skin headdress paws tied before neck / AΛEΞANΔPOY / BAΣIΛEΩΣ Zeus enthroned left right leg drawn back feet on stool eagle in outstretched right hand grounded scepter in left horse head left in left field ΔE below strut. Price 690. The most dashing of Alexander’s successors Demetrius I Poliorcetes was the son of the great Macedonian general Antigonus Monopthalmus (“one-eyed”) who served both Philip II and Alexander III the Great. After Alexander’s death Demetrius led armies in support of his father’s claim to supreme power. He won an important naval victory in 306 BC at Salamis against the Ptolemaic fleet. He along with his father accepted the title Basileos (“king”) ending the fiction that the Diadochi were ruling a united government. In 305 BC Demetrius subjected Rhodes to a monumental siege employing the largest and most elaborate artillery engines and battle towers yet constructed. Ultimately unsuccessful the siege still won him the epithet Poliorcetes (“besieger”) by which he is still known. He had more success ruling Macedon during 301-288 BC but his extravagance and capricious nature eventually proved his undoing and he spent his waning years in comfortable Seleucid captivity. Still the dynasty he established endured in Macedon until 168 BC.