Situated on the coast of Asia Minor, southwest of the site of ancient Troy, Alexandria Troas was founded by Antigonos I Monophthalmos around 310 BC, under the name of Antigoneia. The inhabitants of the new city came from the neighboring towns of Kebren, Kolone, Hamaxitos, Neandria, and Skepsis. About a decade after its founding the place was enlarged by Lysimachos, king of Thrace, who renamed it Alexandria in honor of the memory of Alexander the Great. The city flourished and its prosperity continued into Roman times. This tetradrachm belongs to the period of the city’s autonomy following the devastating defeat of Antiochos III of Syria by the Romans at the battle of Magnesia in 189 BC. Apollo Smintheus is depicted on both sides of the coin, the deity actually being named in the reverse inscription. While the origin of his designation is uncertain, though it may be derived from σμινθοσ, or mouse, whom the Greeks may have connected with disease; Homer, in the opening pages of the
Iliad, has Apollo Smintheus bring down plague on the Greeks because of Agamemnon’s arrogance toward Chryses, the god’s high priest. Apollo Smintheus’ temple lay at Chryse, within the territory of Hamaxitos, one of the cities which had provided the original population of Alexandria. The statue of the god, by the celebrated Parian sculptor and architect Skopas, showed him standing with a mouse at his feet.
