The Coinage of Lysimachos

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 132. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $4000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of THRACE. Lysimachos. 305-281 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.04 g, 1h). Magnesia ad Maeandrum mint. Struck circa 297/6-282/1 BC. Diademed head of the deified Alexander right, with horn of Ammon / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΛYΣIMAXOY, Athena Nikephoros seated left, left arm resting on shield, spear behind; monogram in wreath to outer left. Thompson 101; Müller -; Meydancikkale 2634 (same obv. die); Triton VIII, 271 (same dies). EF, lightly toned. Compact, fine style portrait struck in high relief.

Lysimachos was a Macedonian of great physical strength and fortitude who rose to prominence and attained the rank of Bodyguard for Alexander the Great. He became governor of Thrace and parts of northwest Asia Minor bordering the Black Sea after Alexander’s death, and like the other Diadochi assumed the royal title in 306/5 BC. At the beginning of his reign, Lysimachos continued to use Alexander’s coinage types, later modifying them by replacing Alexander’s name with his own. In 297 BC, Lysimachos introduced a stunning new coinage, and chose to honor his benefactor, Alexander, by using the latter’s portrait as the obverse type. Athena, Lysimachos’ patron god, was chosen as his new reverse type. This coinage was struck at a variety of mints in Asia Minor and, later, Macedon and Thrace, as Lysimachos extended the boundaries of his growing empire (by 285 BC he occupied all of Macedon). The currency gained wide popularity, and continued to be minted as civic issues by a number of the cities for over a century after Lysimachos’ death. G.K Jenkins noted the power of the Alexander portrait in his commentary on the Gulbenkian Collection: “The idealized portrait of Alexander introduced on the coinage of Lysimachos in 297 is characterized by the horn of Ammon which appears above the ear. The allusion is to Alexander’s famous visit to the oracle of Ammon at the Siwa Oasis in 331, when the god is supposed to have greeted Alexander as ‘My son’.... [T]he best of the Alexander heads on Lysimachos’ coinage...have a power and brilliance of effect that is irresistible. It [is speculated] that these Alexander heads may have derived from an original gem carved by Pyrgoteles, an engraver prominent among the artists of Alexander’s court....” Regardless of the inspiration for the new design, part of the remarkable attraction of this coinage is its artistic variety: each engraver created a fresh and distinctive portrayal of the world's greatest conqueror.