Powerful Portrait of Seleukos I

Triton XIX, Lot: 281. Estimate $10000. Sold for $20000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Antiochos I Soter. 281-261 BC. AR Tetradrachm (29mm, 17.11 g, 12h). Sardes mint. Struck circa 276-274/1 BC. Diademed and horned head of Seleukos I right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ AN-TIOXOY, Apollo Delphios seated left on omphalos, testing bow in his right hand, left hand resting on omphalos; monograms to inner left and in exergue. SC 323.2c; WSM 1367β (same dies); HGC 9, 130. EF, toned, underlying luster. Among the finest known.

From the Leonidion Collection.

Shortly after his death in 281 BC, Seleukos I Soter, the founder of the Seleukid dynasty, was deified by his son and heir, Antiochos I. Almost immediately, Antiochos struck coins at a mint in Baktria bearing the portrait of his deceased father, to whose portrait was added a bull’s horn. This feature recalled a famous incident while Soter served as a companion of Alexander the Great. In this event, Soter barehandedly subdued a bull that had been brought for sacrifice, after it had broke loose from its restraits. This horn became a standard feature of all Seleukos’ posthumous portraits. In 276 BC, Antiochos moved his residence from Baktria to Sardes, in order to deal with new threats arising in the West. Newell originally thought that the Seleukos portrait issues at Sardes began early in Antiochos’ reign, contemporary with the Baktrian issues. However, later studies have suggested that the Alexander type tetradrachms in the name of Antiochos began first, and the Seleukos portraits followed, likely beginning once Antiochos took residence there.