Panhellenic Festival at Daphne in 166 BC

Triton XIX, Lot: 290. Estimate $15000. Sold for $17000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Antiochos IV Epiphanes. 175-164 BC. AR Tetradrachm (33mm, 16.21 g, 12h). Antioch on the Orontes mint. Series 3, struck circa 166 BC. Laureate head of Apollo right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY ΘEOY EΠIΦANOYΣ NIKHΦOPOY, Apollo, wearing chiton, standing right, holding phiale with his right hand and kithara with his left arm. SC 1401; Le Rider, Antioche 554–7 (A57/P390); Mørkholm Series III, 24, dies A54/P205; SMA 64; HGC 9, 622; CSE 110 (same dies); SNG Hart 5631 (same dies). Good VF, toned. Struck on a remarkably broad flan. Very rare.

Newell and Mørkholm associated this extraordinary type with the great panhellenic festival celebrated at Daphne. The authors of Seleucid Coins state that “only ten specimens of this exceptional coinage survive, and four or five of them show traces of overstriking.”