Demetrios Portrait Drachm

196, Lot: 12. Estimate $200. Sold for $311. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Demetrios I Poliorketes. 306-283 BC. AR Drachm (18mm, 4.08 g, 12h). Ephesos mint. Struck circa 301-295 BC. Diademed head right, with bull's horn / Poseidon advancing left, brandishing trident; monogram to left, ivy leaf to inner right.. Newell 57; Pozzi 967 = Pozzi Europe 2020 (same dies); BMFA Supp. 51 (same rev. die). Good Fine, toned, porous. Very rare portrait drachm.

The Battle of Ipsos in 301 BC was a debacle for Demetrios I Poliorketes. His father, Antigonos I Monophthalmos, died at the hands of the joint Seleukid-Lysimachean forces, and his kingdom was lost. Demetrios was left king of little more than the area of Ephesos, the island of Cyprus, and a few other Aegean islands. Ephesos was his base, politically, as well as financially, and it was there that he fled with his forces following Ipsos. The series that Demetrios struck there bore the first portraits of Demetrios, obviously an overt attempt to propigate his kingship and authority. Demetrios, however, was mindful of the civic pride associated with a city's mint and coinage, and wishing to stave-off any disaffection, allowed the mint to continue striking the local Ephesian coinage alongside his own. The use of the king's portrait was a new convention among the Diodochs, and only he and Ptolemy I did so among them. Although Ptolemy did so first (circa 305 BC), Demetrios' portrait went further by adding the bull's horn in addition to the royal diadem. Typically regarded as a sign of divinity, an status important to the Diodochs' propaganda, in Demetrios' case it also related to his patronage of Poseidon, who was often related to the bull. The reverse type was a direct homage to his patron god, and also alluded to his naval prowess, the base of his military strength since the beginning of his career.