Search


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services



Research Coins: The Coin Shop

 
728078. Sold For $695

Macedon, Kings of. Philip V. 221-179 BC. AR Didrachm (8.38 gm). Struck circa 186/5-179 BC. Diademed head right / BASILEWS FILIPPOU, club within oak-wreath; one monogram above, two monograms below, star to left. Mamroth 25; Jameson 1012; Hunter 343. Nice VF, lightly toned. $695

The crushing military defeat at Kynoskephalai in 197 BC thwarted any ambitious designs by Philip of domination of his fellow Greeks and Romans alike, and no royal coinage seems to have been struck in Macedon until about 188/7 when he embarked on a new policy, in alliance with Rome, of economic and military reconstruction. To finance this reform required the mining of great quantities of silver by re-opening of old mines and the prospecting for new ones. The new silver coinage comprised of tetradrachms, didrachms, drachms and hemidrachms. This new prosperity and sound economic policy, together with the rise of trade and liberalization of local institutions in the major urban centres, filled the royal treasury which armed 18,000 mercenaries under the rule of Philip’s successor, Perseus. The 6,000 talents and vast quantities of precious vessels that came into the hands of Aemilius Paulus on the morrow of the decisive battle of Pydna in 168 attested to the economic vigour of Macedon up to the very eve of its collapse as an independent state.