The Usurper Antiochos Epiphanes

303, Lot: 70. Estimate $1000. Sold for $4750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUKID KINGS of SYRIA. Antiochos Epiphanes. Usurper, 128 BC. AR Tetradrachm (27mm, 15.98 g, 12h). Antioch mint. Diademed head right / Tyche standing left, holding scepter and cornucopia; Σ to outer left, N in circle to inner right. Houghton & Le Rider 2 (D1/R1); SC 2208; HGC 9, 1145. VF, porous. Very rare.

This coinage of a young king with the name and epithet of Antiochos Epiphanes was originally attributed by Houghton & Le Rider to an ephemeral childhood reign of Antiochos VIII, under the regency of his mother, Cleopatra Thea. This attribution was challenged by K. Ehling, in "Die Nachfolgeregelung des Antiochos VII. vor seinem Aufbruch in den Parthierkrieg (131 v.Chr.)," JNG XLVI (1996), who argued that Antiochos VIII was too old for the obviously very young portrait on these coins. He thought it was also a son of Cleopatra, but from her marriage to Antiochos VII, and that it was issued in 131, at the time of Antiochos' Parthian campaign. Houghton and Lorber, in SC, note that the control mark linkage affirms the later date of 128 BC, and maintain that this is still an issue under Cleopatra, but perhaps of the eldest son of Antiochos VII.