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Seleukid Kingdom. Demetrios I Soter. Gold Stater (8.55 g), 162-150 BC. Ekbatana. Diademed head of
Demetrios I right; behind, star above K. Rev.
BASILEWS
DHMHTRIOU
SWTHROS
, Apollo seated left on
omphalos, testing arrow and resting hand on grounded compound bow behind; in outer left field, horse’s
head left. (SC 1725.2; CSE 2; 429; HGC 9, 783).
The cover coin. Extremely rare, being one of only two known
specimens, this being the finest!
Superb extremely fine.
$ 20,000
Demetrios I (161-150 BC) was never supposed to have been king. In his youth he was sent to Rome to serve as a hostage for
the good behavior of his father Seleukos IV. However, when Seleukos was assassinated by one of his ministers in 175 he was
not released to take up his throne. Instead, his uncle, Antiochos IV Epiphanes, swooped into Syria, killed the minister who
had become usurper and made himself the new Seleukid king. When Antiochos IV died under mysterious circumstances
in 164, the Romans still would not release Demetrios, and instead recognized Antiochos V, the infant son of Antiochos
IV as king. In 162, Demetrios escaped from his Italian captivity onto a Phoenician trade ship that carried him back to Syria.
When he arrived in the land of his fathers, Demetrios was instantly hailed as the true king and the hapless Antiochos
V was made to disappear - and not a minute too soon. In Demetrios’ absence, the kingdom had suffered: there was conflict
between generals competing to control Antiochos V; the war against the Jewish rebellion of Judas Maccabaeus had gone
badly; and the Romans had begun enforcing the clauses of the Peace of Apamea that destroyed much of the Seleukid herd
of war elephants as well as its fleet. This mess at home was compounded by the revolt of Timarchos, the Seleukid satrap
of Media, who claimed independence and expanded into Babylonia on the gamble that the Romans would dethrone
Demetrios who, after all, had come to power without their consent. Despite Roman disapproval, Demetrios I marched
against Timarchos and defeated him in 161 BC, for which he was hailed as Soter (Savior) by the grateful Babylonians.
Somewhat less grateful was the Roman Senate, which now found it necessary to grudgingly recognize the escaped Demetrios I
as the legitimate Seleukid king. Even more ungrateful was Ariarathes IV of Cappadocia, whom Demetrios briefly dethroned by
supporting Orophernes, a Cappadocian pretender so infamous that he later received a poetic eulogy from C. P. Cavafy. Indeed,
after the destruction of Timarchos, Demetrios embarked on what almost looks like a general policy of agitating his neighbors:
he attempted to steal Cyprus from the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt by bribing its governor with 500 talents and caused serious
damage to the cause of Jewish resistance to the Seleukid Empire when his generals defeated and killed Judas Maccabaeus. In
the end he even came to annoy his own people who found his love of the hunt excessive and his personal character oppressive.
In 152 BC, the growing resentment against Demetrios coalesced around the person of Alexander I Balas, a pretended son of
Antiochos IV who was advanced by the kings of Pergamon and Egypt. The Senate, as slow as ever to forgive a wrong, fully endorsed
Alexander’s claim, thus punishing Demetrios for defying Rome for almost a decade. Demetrios’ fate was sealed. When he finally
met Alexander in battle near Antioch in 150, he was killed and Syria fell to the pretender who was supported by a Ptolemaic army.
This Extremely rare gold stater in magnificent condition of Demetrios I from the mint of Ekbatana represents the same control
variety as SC 1725.2, but is from a different die pairing than the heretofore only known example formerly in the collection of Arthur
Houghton (CSE 2, 429). It is also significantly nicer than the Houghton coin, with sharp and clearly defined details and excellent
surfaces. It belongs to a larger class of emergency gold coins that Demetrios struck at an uncertain mint in Cilicia or Syria (SC
1623), Antioch on the Orontes (SC 1627-1632), Seleukeia on the Tigris (SC 1685), and Ekbatana (1724-1725) in preparation for
and during the final showdown with Alexander I. Most of the other known Ekbatana staters (SC 1724 and SC 1725.1), of which
there are only a few, were struck from silver drachm dies pressed into service for gold, but it has not yet been possible to identify a
link to the drachm series for this or the Houghton coin. Although Ekbatana and the surrounding satrapy of Media were under no
immediate threat from the forces at Alexander’s disposal in Syria, it would seem that the staters were issued to shore up the loyalty
of commanders there lest they look to the troubled situation in the western part of the Seleukid empire and decide to embark on the
same rebellious path that Timarchos had taken. This precaution was ultimately pointless since Demetrios was defeated and killed in
his first battle against Alexander.