Kings of Macedon, Demetrios I Poliorketes (?), 306-283 BC, AR Tetradrachm - Uncertain Peloponnesos Mint, possibly Epidauros, 300-287 BC

Head of Herakles right wearing lion skin headdress.
AΛΕΞANΔPOY Zeus Aëtophoros seated left, Φ to left, EΠ monogram beneath throne.

Price 763 (“this coin cited” per dealer’s ticket- Schindel); Meydancikkale 192; Prokesch-Osten (2) 31.
Uncertain Peloponnesos Mint, possibly Epidauros 300-287 BC.

(25 mm, 16.96 g, 12h)

SCHINDEL, P., ‘Un tétradrachme inédit d'Antigone Gonatas (277/276 - 240/239)’, Bulletin du Cercle d'Etudes Numismatiques CENB 25.2 (1988), 25-28.

Elsen 119, 7 December 2013, 100: ex- P. Schindel Collection

Price suggested that the EΠ monogram of this coin might be the ethnic of Epidauros. He dated this issue to ca. 280-250 BC. However, two specimens with light wear found in Commerce “Seleucus I” 2005 Hoard, buried circa 282/1 BC, imply a date for this issue in the early third century BC. During this period Epidauros was ruled by pro-Macedonian tyrants and the date suggests a possible association with the presence of Demetrios I Poliorketes in the northern Peloponnesos in the period 300-287 BC. Based on the five known examples of the type, the emission was struck from a single obverse and two reverse dies. On the first of these reverse dies the Φ is missing. The progression of a die break on the scalp of the lion skin headdress indicates that the coins from the reverse bearing the Φ were struck after those without the Φ. The Φ thus represents a later addition to epigraphy of the type, suggesting that the EΠ monogram is the primary control and thus possibly the abbreviated ethnic of Epidauros as suggested by Price.