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Philip II, 359 - 336 BC. AE18. Struck after 356 BC at an uncertain mint in Macedonia
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Obverse: No legend. Young male head, usually identified as Apollo, with hair bound in a taenia, facing left.
Reverse: ΦIΛIΠΠOY, Naked rider on horse prancing right, forepart of bull butting right control mark (helmet?) beneath the horse.
Diameter: 19mm | Weight: 6.95gms | Die Axis: 9
GCV: 6699 | Forrer/Weber: 2068
The bronze series of this type is extensive and differentiated principally by the different control marks. These control marks are symbols and letters which generally appear on the reverse, very occasionally the obverse, of the coin, and they were used to identify the officials responsible for a particular issue of coinage.
Philip II won the horseback race at the 106th Olympics in 356 BC, and it is thought that the horseman on the reverse of this coin commemorates this event.
Philip II of Macedon was King of Macedon from 359 until his death in 336 BC. He was the father of Alexander the Great and Philip III Arrhidaeus. In 357 BC, Philip married Olympias, who was the daughter of the king of the Molossians. Alexander was born in 356 BC, the same year as Philip's horse won at the Olympic Games.
The conquest and political consolidation of most of Greece during Philip's reign was achieved in part by the creation of the Macedonian phalanx which gave him an enormous advantage on the battlefield. After defeating Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC Philip II established the League of Corinth, a federation of Greek states, with him at it's head, with the intention of invading the Persian empire. In 336 BC, Philip II sent an army of 10,000 men into Asia Minor to make preparations for the invasion by freeing the Greeks living on the western coast and islands from Persian rule. All went well until the news arrived that Philip had been assassinated. The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated by Persian forces near Magnesia.
Philip II was murdered in October 336 BC, at Aegae, the ancient capital of the Macedonian kingdom, while he was entering into the town's theatre. He was assassinated by Pausanius, one of his own bodyguards, who was himself slain by three of Philip's other bodyguards. The reasons for Philip's assassination are not now fully known, with many modern historians saying that, on the face of it, none of the ancient accounts which have come down to us appear to be credible.
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