Browse Items (81 total)

Demetrios II Nikator ascended to the throne at only 14-16 years of age. This coin is from the first years (145-138 BCE) of his relatively long but tumultuous reign. In order to take control of the dwindling Seleucid empire, Demetrios had to overcome…

This coin is one of the very first issued by one of the most famous/infamous individuals from the ancient world: Julius Caesar. A powerful senator, consul and military general during the late Roman Republic, Caesar used his military success to…

The Thessalian League was a loose confederation of several Thessalian city-states. The largest city, Larisa, functioned as the seat of the league. The alliance existed even after the Roman province of Macedonia was founded in 146 BCE.

Apollo…

Herodotus accounts the adventures of the Phocaians, a people from the area of Turkey who were displaced by the spread of the Persian kingdom. These people (Hist. 1. 167) settled in an area they named Hyele, on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, around…

This coin, a fake replica of a coin minted under Mithradates II in Parthia around 123-188 BCE is one of many coins from the ancient world that have been counterfeited.

Samnium was located between the silver minting Greek colonies of the south and the colonies of the north that favored bronze. This prime location meant that these middle cities-states did not mint their own coinage until relatively late, around 290…

The Attalid King Eumenes II of Pergamon first introduced the cistophori (basketbearers), the main denomination of coinage in Asia Minor for 300 years, around 166 BCE. The last Attalid king, Attalos III, died in 133 BCE, leaving his kingdom to the…

The history of Thurii, one of the last Greek settled colonies, starts with the history of the colony Sybaris. Founded in 720 BCE, it was conquered by neighboring Croton in 510 BCE. After several unsuccessful attempts to re-occupy the city, Thurii was…

Antiochia-on-the-river-Orantes was fouded by Seleucus I Nicator in honor of his father Antiochus. The western Seleucid Empire used this city as its capital and its mint became one of the most important in the empire. Antioch was a very large city for…

Agathokles (361-289 BCE) was the son of a wealthy ceramics manufacturer who made himself king of Syracuse. He eventually ruled over much of East Sicily and even parts of mainland Italy. He had some military success against the Carthaginians but was…