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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TheRed, post: 2804013, member: 87080&quot;]After reading a post by [USER=19463]@dougsmit[/USER] in another thread, I feel compelled to create my first thread. </p><p><br /></p><p>While primarily a medieval English collector, I do love the coins of Seleukos I Nikator.&nbsp; I decided to expand to the other Seleukid rulers and picked up the following coin at the most recent HJB Bid/Buy sale.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]654403[/ATTACH] </p><p><b>Antiochus</b> <b>I</b> <b>Soter</b> AR Tetradrachm.</p><p>281-261 BC Seleucia on the Tigris </p><p>Obv: Diademed head of Antiochus I r. Rev: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ Apollo seated left on omphalos, holding arrow and resting w/ hand on grounded bow; monograms in outer l. and r. fields.</p><p><br /></p><p>Antiochus I Soter was the eldest son of Seleukos I Nikator, the greatest of the Diadochi, and Apama of Sogdia, and Iranian noblewoman.&nbsp; He was born in 324/3 BC.&nbsp; At the age of 29/30 he married his stepmother with the blessing of his father. They would go on to have five children. Upon his father&#039;s murder in 281 BC, Antiochus inherited an empire that stretched from Macedon to India, and encompassed almost all of Alexander&#039;s old empire save Egypt and parts of Greece. </p><p><br /></p><p>The task of holding together the empire of his father would prove too great for Antiochus.&nbsp; A revolt in Syria drew him East, and Macedon and Thrace were lost to his father&#039;s murderer, Ptolemy Keraunos. Philetaerus established defacto independence in Pergamon with Antiochus unable to halt the gradual loss, despite several attempts.&nbsp; The First Syrian War, fought over control out Coele-Syria with the Ptolemaic Kingdom, was&nbsp; largely a defeat for Antiochus.&nbsp; He also failed in attempts to conquer Cappadocia and Bithynia.</p><p><br /></p><p>The one bright spot in his military career was a crushing victory over Gauls that had entered Anatolia at the behest of a king of Bithynia who was in the midst of a civil war with his brother.&nbsp; The roughly 20,000 Gauls were broken by the war elephants of Antiochus, and thereafter settled in the highlands of Anatolia.&nbsp; Over time the area became known as Galatia. </p><p><br /></p><p>Antiochus I Soter died in 261 BC and was succeeded but his son Antiochus II Theos, under who&#039;s rule the Seleukid Empire would continue tip fragment and decline. </p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel free to post your Seleukid coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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