Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Broucheion, post: 4886430, member: 104887"]Hi [USER=73473]@Magnus Maximus[/USER], Very significant. Very rare. The title should be read as: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΦΙΛΟΜΗΤΟΡΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ. The first word is off the flan (right side). It is an issue of Polemais (Akko). This legend is the only Ptolemaic coin inscription that explicitly applies the word 'theos' (god) to a living king but it is partially off the flan, with only traces of the royal title visible. [The gold ΘΕΩΝ / ΑΔΕΛΦΩΝ coins of Ptolemy II used 'theon' to describe the divine but deceased couple represented by the busts of Ptolemy I and Berenike I, the 'Theoi Soteres.'] In 146 Ptolemy VI Philometor occupied the coastal cities of Palestine, ostensibly to support his son-in-law, the Seleucid Alexander I, against the claims of Demetrius II. But an attempt on Philometor's life at Ptolemais caused him to switch his support to Demetrius, probably in the expectation that the young Seleucid would cede the old Ptolemaic province of Syria and Phoenicia. Philometor's issue of a portrait tetradrachm at Ptolemais may indicate that he regarded it as 'dorikteton', a spear-won possession. Lorber argued in a paper about 5 or 6 years ago (the reference eludes me but it is online) that the Ptolemies only issued precious metal portrait coinage in spear-won territories. Thus the portrait coins from Ephesus, and other areas around Asia Minor and the Levant. - Broucheion[/QUOTE]