Antigonid Coinage

Antigonid coinage was the money struck by the Antigonid dynasty, the line of Macedonian kings descended from Antigonus I Monophthalmus, one of Alexander the Great's generals. The family first ruled large parts of Asia Minor and the Aegean, then held the kingdom of Macedonia and much of mainland Greece until the Roman victory at Pydna in 168 BCE.

Compared with the vast output of the Seleucids and Ptolemies, Antigonid coins were struck in smaller quantities, but they include some of the most admired designs of the Hellenistic period. They were struck on the Attic weight standard, in silver and bronze, with very little gold.

Antigonus I and his son Demetrius took the title of king in 306 BCE. For most of their coinage they continued Alexander's types and weights, in line with the Attic drachma. Demetrius, nicknamed Poliorcetes ("the Besieger"), soon added his own designs. His best-known tetradrachm shows the goddess Victory standing on the prow of a warship, celebrating his naval victory off Salamis in Cyprus in 306 BCE, with the sea god Poseidon hurling a trident on the reverse. Later issues show Demetrius himself with small bull's horns, an early example of a living king portrayed with divine attributes.

Demetrius's career was marked by famous sieges, including the failed siege of Rhodes in 305–304 BCE, which the Rhodians commemorated by building the Colossus (see Rhodian drachm). After Antigonus I died at the battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE, Demetrius ruled Macedonia for several years before losing his throne.

Demetrius's son, Antigonus II Gonatas, secured the Macedonian throne in the 270s BCE after defeating invading Gauls. His tetradrachms show the head of the god Pan set at the centre of a decorated Macedonian shield, with a warlike Athena on the reverse. The shield motif, with its rings of crescents and dots, became a recurring Macedonian emblem on silver and bronze.

The Antigonids also kept garrisons in key Greek strongholds, among them the citadel of Corinth, whose own Corinthian stater had long served as a trading coin in western Greece. Alongside their own types, Macedonian mints continued to strike coins in Alexander's name, which were readily accepted across the Greek world.

The last two kings, Philip V and his son Perseus, issued portrait tetradrachms of high artistic quality. Perseus's coins show his own head on the front and an eagle standing on a thunderbolt within an oak wreath on the back. Philip V also allowed certain Macedonian regions and peoples to strike coins in their own names, a sign of an organised and still productive state.

The kings' wars with Rome were costly. After the Second Macedonian War, Philip V had to pay Rome a war indemnity reckoned in talents, the largest unit of Greek account, equal to 60 minae. Perseus built up reserves of coin and bullion in preparation for renewed conflict, but his defeat at Pydna in 168 BCE ended the dynasty.

The main silver coin was the tetradrachm of about 17 grams, with drachms and smaller fractions down to the obol. Bronze coins served daily needs, often carrying the Macedonian shield and helmet or the head of a god. Gold, which Philip II had made famous with his Macedonian stater, played only a minor role under the Antigonids. Their coins circulated alongside Seleucid coinage and other Alexander-type issues, while the lighter-weight Ptolemaic coinage largely stayed within Egypt's closed system.

Rome divided Macedonia into four separate republics after 168 BCE. From around 158 BCE, when Rome allowed the silver mines to reopen, the first of these districts struck large numbers of tetradrachms with the head of Artemis on a Macedonian shield, a deliberate echo of royal design. After Macedonia became a Roman province in 146 BCE, local silver gave way over time to the Roman denarius, though cities continued to issue bronze money for local use.

• American Numismatic Society
• British Museum – Collection online