Ptolemy X Alexander I & Cleopatra Berenice, 101-88 BC, Tetradrachm

Ptolemy X Alexander I & Cleopatra Berenice, tetradrachm, AR, 101–88 BC, Alexandria mint, 10.20 g, 28 mm. Obverse with diademed head of Ptolemy I Soter right, idealized and in the dynastic style adopted for Ptolemaic royal silver. Reverse with eagle standing left on thunderbolt, with ΠTOΛEMAIOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ in the fields. Well-centered and evenly struck, preserving clear portrait detail and legible reverse legend; minor surface marks consistent with circulation. Svoronos 1682; SNG Copenhagen 371.

This issue reflects the Ptolemaic practice of maintaining dynastic legitimacy through the continued use of Ptolemy I’s portrait and the longstanding eagle-on-thunderbolt type, a visual assertion of continuity and royal authority during the politically unstable late second to early first century BC, when co-regencies and internal conflict affected the governance of Egypt while Alexandria remained a principal mint and monetary center of the eastern Mediterranean.