Kings of Macedon. Posthumous issue in the name of Alexander III ‘the Great’.

Kings of Macedon. Posthumous issue in the name of Alexander III ‘the Great’. AR Tetradrachm (28.7 mm, 16.32 g). Circa 125–70 BC.

Obv. Head of youthful Herakles right, wearing lion skin headdress.

Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ. Zeus seated left on stool-throne, holding eagle on outstretched right hand and sceptre in left; additional symbols in the fields (not recorded here).

Refs: Price 1200.

This large silver tetradrachm belongs to the long-lived posthumous coinage of Alexander the Great, struck across the Hellenistic world for nearly two and a half centuries after his death. By the late 2nd–early 1st century BC, when this piece was issued, the type had become a de facto international trade currency from the Aegean to the Near East.

The obverse portrait of Herakles, rendered in heroic idealised form, linked Alexander to the divine hero from whom the Argead dynasty claimed descent. On the reverse, Zeus enthroned with eagle and sceptre reflects the Olympian king of gods, whose favour Alexander claimed after his victories. Even in these later issues, the iconography carried immense prestige, ensuring ready acceptance of the coinage in commerce.