KINGS OF THRACE. Lysimachos, 305-281 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 33 mm, 17.15 g, 10 h), Amphipolis, circa 288/7-282/1. Diademed head of Alexander the Great to right with horn of Ammon over his ear.
Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ - ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ Athena seated left, holding Nike, crowning the king's name, in her right hand and leaning with her left arm on shield decorated with lion's head; in inner left field and in exergue, monograms. Müller 544. Thompson 211. A magnificent piece struck in high relief, beautifully toned and with a splendid portrait of Alexander. Good extremely fine.
From the Kleinkunst Collection, ex Bourgey, 4-5 June 1991, 89.
Lysimachos was one of the most enduring and successful successors of Alexander, who were called the Diadochoi (lit. 'successors'). As one of the king's bodyguards, he was perhaps not the most prominent of Alexander's officers, but Lysimachos steadily expanded his position after receiving the small and endangered province of Thrace as his satrapy in 323 BC. In the Fourth War of the Diadochi (307-301 BC), he allied with Seleukos against Antigonos Monophthalmos, who was defeated and killed in 301 BC in the Battle of Ipsos, winning Lysimachos the west and south of Asia Minor. In 288 BC, the king invaded Macedon with his ally Pyrrhos of Epeiros, where the coalition partners defeated Antigonos' son Demetrios I Poliorketes. The newly captured city of Amphipolis became Lysimachos' principal mint of his later reign, which eventually ended in the Battle of Kurupedion, where the two sole surviving generals of Alexander clashed one last time in 281 BC: Lysimachos, now an old man of 79 or 80 years, was defeated and killed by his only slightly younger opponent Seleukos I (* circa 358 BC), who annexed the Kingdom of Thrace and crossed the Hellespont to return to his Macedonian homeland for the first time after more than half a century. However, the sprightly last survivor of Alexander's generals was assassinated in his former opponents' capital Lysimacheia shortly thereafter, ultimately denying an old man's wish to die in his native land. Seleukos' remains were acquired by Philetairos of Pergamon and handed over to Antiochos I, who buried his father in a mausoleum in Seleukeia Pieria called the Nikatoreion.
