SELEUKID KINGS. Demetrios I Soter, with Laodike V, 162-150 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 29 mm, 17.05 g, 1 h), Seleukeia on the Tigris, 161. Jugate busts of Demetrios I, diademed, and Laodike, draped and wearing stephane, to right. Rev. BAΣIΛEΩΣ - ΔHMHTΡIOΥ - ΣΩTHPOΣ Tyche seated left on throne supported by tritoness, holding short scepter in her right hand and cornucopiae in her left; to left, monogram and palm frond. CSE 993 var. (with additional monogram on the obverse). K. Ehling and L. Rutten: Konstantin der Große - Licinius I. - Maximinus Daia. Triarchie ohne Hierarchie, in: JNG 74 (2024), p. 99, 11 and pl. I, 11 (this coin). SC 1689.1. Very rare and among the finest known. A spectacular example of this intriguing dynastic issue with two wonderful portraits. The reverse struck somewhat off center and with faint traces of overstriking (?), otherwise, about extremely fine.

Laodike V was the daughter of Seleukos IV, who married her to the Macedonian King Perseus in 178 BC. Unlike her husband and their three children, she escaped Roman captivity after the defeat at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC and returned to Syria. Due to the double portraits of the royal siblings minted on tetradrachms after the suppression of the Timarchos revolt in 161 BC in Seleukeia on the Tigris, it is often suggested that Demetrios married Laodike. However, aside from the coins, there is no evidence to support this claim, and the reports from 160 BC, in which Demetrios I offered his sister’s hand to Ariarathes V of Cappadocia, contradict this idea. To the king’s great outrage, however, Ariarathes refused the proposal, prompting the Seleukid monarch to support the usurper Orophernes in the Cappadocian civil war that broke out in 158 BC. Some years later, in 150 BC, the royal siblings met a violent end, as they were both slain by Alexander Balas, a usurper of unknown origin who, with the support of Attalos II, claimed to be the son of Antiochos IV. Notably, several of the very rare double portrait coins of Demetrios I and Laodike V are clearly overstruck on tetradrachms of Timarchos (cf. CSE 991). These coins were likely issued as a victory emission, celebrating the siblings' restoration of legitimate Seleukid rule in Mesopotamia following the defeat of the usurper. Even on our exceptionally well-preserved specimen, fine lines can be seen in the fields on the reverse, suggesting the presence of an undertype that has become unidentifiable due to the unusually strong strike. If this is the case, a coin of the usurper Timarchos is likely also concealed beneath this magnificent dynastic tetradrachm, further underscoring the coin’s significance