Ancient Coin Stories

This coin I nickname my “time machine.” Why do I call it so? Because unlike most of my other coins, which depict deities doing deity-like things or weapons or boars, this one depicts something one may have actually witnessed back in the day.

Sure, a visitor would have been unlikely to see Athena driving an elephant biga. However, replace Athena with your everyday mahout, and the scene was similar enough. You can almost feel the elephants popping out of the scene. When I noticed this coin type, I had to have one, despite its rarity. For some time it was the top target on my list, and I failed several times before I eventually pulled this one in at auction.

Seleukos I Nikator, of course, was a major player in the Era of the Diadochi. While he did fight under Alexander the Great, he was of relatively low rank, but managed to claw his way up the thrones until he possessed the single largest territory of any of the Diadochi.

After Alexander‘s death, he started by supporting Perdikkas. This made sense, since Perdikkas had received Alexander‘s signet ring. Unfortunately, Perdikkas turned out to be a moron. So, when he failed spectacularly in an attack on Ptolemy I Soter, during which war elephants dug up silt in the Nile and roughly two thousand soldiers were eaten by crocodiles, Seleukos was one of the group who killed him.

Seleukos next chose sides against the kings, when he sided with Antigonos I Monophthalmos over Eumenes and Olympias. This time he chose the winning side, but unfortunate to him, Antigonos knew well what Seleukos’ aims were. Luckily for Seleukos, he knew Antigonos knew his aims, so he fled to Ptolemy in Egypt.

There, he played Scrabble with his friend Ptolemy until everyone started to notice how powerful Antigonos was becoming. So, Seleukos sided with Ptolemy, Lysimachos, and Kassander in taking him down. After defeating Antigonos‘ son Demetrios I Poliorketes in the Battle of Gaza, Seleukos headed back to Babylon and regained his satrapy. After defeating the nearby satraps, he was a major player again.

As Seleukos expanded, he ran up against Chandragupta Maurya, who had occupied much of India that was subjugated previously by Alexander. Seleukos and Chandragupta fought a war that didn’t really go Seleukos’ way, but with the aim of taking on the far more dangerous Antigonos, Seleukos agreed to a peace treaty where he gave Chandragupta Maurya most of Afghanistan (which was then just as peaceful as it is now) and Chandragupta gave Seleukos a large number of war elephants.

Seleukos used these war elephants to great effect to terrorize his Greek enemies, including Antigonos. In 301 BCE, he defeated and killed Antigonos in the Battle of Ipsus, and in 281 BCE he took down Lysimachos. At that point, Seleukos was the most powerful ruler on the planet. Nothing could stop him, except for a dagger in the back from Ptolemy Keraunos during prayer.

Yes, one of the biggest, baddest players out there was taken out by a cheap shot. This unexpected fate of Seleukos cost networks over half their viewership of the Era of the Diadochi, and is why the series is mostly unknown today.