Ancients: MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. Perseus (179-168 BC). AR tetradrachm (30mm, 15.29 gm, 12h). NGC Choice AU 5/5 - 5/5....

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MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. Perseus (179-168 BC). AR tetradrachm (30mm, 15.29 gm, 12h). NGC Choice AU 5/5 - 5/5. Reduced standard, Pella, ca. 173-171 BC. Diademed head of Perseus right / ΒΑΣΙ-ΛΕΩΣ / ΠΕP-ΣΕΩΣ, eagle standing right on thunderbolt, wings spread; Φ above, AY monogram to right, AN monogram between legs, all within oak wreath, plow right below. Mamroth, Perseus, 24. Gleaming, lustrous flan with a golden halo of light toning around the portrait. Magnificent eye appeal.

From the Historical Scholar Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group, website purchase (April 2003), lot 734699

The last independent king of Macedon, Perseus inherited the throne from his father Philip V after the latter had his pro-Roman son Demetrius executed. Thus the tone was set from the outset of his reign for an eventual clash, which proved fatal to the Antigonid monarchy and Macedonian independence. Perseus skillfully rebuilt the Macedonian army and a network of marriage alliances during the first years of his reign, which the Romans watched with rising alarm. The Third Macedonian War broke out in 171 BC, and for a time Perseus employed guerrilla tactics which gave him the initiative and kept the Romans on their heels. Like his father, though, he chose to risk all in a single pitched battle at Pydna and lost badly to the Roman general Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Perseus surrendered and was allowed to live out his life in comfortable captivity in Rome; the Macedonian Kingdom was divided into four theoretically autonomous Republics which were soon subsumed into direct Roman rule. The coinage of Perseus is one of the more attractive of the Hellenistic series.

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