Thrace, c. 187-72 BC Who were "the Odrysians" and what was there relationship to Macedonia? Seuthes III, King of Thrace, was active in the late fourth century BC and was among the last major Odrysian rulers recognizable as an independent Thracian king in the time period after Alexander the Great. He established a regional power base around Seuthopolis and issued bronze coinage. Computer rendering of the project to restore access to the ruins of Seuthopolis, rediscovered in th

Byzantine coins are an acquired taste. These are not the coins you put on display to impress your friends. This one in particular has no portrait, no triumphant emperor gazing out from a field of bronze. The obverse gives you a monogram: interlocked Greek letters folded into a hieroglyphic knot. The reverse gives you a large E and a small K. That is all. The Coin Byzantine Justin II (565-578 AD). Kyzikos AE Pentanummium Obv: Monogram of Justin II Rev: Large E, K in right f

Map of Lydia circa 50 AD on the western edge of modern Turkije showing Smyrna (red dot). Image Source: Caliniuc, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons . The Coin Today's coin of interest is a dichalkon. Everyday money. The head on the obverse has what Milne calls a "more angular pose" - Milne's group δ (delta) are the least refined coins from Smyrna's final autonomous period. The border is neater than the other dies of this group, and this coin has excellent details compared

Such is the cycle of political revolution, the course appointed by nature in which constitutions change, disappear, and finally return to the point from which they started. -Polybius, Histories, 6.9.10