A note on Cleopatra Thea, Antiochus Grypus and Athens. more

A NOTE ON CLEOPATRA THEA, ANTIOCHUS GRYPUS, AND ATHENS* Nicholas L. Wright An issue of bronze coins from Syria dated to the joint reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus VIII Grypus and his Ptolemaic-born mother, Cleopatra Thea, bears direct parallels with contemporary issues of silver and bronze produced in Athens. The Seleucid piece in question is the larger of two bronze denominations (18-21 mm in diameter) minted in Antioch-on- the-Orontes between 123 and 121 bc.1 The reverse type of this bronze issue (pi. 7: 1-2) is most unusual within the Seleucid corpus, but bears a striking resemblance to the reverse type employed on the new-style coinage of Athens (pi. 7: 3) which dates from the 2nd and 1st centuries bc. Although the similarity between the co-reign issue and Athenian coinage has been noted in the past, to the author's knowledge, the reasoning behind the association between the two geographically and politically distant issues has never been satisfactorily explored.2 Obv: diademed, radiate head of Antiochus VIII r.; dotted border. Rev: BA2IAIS2HI; KAEOnATPAS KAI BA2IAE02 ANTIOXOT; owl facing, perched on fallen amphora; all examples bear the Seleucid Era dates 190 (123/2 bc) or 191 (122/1 bc) on the exergue. Historic and epigraphic evidence shows that certain links were maintained between the Syrian court and the city of Athens during the Hellenistic period. Antiochus IV Epiphanes left Rome and arrived in Athens in 178/7 bc during the reign of his brother Seleucus IV Philopator.3 He remained in Athens until his brother's death in 175 bc, at which point he succeeded to the kingdom and reigned until 164 bc. Epiphanes is known to have remained a benefactor of the city, furthering the construction of the great temple of Olympian Zeus started by Pisistratus more than three and a half centuries earlier, as well as providing the south face of the Athenian acropolis with a giant gilt gorgonion on an aegis.4 One series of new-style Athenian tetradrachms (Thompson's types 396^103) include the name Antiochus in full or in abbreviated form as one of the city's mint magistrates. In all but one case (type 403), the series bears the additional control mark of an elephant or elephant head. The identity of this Antiochus is uncertain but the issue has traditionally been held as a product of Antiochus IV Epiphanes' tenure at Athens. A. R. Bellinger struggled with problems inherent in the traditional date and posited that the issues may have been the product of a stay in Athens by the exiled Antiochus VII Sidetes dated to 148/7 bc, although he freely This paper was inspired by a chance conversation I had whilst attending a seminar at the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies (ACANS) at Macquarie University as one of the ACANS Junior Fellows of 2007. I would like to express a debt of gratitude to Ted Nixon and Ken Sheedy for their assistance, and to my wife Laura for always hearing out my ideas before I put them on paper. All inaccuracies of course remain my own. 1 E. T. Newell, The Seleucid Mint of Antioch (1918) 91. 2 M. Thompson, The new style silver coinage of Athens (1961) 107-8; ead., 'Athens again', NumChron 2, 1962, 301- 33; D. M. Lewis, 'The chronology of the Athenian new style coinage', NumChron 2, 1962, 275-300; H. B. Mattingly, 'Reviews: The Agrinion Hoard by Margaret Thompson', NumChron 9, 1969, 327-31; id., 'The beginnings of Athenian new style silver coinage', NumChron 150, 1990, 67-78; O. M0rkholm, 'The chronology of the new style coinage of Athens', American Numismatic Society Museum Notes 29, 1984, 29 (ed. note), 42. 3 S. V. Tracy, 'Greek inscriptions from the Athenian agora: third to first centuries bc', Hesperia 51, 1982, 60-2; see also App. Syr. 45; E. R. Bevan, The house of Seleucus (1902) II 126. 4 The temple of Olympian Zeus: Livy XLI 20: 8; Bevan op. cit. II 148-9; H. A. Thompson, 'Athens and the Hellenistic princes', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97, 1953, 256. The Acropolis aegis: Pausanias I 21: 4; V 12:4. MEDITARCH 21, 2008, 39-42 40 Nicholas L. Wright admitted that there was no supporting evidence for such a visit. M. Thompson reverted to a more traditional high chronology and dated the issue to 163/2 bc, unconvincingly attributing the issues to a private citizen of Athens who employed the Seleucid elephant symbol as 'nothing more than a sportive reference to his name'.6 A series of scholars have since questioned Thompson's hypothesis. The principal arguments against Thompson's chronology are derived from a series of historical and epigraphic difficulties which resulted in unexplainable gaps in numerous hoards ranging from Attica to north Syria. Within a year of Thompson's findings being published, D. M. Lewis produced a paper that proposed to shift the entire chronology down by more than 30 years, allowing known Athenian magistrates to be linked with those named on the coinage within a plausible historic context. Lewis was followed shortly afterwards by H. B. Mattingly who expressed similar concerns when dealing with Thompson's chronology.7 One cannot help but feel compelled to agree with the challengers whose lowered chronology dates the Athenian Antiochus issue to 131/0 bc, and indeed Thompson herself conceded the probability of the low chronology in 1984.8 Appian states that during the chronic civil wars that plagued Syria after Epiphanes' death, Cleopatra Thea had made the decision to send Antiochus Grypus to Athens to be educated. It is unclear whether this occurred during the absence of Demetrios II Nikator (Thea's second husband, Grypus' father) as a Parthian captive, or upon his return.9 In view of the fact that Grypus had an older full brother, Seleucus (V), who had precedence to the succession through primogeniture, Grypus may in fact have been sent to Athens at any stage after his birth to avoid any future fraternal rivalry. A contemporary decree dating from the reign of Cleopatra's third husband (Grypus' uncle), Antiochus VII Sidetes, highlights the continual contact between Antioch and Athens and the benefactions showered upon the old centre of Greek learning by the Seleucid royal house throughout this period.10 After the successive deaths of Antiochus Sidetes (129 bc, against the Parthians) and Demetrios Nikator (126/5 bc, against the usurper Alexander II Zabinas), Grypus' older brother, Seleucus V, assumed his father's throne in the name of the legitimate line of Seleucid kings. The ambitious Cleopatra Thea, fearful that an adult son would relieve her of her powers, had him slain within months. What followed appears to have been roughly a year of sole rule by Cleopatra before she brought Grypus home from Athens and raised him to the throne, maintaining her position as dowager-queen and regent for her young son.11 Whatever reasons she may have had for recalling Grypus are now lost, but it is quite possible that the Syrian population had a problem with the sole rule of a monarch who was both female and a Ptolemy by birth. Regardless, it seems her son soon married his cousin, the Ptolemaic princess Cleopatra Tryphaena, whose dowry included financial support of the court at Alexandria.12 Within this Ptolemaic-dominated royal triad, Cleopatra Thea's senior position is well illustrated by the silver tetradrachms issued at all her active mints in the period 125— 121 bc, which show jugate portraits of the queen and king on the obverse in which her head takes precedence, and by all silver denominations and bronze issues of the period in which her name appears first on the reverse legend.13 5 'The chronology of the Attic New Style tetradrachms', in: Commemorative studies in honor of Theodore Leslie Shear. Hesp Suppl. 8(1949) 16-7. 6 Thompson 1961 op. cit. 159. 7 Lewis art. cit. 275-300; Mattingly 1969 art. cit. (n. 2) 327-31. 8 See M0rkholm loc. cit. (n. 2). 9 App. Syr. 68; A. R. Bellinger, 'The end of the Seleucids', Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Science 38, 1949, 59. 10 S. V. Tracy, 7GII 937. Athens and the Seleucids', GrRomByzSt 29, 1988, 383-8. 11 App. Syr. 69; Justin XXXIX 1: 9; E. T. Newell, Late Seleucid mints in Ake-Ptolemais and Damascus (1939) 10-13; Bellinger art. cit. (n. 9) 64. 12 J. Whitehorne, Cleopatras (1994) 161. 13 See for examples Newell 1918 op. cit. (n. 1) 90-2; id. op. cit. (n. 11) 13-23,59-62. Cleopatra Thea, Antiochus Grypus, and Athens 41 It must be assumed that the decision as to the choice of coin types during the period of co- rule must ultimately have fallen to Cleopatra Thea and her court, as Grypus was between 15 and 17 years old upon his return to Syria (125 bc) and can have been no older than 19 at the time of his capture of Antioch in 123/2 bc.14 It might be noted that on the joint-rule bronze coinage, not only does Grypus' radiate (read 'divine') head appear as the sole portrait on the obverse, but also Cleopatra Thea drops her divine epithet—present on the silver issues—on the reverse. The lone exception to this rule is a small issue of bronze units minted somewhere in north Syria or Cilicia where both obverse type and reverse legend follow the pattern normally seen on the silver coinage.15 The declaration being made on the Antioch bronzes to the population of the city and her surrounds seems to be that Cleopatra was present only as a guardian and regent for their young king, a statement that was evidently false.16 The most visible connection between the Seleucid court and Athens in this period was that Athens was the place where Grypus had been raised and educated. The reverse type of our coin serves to remind the modern scholar of the respect held for the old centres of the Hellenic mainland— even in the autumnal years of their influence—by the Hellenized population of the East. This respect may then have been expected to filter through to reverence of Grypus, the new legitimate monarch, on account of his schooling. There may also have been allusions implicit in the imagery to the original Athenian core of Antioch's Greek population—further proof that Grypus, though still technically his Ptolemaic mother's puppet, was the best candidate to rule the metropolis of Syria and the third-greatest city of the East.17 That new-style Athenian silver coins were known in the East is apparent from their inclusion in Levantine coin hoards at Tell Ahmar on the Euphrates and Kessab south of Seleucia-Pieria.18 The burial of both hoards was contemporary with the reign of Antiochus Grypus, around 110 and 100 bc respectively. According to Thompson's high chronology however, the Athenian tetradrachms in both hoards date to the first half of the 2nd century. There is no real explanation for the large gap in the sequence between the last Athenian coin and the earliest represented Seleucid issues; the only solution is to follow the lower chronology.19 It is possible to speculate that Grypus' treasury may have included a large number of Athenian tetradrachms brought back with him when he returned from exile. Interestingly, among the 40 Athenian new-style tetradrachms in the Kessab hoard, six were of the type listed above, struck in the name of the 'magistrate' Antiochus, in almost uncirculated conditions. One wonders whether the chronology should not be lowered further and the Antiochus issues be linked with some honour granted during Grypus' time at Athens. However, even as a child—he would have been around 10 or 12 in 131/0 bc—the Seleucid prince may have received an honorary magistracy.20 Regardless, in the period after Grypus' return to the Levant, Athenian silver certainly saw at least limited circulation in Syria and the population would have been familiar with its types. A thematically similar (though stylistically distinct) 'owl on amphora' reverse type had been utilized on a small issue of bronzes from an uncertain south Levantine mint under Cleopatra Thea's first husband, Alexander I Balas, see A. Houghton-A. Spaer, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Israel, I: The Arnold Spaer collection of Seleucid coins (1998) 1584-5. There is no evidence for Alexander's relationship with Athens—if and how the Balas issue relates to the much larger Thea and Grypus series is hard to ascertain, although Cleopatra Thea clearly played the dominant part in both courts. 15 Houghton—Spaer op. cit. 2467-9. 16 Justin XXXIX 2: 7-8. 17 Malalas VIII 201; Libanius Or. XI 92; Strabo XVI 2: 4; G. M. Cohen, The Hellenistic settlements in Syria, the Red Sea basin and North Africa (2006) 76. 18 H. Seyrig, Tresors du Levant, anciens et nouveaux. Tresors monetaires seleucides 2 (1973) 94-103. 19 Thompson op. cit. (n. 2) 474-7; Lewis art. cit. (n. 2); M0rkholm art. cit. (n. 2). 20 Mattingly 1969 art. cit. (n. 2) 330; id., 'Some third magistrates in the Athenian new style silver coinage', JHS 91, 1971,89. 42 Nicholas L. Wright Grypus soon established a distinct disregard for his mother's seniority and in 121/0 bc the cunning Cleopatra Thea was fated to drink poisoned wine she had prepared for her son, thus initiating the sole rule of Antiochus Grypus and the last five or six peaceful years to be experienced by members of the Seleucid house.21 With the passing of Cleopatra Thea, Grypus abandoned the Athenian-referencing coin type favoured by his mother and reverted to forms more appropriate for the wider audience within his eastern kingdom.22 21 Justin loc. cit.; Bellinger art. cit. (n. 9) 66. 22 N. L. Wright, 'Seleucid royal cult, indigenous religious traditions and radiate crowns: the numismatic evidence', Meditarch 18, 2005, 67-82; id., 'From Zeus to Apollo and back again: a note on the changing face of western Seleukid coinage', Proceedings of the Fiftieth Anniversary International Conference of The Oriental Society of Australia (2007) 533. Nicholas L. Wright Plate 7 1. fE unit from Antioch in the name of Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus Grypus (private collection). 2:1. 2. /E unit from Antioch in the name of Cleopatra Thea and Antiochus Grypus (private collection). 2:1. 3. AR new-style Athenian tetradrachm (ACANS. Marr collection). 2:1.