Obolos 13

SELEUKID KINGS OF SYRIA. Demetrios III Eukairos, 97/6-88/7 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 28 mm, 16.00 g, 12 h), Damascus, year AKΣ (221) = 92/91. Diademed and bearded head of Demetrios to right. Rev. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ / ΘΕΟΥ // ΦΙΛΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ / ΣΩΤΗΡΟΣ // ΑΚΣ Cult statue of Atargatis standing facing, holding flower in her left hand and with a barley stalk rising from each shoulder; in outer left field, Ν and A; all within laurel wreath. HGC 9, 1305. SC 2451.4. With a bold portrait of fine style and an interesting reverse type, showing a goddess of an utterly non-Greek form. Good very fine.

Dynasties come to an end for all sorts of reasons: deaths without heirs (like that of the criminally reckless Sebastian of Portugal, last effective ruler of the House of Aviz, or the sad Gian Gastone, the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany); assassinations and murders (like the Obrenovićs of Serbia and the Romanovs); and abdications (the Braganzas of Portugal, the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs). But others, like the Seleucids, become increasingly degenerate and murderous, killing each other off until the family just goes extinct. Among the few things we know about Demetrios are that he supported the worship of local Syrian deities (as this coin shows) and that, after being captured by his brother Philip I and his Parthian allies, he ended up dying in Parthian exile.