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A bronze coin of Seleukos I showing a winged Medusa and a bull Coin Type: Bronze AE18 of Seleukos I Nikator ("Victor"), 312-281 BCE
Mint and Date: Antioch
Size and Weight: 17mm x 18mm, 7.47g
Obverse: Winged head of Medusa right, snakes flowing behind.
Reverse: Humped bull butting right.
(B)AΣIΛEΩΣ above, (Σ)EΛEYKOY below
Exergue: Greek X (not visible on this specimen).
Provenance: espanaman (eBay), August 2008
Ref: GCV 6852; Lindgren 1751.
BW Ref: 002 038 131
Click on the picture for a larger scale view of the coin

Note 1: This representation of Medusa is not the more usual frightening apotropaic type. It may have been copied from the original of the so-called Medusa Rondanini. See this quote from Wikipedia:

"The Medusa Rondanini may be a Roman copy of a classical work of the fifth century BC, a model attributed to one or another Athenian sculptor of the age of Phidias. Alternatively, it may have been modeled after a classicising Hellenistic work of the late fourth century BC.

If it is of the fifth century, Janer Danforth Belson has pointed out, it is the first of the "beautiful gorgoneion" type to appear in Greek art by more than a century, and unparalleled in any contemporaneous representation of the Medusa head."

Note 2: E.T. Newell, author of "The Coinage of Demetrius Poliorcetes" (London, 1927), wrote: "The bull on the reverse is an allusion to a story about Seleukos' prowess related to us in Appian: He (Seleukos) was of such a large and powerful frame that once when a wild bull was brought for sacrifice to Alexander and broke loose from his ropes, Seleukos held him alone, with nothing but his bare hands, for which reason his statues are ornamented with horns." Thanks to Lloyd T. on the Forum Classical Numismatics Discussion Board for this observation.


The content of this page was last updated on 15 March 2010