Item Description
Item: i20975
Certified Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Greek city of Antioch in SYRIA, Seleucis and Pieria
Bronze Dichalkon 17mm (5.50 grams) Dated Year 27 of the Actian Era (5/4 B.C.)
Reference: McAlee 91(a); RPC I 4253; RARE
Turreted, draped, and veiled bust of Tyche right.
Tripod-lebes containing three laurel branches; sides of bowl decorated with faces in profile; Z-K across field; ANTIOXE?N / MHTPO?O???? behind; AYTONOMOY before.

Similar coin in VF realized $800 Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 200

One of the most celebrated cities of Antiquity, Antiocheia on the Orontes was founded by Seleukos in 300 B.C. It was the royal capital of Seleukid Syria and in the1st century B.C. became the capital of the Roman province of Syria.


Antioch on the Orontes (Greek: ????????? ? ??? ?????, ????????? ? ??? ??????? or ????????? ? ??????; Latin: Antiochia ad Orontem; also Great Antioch or Syrian Antioch; Arabic:???????) was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.

Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Near East and was a cradle of gentile Christianity. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis. Its residents were known as Antiochenes.


Location of Antioch, in present Turkey.

Two routes from the Mediterranean, lying through the Orontes gorge and the Beilan Pass, converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake (Bal?k Geut or El Bahr) and are met there by






The settlement of Meroe pre-dated Antioch. A shrine of Anat, called by the Greeks the "Persian Artemis," was located here. This site was included in the eastern suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named or Iopolis. This name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes (e.g. Libanius) anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians--an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the city's coins. Io may have been a small early colony of trading Greeks (Javan). John Malalas mentions also an archaic village, Bottia, in the plain by the river.

According to most of the writers, this is the city that is mentioned in the Quran 36:13.

 Foundation by Seleucus I

Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch, and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus, which lay in the northwest of the future city. This account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a 4th century AD orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antioch's status. But the story is not unlikely in itself.[2]

After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four "sister cities" in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch. Like the other three, Antioch was named by Seleucus for a member of his family. He is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs.

Seleucus founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means. An eagle, the bird of Zeus, had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. He did this in the twelfth year of his reign. Antioch soon rose above Seleucia Pieria to become the Syrian capital.

 Hellenistic age


The new city was populated by a mix of local settlers that Athenians brought from the nearby city of Antigonia, Macedonians, and Jews (who were given full status from the beginning). The total free population of Antioch at its foundation has been estimated at between 17,000 and 25,000, not including slaves and native settlers. During the late Hellenistic period and Early Roman period, Antioch population reached its peak of over 500,000 inhabitants (estimates vary from 400,000 to 600,000) and was the third largest city in the world after Rome and Alexandria. By the 4th century, Antioch's declining population was about 200,000 according to Chrysostom, a figure which again does not include slaves.






 Roman period





In 115, during Trajan's sojourn in the place with his army of Parthia, the whole site was convulsed by an earthquake, the landscape altered, and the emperor himself forced to take shelter in the circus for several days. He and his successor restored the city.

Commodus had Olympic games celebrated at Antioch.

Edward Gibbon wrote:

Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East.

In 256 the town was suddenly raided by the Persians, who slew many in the theatre.

In 526, after minor shocks, the calamity returned in a terrible form; the octagonal cathedral which had been erected by the emperor Constantius II suffered and thousands of lives were lost, largely those of Christians gathered to a great church assembly. Especially terrific earthquakes on November 29, 528 and October 31, 588 are also recorded.

 Late Antiquity


Antioch was a chief center of early Christianity. The city had a large population of Jewish origin in a quarter called the Kerateion, and so attracted the earliest missionaries. Evangelized, among others, by Peter himself, according to the tradition upon which the Antiochene patriarchate still rests its claim for primacy, and certainly later by Barnabas and Paul during Paul's first missionary journey. Its converts were the first to be called Christians. This is not to be confused with Antioch in Pisidia, to which the early missionaries later travelled.

The population was estimated by Chrysostom at about 100,000 people at the time of Theodosius I. Between 252 and 300, ten assemblies of the church were held at Antioch and it became the seat of one of the four original patriarchates, along with Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome (see Pentarchy). Today Antioch remains the seat of a patriarchate of the Oriental Orthodox churches. One of the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches is still called the Antiochian Orthodox Church, although it moved its headquarters from Antioch to Damascus, Syria, several centuries ago (see list of Patriarchs of Antioch), and its prime bishop retains the title "Patriarch of Antioch," somewhat analogous to the manner in which several Popes, heads of the Roman Catholic Church remained "Bishop of Rome" even while residing in Avignon, France in the 14th century.

During the 4th century, Antioch was one of the three most important cities in the eastern Roman empire (along with Alexandria and Constantinople), which led to it being recognized as the seat of one of the five early Christian patriarchates (see Pentarchy).

 The age of Julian


Not long after, the Christian population railed at Julian for his favour to Jewish and pagan rites, and, outraged by the closing of its great church of Constantine, burned down the temple of Apollo in Daphne. Another version of the story had it that the chief priest of the temple accidentally set the temple alight because he had fallen asleep after lighting a candle. In any case Julian had the man tortured for negligence (for either allowing the Christians to burn the temple or for burning it himself), confiscated Christian property and berated the pagan Antiochenes for their impiety.






 Valens and after



Justinian I, who renamed it Theopolis ("City of God"), restored many of its public buildings after the great earthquake of 526, whose destructive work was completed by the Persian king, Khosrau I, twelve years later. Antioch lost as many as 300,000 people. Justinian I made an effort to revive it, and Procopius describes his repairing of the walls; but its glory was past.


 Arab period


In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Antioch was conquered by the Arabs in the caliphate of al-Rashidun during the Battle of Iron Bridge. The city became known in Arabic as ???????? (Ant?kiyyah). Since the Umayyad dynasty was unable to penetrate the Anatolian plateau, Antioch found itself on the frontline of the conflicts between two hostile empires during the next 350 years, so that the city went into a precipitous decline.

In 969, the city was recovered for the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas by Michael Burza and Peter the Eunuch. In 1078, Armenians seized power until the Seljuk Turks captured Antioch in 1084, but held it only fourteen years before the Crusaders arrived.

 Crusader era

The Crusaders' Siege of Antioch conquered the city, but caused significant damage during the First Crusade. Although it contained a large Christian population, it was ultimately betrayed by Islamic allies of Bohemund, prince of Taranto who, following the defeat of the Turkish garrison, became its overlord. It remained the capital of the Latin Principality of Antioch for nearly two centuries. It fell at last to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in 1268, after another siege. Baibars proceeded to massacre the Christian population.[12] In addition to the ravages of war, the city's port became inaccessible to large ships due to the accumulation of sand in the Orontes river bed. As a result, Antioch never recovered as a major city, with much of its former role falling to the port city of Alexandretta (Iskenderun).


Few traces of the once great Roman city are visible today aside from the massive fortification walls that snake up the mountains to the east of the modern city, several aqueducts, and the Church of St Peter (St Peter's Cave Church, Cave-Church of St. Peter), said to be a meeting place of an early Christian community. The majority of the Roman city lies buried beneath deep sediments from the Orontes River, or has been obscured by recent construction.

The Tyche of Antioch, Galleria dei Candelabri, Vatican Museums.



A statue in the Vatican and a number of figurines and statuettes perpetuate the type of its great patron goddess and civic symbol, the Tyche (Fortune) of Antioch ? a majestic seated figure, crowned with the ramparts of Antioch's walls, with the river Orontes as a youth swimming under her feet.

In recent years, what remains of the Roman and late antique city have suffered severe damage as a result of construction related to the expansion of Antakya. In the 1960s, the last surviving Roman bridge was demolished to make way for a modern two-lane bridge. The northern edge of Antakya has been growing rapidly over recent years, and this construction has begun to expose large portions of the ancient city, which are frequently bulldozed and rarely protected by the local museum.

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