v59_0045 - CELTI DEL DANUVIO - TETRADRACHMi IMITAZIONE DI ALESSANDRO III IL GRANDE Tetradrachme,

DANUBIAN CELTS - IMITATIONS OF THE TETRADRACHMS OF ALEXANDER III AND HIS SUCCESSORS

(2nd - 1st century BC)

Under this title are generally grouped all the coinages which do not have a precise attribution. Sometimes the term "Eastern Celts" is offered. After the Celts plundered Delphi and spread through Greece and Asia Minor, they seized a significant amount of spoils, thanks to their plunder. The Hellenistic kings, Diadoques or Epigoni used them as mercenaries in their armies where the average salary was normally one gold stater corresponding to five Attic tetradrachms or twenty Attic drachms. The prototypes representing the head of Heracles with the seated Zeus on the reverse were widely copied and imitated throughout Pontus Euxin, northern Macedonia and Thrace. The final phase of the coinage occurs at the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the first century BC where there are no traces of the obverse and the reverse as well as legends more than a domed face of a coin. practically smooth on both sides.