Silver Tetradrachm
ca. 302-301 BC
Seleucus I
Seleucia-on-Tigris miint
29-126-479, reverse
Enthroned Zeus holding a Nike or personification of Victory in his outstretched right hand. The coin type is based, at least in a generalized way, on the Phidian cult statue of Zeus at Olympia, which by the end of the 4th century BC was perhaps the most famous statue in the Greek world. Nothing of these colossal images has survived antiquity intact. Of Phidias's masterpieces all that has been preserved with certainty are a few sculptor's tools, molds and bits of ivory excavated from his workshop at Olympia.
Photo courtesy Mediterranean Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum.

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