In Syria, Augustus wore a different mask. The tetradrachm struck at Seleucia Pieria in AD 6/7 (year 115 of the Seleucid Era, the ΦΙΡ on the reverse counting the years since Seleucus I founded the city) shows the laureate princeps on the obverse, but the reverse is pure Hellenistic theology: a filleted thunderbolt resting on a throne. This is the empty seat of Zeus Keraunios, the patron of Seleucia, an image the city had used on its coins long before any Roman set foot in Syria.
Augustus does not displace the god; he stands beside him, his portrait on one face, the divine weapon enthroned on the other. The same year that Romans in Italy were grumbling under a new inheritance tax and Judaea was being absorbed as a province after the deposition of Archelaus, the Syrian mint was telling its own audience a quieter story: the Seleucid calendar still ran, the throne of Zeus still held its thunderbolt, and the man on the obverse had simply taken his place within an order older than Rome.
- Mint
- Seleucia Pieria
- Struck
- SE 115 (AD 6/7)
- Authority
- Augustus