★ Enormous octobol ★

Ptolemy III Euergetes (246-222 BCE) AE octobol. Alexandria, 83.86g, 47.5mm
Obv: Diademed head of Zeus-Ammon right
Rev: Eagle with open wings standing left on thunderbolt, head right; E between legs
Svoronos 446; SNG Copenhagen 142 (Ptolemy II); Lorber series 4
From TheRed collection

A monster in the world of struck coins, the Ptolemy III octobols were among the largest ever issued in ancient times. In fact, for this coin, it is probably better to use Ptolemy III’s Egyptian name: Hekennetjeruremetjetheref Qenunedjtinetjeruinebmenkhentameri Werpehtiiriahet Nebhebused-mi-ptahtatjenen Iuaennetjeruisnui Setepenre Sekhemankhenamun ankh-djet mery-Ptah. (Or “Hek” to his friends.)

The reason for such a huge coin was the scarcity of silver in Egypt (the early Pharaohs valued it even more than gold). Partly for this reason, it had a closed economy whereby foreign silver was subject to mandatory exchange, normally for bronze. The result was that the common people were stuck with paying for a tetradrachm’s worth of goods with bronze weighing as much as a soup can (3 octobols).

Ptolemy III was the grandson of two of Alexander’s greatest generals, Ptolemy I and Lysimachus, and he really lived up to his family heritage at the time this coin was issued, during the Third Syrian War. According to historian E. R. Bevan, his land and sea invasion of the Seleucid Empire to avenge the imprisonment and eventual murder of his sister Berenice & her young son “was the greatest military triumph ever achieved by the house of Ptolemy.” (It is even described in the Book of Daniel; we also have part of Ptolemy’s own account, in the decree of Canopus.)