HIDRIEUS SILVER TETRADRACHM – ISSUE WITH APOLLO AND ZEUS EX TRITON IV 2000 SALE – XF NGC GRADED GREEK PROVENANCED COIN (Inv. 21392)

$8,500.00

21392. SATRAPS OF CARIA. HIDRIEUS, ca. 351–344 BC.
Silver Tetradrachm, 15.16 g, 23 mm.
Obv. Laureate head of Apollo facing slightly right. Rev. ΙΔΡΙΕΩΣ, Zeus Labraundus standing right, holding scepter and double-axe.
Ex The New York Sale 65, 1/15/2026, lot 1047 = “North River Collection,” Triton IV, 12/5/2000, lot 276.
NGC XF, Strike 5/5, Surface 3/5, a particularly attractive example.

Hidrieus was the younger brother of Maussolus, the famous Hecatomnid satrap of Caria responsible for constructing the great mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Hidrieus succeeded Artemisia, the wife and sister of Maussolus, as satrap of Caria in 351 BC. He appears to have been a loyal satrap of the Persian Great King, Artaxerxes III, using his position to assemble an army of mercenaries under the command of the Athenian general Phocion and Evagoras II, the exiled king of Salamis, during the Great King’s struggle to reassert control over the rebellious kings of Cyprus in 345 BC. Thanks to these forces, Cyprus was restored to Persian control in the following year. Despite his apparent loyalty to Artaxerxes III, in Greek circles Hidrieus seems to have been considered a potential ally for an invasion of Persian Asia Minor. The Athenian orator Isocrates presented him as such in a speech given while Cyprus was still in revolt. There is no way to know if Hidrieus would have supported the Greek cause, as he fell ill and died in 344 BC.