Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Tyche (80-79 BCE): Artwork and History

Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Tyche (80-79 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek; Arados, Phoenicia (now Syria).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The front (obverse) of this coin depicts the goddess Tyche wearing a turreted crown. On the back (reverse), the goddess Nike stands facing left while holding a palm branch. In antiquity, the goddess Tyche symbolized cities. Her identifying feature is a crown shaped like the walls of a city. Some cities chose Tyche as their emblem, but often they also selected another divinity as their particular patron and protector.

Object facts

• Title: Tetradrachm (Coin) Depicting the Goddess Tyche
• Date: 80-79 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Arados, Phoenicia (now Syria)
• Place of origin: Jazirat Arwad
• Medium: Silver
• Dimensions: Diam.: 2.8 cm (1 1/8 in.)
• Type: Coin
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1923.1159

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. William Nelson Pelouze

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.