information:classification
First portraiture of a ruler on coinage

Coins are the only contemporary documents remaining from the time of Themistocles. Although many of the first coins of Antiquity illustrated the images of various gods or symbols, the first portraiture of actual rulers only appears in the 5th century BC. Themistocles was probably the first ruler ever to issue coinage with his personal portrait, as he became Achaemenid Governor of Magnesia in 465–459 BC. Themistocles may have been in a unique position in which he could transfer the notion of individual portraiture, already current in the Greek world, and at the same time wield the dynastic power of an Achaemenid dynast who could issue his own coins and illustrate them as he wished. Still, there is some doubt that his coins may have represented Zeus rather than himself.

During his lifetime, Themistocles is known to have erected two statues to himself, one in Athens, and the other in Magnesia, which would lend credence to the possibility that he also illustrated himself on his coins. The Themistocles statue in Magnesia was illustrated on the reverse of some of the Magnesian coins of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius in the 2nd century CE.

The rulers of Lycia followed towards the end of the 5th century as the most prolific and unambiguous producers of coins displaying the portrait of their rulers. From the time of Alexander the Great, portraiture of the issuing ruler would then become a standard, generalized, feature of coinage.