Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XII 29 September 2016
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Bruttium, Kaulonia AR Stater. Circa 525-500 BC. Nude Apollo walking right, holding laurel branch in upright right hand, small daimon running right on Apollo's extended left arm, holding long branch; to right, stag standing right with head reverted, KAVL to left; all within dot and cable border / Incuse of obverse, but no ethnic and daimon without branch; stag horns and laurel in relief. Noe, Caulonia, Group A, 3 (same dies); SNG ANS 141 (same obv. die); SNG Copenhagen 1698 (same obverse die); HN Italy 2035. 7.82g, 30mm, 12h.
Struck from worn obv. die, but Near Mint State. Well struck, with an uncommonly complete border. Beautiful, lustrous metal.
From the B.R.H. Collection, privately purchased c.1980s in Munich.
Though there is no literary record of the foundation of Kaulonia, archeological evidence shows that it was established early in the second half of the seventh century BC. Both Strabo and Pausanias mention that it was founded by Achaean Greek colonists, and Pausanias additionally gives the name of the oikist as Typhon of Aegium. Others sources such as Pseudo-Scymnos claim that it was founded by Kroton but it could well be that Typhon and his settlers came at the request of Kroton.
The design of the incuse staters of Kaulonia has elicited various interpretations over the years; those that were current at the time of writing Historia Numorum in 1911 were reviewed by Barclay Head. Head interpreted the figure as being a representation of the oikist Typhon, who holds in his hand a plant (καυλος) stalk, alike to that of the parsnip plant, which he takes to be a punning allusion to the city. Modern scholarship however tends to identify the figure as Apollo, as the symbolism is more easily associated with this deity – a laurel branch, for instance, being more easily recognisable and sacred to Apollo. The small running figure most likely represents a daimon, a divinity of a lower order, who serves as a messenger of the gods. It may be, given his occasionally winged feet, that this daimon should be seen to be a wind god such as Zephyros. The stag is the only element which has consistently defied explanation (even by Head); its meaning was clearly sufficiently explicit and important for it to have eventually served as a the principle reverse type of Kaulonia. It may be a reference to Artemis, who at Aegium was worshipped jointly with Apollo in a temple the two gods shared.
Struck from worn obv. die, but Near Mint State. Well struck, with an uncommonly complete border. Beautiful, lustrous metal.
From the B.R.H. Collection, privately purchased c.1980s in Munich.
Though there is no literary record of the foundation of Kaulonia, archeological evidence shows that it was established early in the second half of the seventh century BC. Both Strabo and Pausanias mention that it was founded by Achaean Greek colonists, and Pausanias additionally gives the name of the oikist as Typhon of Aegium. Others sources such as Pseudo-Scymnos claim that it was founded by Kroton but it could well be that Typhon and his settlers came at the request of Kroton.
The design of the incuse staters of Kaulonia has elicited various interpretations over the years; those that were current at the time of writing Historia Numorum in 1911 were reviewed by Barclay Head. Head interpreted the figure as being a representation of the oikist Typhon, who holds in his hand a plant (καυλος) stalk, alike to that of the parsnip plant, which he takes to be a punning allusion to the city. Modern scholarship however tends to identify the figure as Apollo, as the symbolism is more easily associated with this deity – a laurel branch, for instance, being more easily recognisable and sacred to Apollo. The small running figure most likely represents a daimon, a divinity of a lower order, who serves as a messenger of the gods. It may be, given his occasionally winged feet, that this daimon should be seen to be a wind god such as Zephyros. The stag is the only element which has consistently defied explanation (even by Head); its meaning was clearly sufficiently explicit and important for it to have eventually served as a the principle reverse type of Kaulonia. It may be a reference to Artemis, who at Aegium was worshipped jointly with Apollo in a temple the two gods shared.