Watch List notes:

Greek Coins
Kings of Persia, time of Darius I to Xerxes I. Daric circa 500-485, AV 8.25 g.

Description

Persian king or hero in kneeling-running position r., holding spear in r. hand and bow in l.; quiver over shoulder. Rev. Rectangular incuse punch.

References
BMC 67 (siglos)
Robinson NC 1958, cf. pl. 15, 8-9 (siglos)
Carradice Type IIIa, cf. pl. XI, 15 (siglos)

Condition
In exceptional condition for the issue, one of the finest darics to appear on the market in the last twenty years. Exceptionally well struck and neat. Extremely fine
Provenance
Leu sale 91, 2004, 189
Tradart sale 14 December 2014, 191

This magnificent gold daric was struck during from early in the reign of Darius I to about the accession of Xerxes I, that is, during the first fifteen or so years of the fifth century B.C., the period encompassing the Ionian Revolt. The Hellenic communities of Asia Minor during the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. were much like any other Greek polis of the mainland, internally having competing political factions agitating for various concessions, and externally being at odds with their neighbours. What led the Ionian Greeks into revolt in 498 B.C. was, first and foremost, the debacle of the failed attempt to conquer Naxos the year before by Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, using support from the Persian satrap at Sardis, Artaphernes. However, widespread dissatisfaction with the Persian policy of ruling by proxy their Greek domains through the use of native tyrants was also a contributing factor, and was also the argument that Aristagoras, who having turned traitor to his Persian masters after his recent failure, used to goad the Greeks into open rebellion. The rebellion lasted five years, until 493 B.C., and was utterly quashed by the mighty Persian Empire, but not before first drawing into the conflict mainland Greeks from Eretria and Athens. Thus the Ionian Revolt set the stage for subsequent relations between Greece and Persia, and had the direct consequence of Darius' first invasion of Greece in 492 B.C.
The obverse of this coin depicts the great king in royal garb, wearing the royal tiara or kidaris, and holding a spear and bow, while the reverse is lacking any design and is simply the impression left by rectangular punch, its purpose being to force the metal of the heated planchet into the obverse die. The spear and bow are symbols, and represent the king as both a military leader of divine invincibility, and the foremost skilled hunter. Kraay mentions that the bow had additional significance, that it alluded to "the name of the 'archers' with which the king supported his political aims in the Greek world" (ACGC p. 32). The kidaris, a stiff leather headdress of Scythian vintage and similar to the kyrbasia and tiara, is depicted in various ways in classical and Persian art, but when worn upwards as here is a sign of royalty. (Interestingly, on some Greek ceramics from the period c. 510-450, certain symposiasts are shown wearing the kidaris. However, the underlying meaning is far from clear, and we should not necessarily accept its face-value meaning, that it represents a foreigner, either Scythian or Persian). The two small pellets behind the beard of the king differentiate Carradice's type IIIa from the later coins, his types IIIb A/B and IIIb C, which have the same design but were struck into the reign of Artaxerxes II, until about 375 B.C. The pelleted issues are also of slightly lower weight (that is, c. 8.20 g vs. 8.35 g for the darics, and c. 5.35 g vs 5.55 g for the sigloi). At the time that Carradice's seminal study of the royal Achaemenid coinage was published in Coinage and Administration of the Athenian and Persian Empires, he knew of no gold darics of type IIIa, only silver sigloi which are all quite rare.
An interesting truth about Achaemenid coinage was that it was purposefully made – probably at Sardis – for use in the west amongst the Hellenic poleis of coastal Asia Minor, the area where the first true coinage began and where it was already well established. Its purpose was probably twofold: to pay for state expenses, such as hiring mercenaries and other military needs, and to provide an easily portable form of collected revenues. The peoples in the interior of the Persian Empire apparently had not yet developed a need for coinage in order to transact business; they still relied on barter as a means for exchanging goods and services.