Ira and Larry Goldberg Auctioneers
Auction 96 14-15 February 2017
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Macedonia, Potidaia. Silver Tetradrachm (16.55 g), ca. 500-480 BC. Poseidon Hippios on horseback right, holding trident on hoseback right; below, star of eight rays. Reverse: Quadripartite incuse square diagonally divided. Alexander period I.B; SNG ANS 688-9; ACGC 471 (this coin) = Weber 1952 (this coin). Very Rare. Toned. Very Fine. Estimate Value $2,500 - UP
The Hanbery Collection; Purchased privately from F. Kovacs in 1993. Ex Sir Hermann Weber Collection, 1952; Naville IV (17 June 1922), 444.
In ca. 600 BC, Corinthian colonists founded the city of Potidaia in the Chalkidike. This city, whose name literally means "[City] of Poseidon" was compelled to supply ships and men for the great Persian invasion of mainland Greece by Xerxes I in 480 BC. The following year it, however, it threw off the Persian yoke and contributed 300 hoplites to fight with the allied Greeks at the battle of Plataia.This tetradrachm was struck around the time that Xerxes was marching through Thrace and Macedonia or shortly before, when many of the Chalkidic cities were under Persian influence. The obverse type depicts Poseidon, the patron of the city, in his role as Hippios, the creator of the horse. This is one of the very few occasions on Greek coins, or anywhere else in Greek art, when the god of seas and earthquakes appears mounted, with his trident couched like a lance and ready to charge his foes.
The Hanbery Collection; Purchased privately from F. Kovacs in 1993. Ex Sir Hermann Weber Collection, 1952; Naville IV (17 June 1922), 444.
In ca. 600 BC, Corinthian colonists founded the city of Potidaia in the Chalkidike. This city, whose name literally means "[City] of Poseidon" was compelled to supply ships and men for the great Persian invasion of mainland Greece by Xerxes I in 480 BC. The following year it, however, it threw off the Persian yoke and contributed 300 hoplites to fight with the allied Greeks at the battle of Plataia.This tetradrachm was struck around the time that Xerxes was marching through Thrace and Macedonia or shortly before, when many of the Chalkidic cities were under Persian influence. The obverse type depicts Poseidon, the patron of the city, in his role as Hippios, the creator of the horse. This is one of the very few occasions on Greek coins, or anywhere else in Greek art, when the god of seas and earthquakes appears mounted, with his trident couched like a lance and ready to charge his foes.