Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XVI 26 Sep 2018
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Phoenicia, Arados (Arwad) AR Tetradrachm. Attic standard. Circa 440-420 BC. Marine deity (Ba'al Arwad), comprised of male torso with archaic-style hair and beard, and scaled ketos-like lower body with dorsal fin ending in forked tail, swimming to right while holding two dolphins by their tails; Phoenician 'MA' above; all within circular border / Elaborate galley to right; hippocamp below, swimming to right. Unpublished in the standard references, including Elayi & Elayi, Phoenician Coinages, supplement to Transeuphratène (2014); for type cf. Betlyon 6 (1/3 shekel or tetrobol), and also Elayi & Elayi, Phoenician Coinages, p. 597, I.2.1, PL. LXXXIV, C.108 = Münz Zentrum Rheinland 105, 284 (shekel, possibly of same types but uncertain due to poor centring); for the only other Attic standard tetradrachm of Arados, cf. Betlyon 14 = de Luynes 3054. 17.28g, 26mm, 2h.
Extremely Fine. A unique and unpublished type of the greatest numismatic importance; only the second known coin of Arados struck on the Attic standard, and the only one in private hands.
From a private English collection;
Ex Collection of a California Gentleman; acquired privately from Freeman & Sear (Los Angeles), 1999.
This remarkable and highly important coin represents a significant addition to the corpus of the coinage of Arados. Betlyon's 'Third Aradian Series', which he dated to c. 400-380 BC, comprised only fractional silver coinage - namely, tetrobols, diobols and obols. He noted that "It is surprising that no staters (shekels) are extant from this series... Aradus must not have been issuing coins which were intended for use in commerce outside the city-state at this time." A shekel was however subsequently identified by Elayi & Elayi as maybe belonging to this series (Elayi and Elayi Group I, I.2.1, dated circa 440-420 BC), because it possibly bears a hippocamp below the galley, though this is uncertain due to the poor centring of the reverse strike.
The only other Attic standard coin of Arados, also a tetradrachm, bears the head of Ba'al Arwad on the obverse and a galley over waves on the reverse, and is part of the de Luynes collection and was struck c. 352/1-351/0 in the context of the Tennes Rebellion of Phoenician and Cypriot cities. It has been suggested that coin was struck on the Attic standard, along with parallel issues at Sidon and Tyre, as a symbolic gesture of breaking from Persian authority. The surrender of Arados ended this 'monetary coup', and coinage reverted to the Persic standard, which was probably considered a necessary restriction by the city's Persian overlords given its strong link with the overland trade route that led to the heart of the Persian empire.
No such revolt can account for the present coin's divergence from the Persic standard; the reason for its production most likely lies instead with the socio-economic situation prevalent at Arados at the close of c.5 and beginning of c.4. Vadim S. Jigoulov (The Social History of Achaemenid Phoenicia, Being a Phoenician, Negotiating Empires, 2016) notes that "Escalating internal problems in the Persian empire marked by wars for the throne left subject territories without strong Persian control in the first part of the fourth century BCE. In this political situation, the royalty of Arwad strove to foster closer relations and lively trade with the Greek West. Such development was not unknown among Phoenician city-states in the first half of the fourth century BCE, as Sidon had its representatives and envoys residing in Athens, according to the Athenian decree of Cephisodotus." Indeed, Arados was situated in a prime location to act as a gateway for trade between Cyprus, the Greek cities of the west, Phoenicia, Egypt and the Persian heartlands.
Betlyon (The Coinage and Mints of Phoenicia, p. 79) following Hill (BMC Phoenicia p. xix) suggests "it may be that the Athenian coinage was the parent coinage of that of Aradus", having commenced producing their own coinage when the supply of Athenian tetradrachms began to ebb. While this is certainly possible, perhaps even likely, there is no simple exchange rate between the Attic standard and the Persic. Hill (BMC Phoenicia, p. xxiii) proposed that five Aradian tetrobols weighed nearly the same as the normal weight of an Athenian tetradrachm, though he incorrectly assumed an Attic standard of 17.44g, and tetrobols at a nominal weight of 3.55g (the Attic standard is correctly 17.2g, and the Aradian tetrobols were likely struck at an initial nominal weight of approximately 3.4g, as the best preserved examples seem to indicate). Thus, with the heaviest tetrobols an exchange would be feasible (slightly in favour of Arados), but these seem to have varied greatly in weight.
We could therefore speculate that the present tetradrachm may have been a prototype or experiment in striking an Aradian civic issue of attic weight coinage for the purpose of local commerce, readily convertible with Athenian owls, which was abandoned in favour of enforced conversion of foreign money to Aradian local coinage on the Persic standard, which would have entailed an exchange rate profit for the treasury similar to that earned by the authorities at Olympia during the games. Equally, it could have been a similarly brief issue intended as a trade coinage struck with a specific payment in mind, as appears to have been the case at Seriphos, whose coinage standard varies, most likely according to whomsoever needed paying. Unfortunately, the paucity of historical sources that mention Arados combined with a dearth of information from archaeological excavation in the city do not at present allow us to form any more conclusive judgement concerning the motivation for the striking of this altogether extraordinary issue.
Extremely Fine. A unique and unpublished type of the greatest numismatic importance; only the second known coin of Arados struck on the Attic standard, and the only one in private hands.
From a private English collection;
Ex Collection of a California Gentleman; acquired privately from Freeman & Sear (Los Angeles), 1999.
This remarkable and highly important coin represents a significant addition to the corpus of the coinage of Arados. Betlyon's 'Third Aradian Series', which he dated to c. 400-380 BC, comprised only fractional silver coinage - namely, tetrobols, diobols and obols. He noted that "It is surprising that no staters (shekels) are extant from this series... Aradus must not have been issuing coins which were intended for use in commerce outside the city-state at this time." A shekel was however subsequently identified by Elayi & Elayi as maybe belonging to this series (Elayi and Elayi Group I, I.2.1, dated circa 440-420 BC), because it possibly bears a hippocamp below the galley, though this is uncertain due to the poor centring of the reverse strike.
The only other Attic standard coin of Arados, also a tetradrachm, bears the head of Ba'al Arwad on the obverse and a galley over waves on the reverse, and is part of the de Luynes collection and was struck c. 352/1-351/0 in the context of the Tennes Rebellion of Phoenician and Cypriot cities. It has been suggested that coin was struck on the Attic standard, along with parallel issues at Sidon and Tyre, as a symbolic gesture of breaking from Persian authority. The surrender of Arados ended this 'monetary coup', and coinage reverted to the Persic standard, which was probably considered a necessary restriction by the city's Persian overlords given its strong link with the overland trade route that led to the heart of the Persian empire.
No such revolt can account for the present coin's divergence from the Persic standard; the reason for its production most likely lies instead with the socio-economic situation prevalent at Arados at the close of c.5 and beginning of c.4. Vadim S. Jigoulov (The Social History of Achaemenid Phoenicia, Being a Phoenician, Negotiating Empires, 2016) notes that "Escalating internal problems in the Persian empire marked by wars for the throne left subject territories without strong Persian control in the first part of the fourth century BCE. In this political situation, the royalty of Arwad strove to foster closer relations and lively trade with the Greek West. Such development was not unknown among Phoenician city-states in the first half of the fourth century BCE, as Sidon had its representatives and envoys residing in Athens, according to the Athenian decree of Cephisodotus." Indeed, Arados was situated in a prime location to act as a gateway for trade between Cyprus, the Greek cities of the west, Phoenicia, Egypt and the Persian heartlands.
Betlyon (The Coinage and Mints of Phoenicia, p. 79) following Hill (BMC Phoenicia p. xix) suggests "it may be that the Athenian coinage was the parent coinage of that of Aradus", having commenced producing their own coinage when the supply of Athenian tetradrachms began to ebb. While this is certainly possible, perhaps even likely, there is no simple exchange rate between the Attic standard and the Persic. Hill (BMC Phoenicia, p. xxiii) proposed that five Aradian tetrobols weighed nearly the same as the normal weight of an Athenian tetradrachm, though he incorrectly assumed an Attic standard of 17.44g, and tetrobols at a nominal weight of 3.55g (the Attic standard is correctly 17.2g, and the Aradian tetrobols were likely struck at an initial nominal weight of approximately 3.4g, as the best preserved examples seem to indicate). Thus, with the heaviest tetrobols an exchange would be feasible (slightly in favour of Arados), but these seem to have varied greatly in weight.
We could therefore speculate that the present tetradrachm may have been a prototype or experiment in striking an Aradian civic issue of attic weight coinage for the purpose of local commerce, readily convertible with Athenian owls, which was abandoned in favour of enforced conversion of foreign money to Aradian local coinage on the Persic standard, which would have entailed an exchange rate profit for the treasury similar to that earned by the authorities at Olympia during the games. Equally, it could have been a similarly brief issue intended as a trade coinage struck with a specific payment in mind, as appears to have been the case at Seriphos, whose coinage standard varies, most likely according to whomsoever needed paying. Unfortunately, the paucity of historical sources that mention Arados combined with a dearth of information from archaeological excavation in the city do not at present allow us to form any more conclusive judgement concerning the motivation for the striking of this altogether extraordinary issue.