Watch List notes:

Greek coins

Colophon. Tetradrachm, magistrate Artemidoros, circa 160-140, AR 16.46 g. Diademed and draped bust of Artemis r. wearing bow and quiver over l. shoulder. Rev. ΚΟΛΟΦΩΝΙΩΝ ΑΡΤΕΜΙΔΩΡΟΣ Apollo seated r. on rock, holding lyre; in r. field prancing horse / monogram. All within wreath. Waddington –. Milne –. Recueil –.
Apparently unique and unrecorded. Light iridescent tone and about extremely fine
Colophon was famous in antiquity for its control of the temple of Apollo at Klaros. This sanctuary, mentioned already in the Homeric Hymns, possessed an oracle that was widely consulted in the Greek and later Roman world. The nature of the oracle was somewhat unusual. According to the ancient travel-writer Pausanias, the priest was only told the names and number of the people seeking answers to their questions. Armed only with this information, the priest then withdrew into a cave where he drank water from a hidden fountain. When he later emerged from the cave he miraculously delivered responses-in verse no less-to the questions each person had in his mind. One can only presume that the responses were so vague that they could apply to just about any situation. However, the oracle of Apollo at Klaros seems to have been frighteningly clear when it reportedly foretold the death of Germanicus, the popular presumed heir of Tiberius. Due to the importance of the oracle, the obverse head of Apollo was a staple feature of Colophonian civic coinage since the fifth century BC and continued in the mid-second century BC with a series of wreathed tetradrachms. The latter were popular among a variety of cities in Asia Minor and Greece around the middle of the second century BC and can be distinguished by their spread flans, weight standards that transition from full Attic to a reduced Attic standard, and of course, the prominent wreath border on the reverse. It has been suggested that while the development of the series seems to have grown out of styles that begin with late Macedonian coinage and the New Style coinage of Athens, many of the wreathed issues of Asia Minor may have been struck to finance Attalid support for the pretender Alexander Balas in the Seleukid kingdom. Colophonian wreathed tetradrachms regularly pair the head of Apollo Klarion with a standing figure of the god-types that mirror those of Myrina. However, the present tetradrachm, which seems to be entirely unique and unpublished, features the head of Apollo's sister, Artemis, on the obverse and a seated figure of Apollo on the reverse. This unexpected obverse type links the tetradrachm to a bronze series struck at Colophon featuring the same obverse type and the caps of the Dioscuri on the reverse (SNG von Aulock 2016). Similar obverse depictions of Artemis occur on wreathed tetradrachms struck at Abydos in Troas, Magnesia ad Meandrum in Ionia, and on First Meris tetradrachms of Roman Macedonia in the third century BC. The reverse type, enclosed by a laurel wreath typical of most wreathed tetradrachms in Asia Minor, depicts Apollo as kitharoidos (lyre-player), seated and ready to play a mellifluous song. The galloping horse subsidiary symbol on the reverse is somewhat mysterious. Magistrate symbols are not a feature of Colophon's more common Apollo wreathed tetradrachm series and there is little to suggest that a galloping horse was a regular civic badge, although a standing horse does occur as a reverse type on Colophonian bronze coins of the late fourth and early third century BC (SNG Copenhagen 171-172).