Artemide Aste s.r.l.
Auction LIV 7-8 Nov 2020
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Greek Italy. Southern Apulia, Tarentum. AR Nomos, c. 510-500 BC. Phalantos riding dolphin right, extending left hand, right hand resting on dolphin's back; to left, TARAS (retrograde). / Incuse of obverse type, but not ethnic. Cf. Vlasto 62-69; HN Italy 826. AR. 7.82 g. 26.00 mm. RR. Very rare and in excellent condition for issue. Sound metal, brilliant and lightly toned. Very small area of flat strike and light cleaning marks on obverse, otherwise good VF/About EF.
This very rare and fascinating early stater, the first featuring the dolphin rider on both sides, belongs to only the second issue of Tarentum. ' According to a late antique commentator, a statue of this subject stood in the Tarentine Agora (Probus on Vergil, Georgics 2.197), though we do not know whether it inspired the coinage, or followed it. On the identity of the dolphin rider–Phalanthos, the historical founder, or Taras, the local river god (?)–see R. R. Holloway, Art and Coinage in Magna Graecia (1978), p. 35 and note 1." (NFA XIV, 1984, lot 6 note).
This very rare and fascinating early stater, the first featuring the dolphin rider on both sides, belongs to only the second issue of Tarentum. ' According to a late antique commentator, a statue of this subject stood in the Tarentine Agora (Probus on Vergil, Georgics 2.197), though we do not know whether it inspired the coinage, or followed it. On the identity of the dolphin rider–Phalanthos, the historical founder, or Taras, the local river god (?)–see R. R. Holloway, Art and Coinage in Magna Graecia (1978), p. 35 and note 1." (NFA XIV, 1984, lot 6 note).