Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXIII 24-25 Mar 2022
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Islands off Troas, Tenedos AR Tetradrachm. Circa 100-80 BC. Janiform head of a laureate bearded male to left and female to right, wearing stephanos / Labrys; TENEΔIΩN above, handle flanked by grape bunches; all within laurel wreath. Callataÿ, Tenedos 1 (D1/R1, this coin); HGC 6, 390. 16.83g, 37mm, 12h.
Extremely Fine; attractive light cabinet tone with golden highlights. Extremely Rare as a type, and unique in the series with two grape bunches on reverse.
This coin published in F. de Callataÿ, "Les monnaies hellénistiques en argent de Tenedos" in Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price, p. 100, pl. 24 (London, 1998);
Ex Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection Part II, Sotheby's New York, 21-22 June, 1990, lot 475 (obv. illustrated as cover coin);
Ex Bank Leu AG, Auction 30, 28 April 1982, lot 171;
Ex Gitta Kastner, Auction 10, 18 May 1976, lot 51 (obv. illustrated as cover coin).
This particular coin has been rightfully celebrated during the last half century, having graced the covers of two auction catalogues of the highest calibre.
Tenedos was an island of strategic importance throughout antiquity due to its location at the entrance to the Hellespont, which ensured every ship sailing to or from the Propontis and the Black Sea would pass by. It is referenced in both Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid, in the latter as the place where the Greek fleet was concealed towards the end of their siege of Troy in order to trick the Trojans into taking the fateful Trojan horse within the walls of the city. During the fifth century, Athens used the island as a stronghold to protect their vital shipping routes, but it came under the influence of successive Hellenistic dynasties from the third century onwards: controlled first by the Seleukids, then the Attalids and eventually by Mithridates VI Eupator, who used the island as a naval base in the Third Mithridatic War against the Roman general Lucullus in 73-63 BC. It was during the latter's long reign that this type and other stephanophoric (wreath-bearing) Tenedian tetradrachms were first minted.
On this extremely fine example, the form of the exquisitely detailed janiform head, the proportions and intricate hairstyles of which are finely balanced, is satisfyingly echoed by the symmetrical reverse displaying the labrys, a double-headed axe, and (uniquely for the series) two grape bunches. This labrys is a reference to the Tenedian foundational myth, in which the hero Tenes used an axe to sever the mooring lines of his father's ship when he attempted to land on the island to reconcile with his son. In Pausanias' version of the myth, he concludes "for this reason a by-word has arisen, which is used of those who make a stern refusal: so and so has cut whatever it may be with an axe of Tenedos" (Paus. 10.14.4). Indeed, Cicero, writing less than half a century from the time of this coin's issue jokes to his brother Quintus about Tenedos' unsuccessful request to the Roman senate to be made a free city: "well then, the liberty of the Tenedians has been chopped by the Tenedian axe" (Letters to his brother Quintus, 2.9).
Extremely Fine; attractive light cabinet tone with golden highlights. Extremely Rare as a type, and unique in the series with two grape bunches on reverse.
This coin published in F. de Callataÿ, "Les monnaies hellénistiques en argent de Tenedos" in Studies in Greek Numismatics in Memory of Martin Jessop Price, p. 100, pl. 24 (London, 1998);
Ex Nelson Bunker Hunt Collection Part II, Sotheby's New York, 21-22 June, 1990, lot 475 (obv. illustrated as cover coin);
Ex Bank Leu AG, Auction 30, 28 April 1982, lot 171;
Ex Gitta Kastner, Auction 10, 18 May 1976, lot 51 (obv. illustrated as cover coin).
This particular coin has been rightfully celebrated during the last half century, having graced the covers of two auction catalogues of the highest calibre.
Tenedos was an island of strategic importance throughout antiquity due to its location at the entrance to the Hellespont, which ensured every ship sailing to or from the Propontis and the Black Sea would pass by. It is referenced in both Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid, in the latter as the place where the Greek fleet was concealed towards the end of their siege of Troy in order to trick the Trojans into taking the fateful Trojan horse within the walls of the city. During the fifth century, Athens used the island as a stronghold to protect their vital shipping routes, but it came under the influence of successive Hellenistic dynasties from the third century onwards: controlled first by the Seleukids, then the Attalids and eventually by Mithridates VI Eupator, who used the island as a naval base in the Third Mithridatic War against the Roman general Lucullus in 73-63 BC. It was during the latter's long reign that this type and other stephanophoric (wreath-bearing) Tenedian tetradrachms were first minted.
On this extremely fine example, the form of the exquisitely detailed janiform head, the proportions and intricate hairstyles of which are finely balanced, is satisfyingly echoed by the symmetrical reverse displaying the labrys, a double-headed axe, and (uniquely for the series) two grape bunches. This labrys is a reference to the Tenedian foundational myth, in which the hero Tenes used an axe to sever the mooring lines of his father's ship when he attempted to land on the island to reconcile with his son. In Pausanias' version of the myth, he concludes "for this reason a by-word has arisen, which is used of those who make a stern refusal: so and so has cut whatever it may be with an axe of Tenedos" (Paus. 10.14.4). Indeed, Cicero, writing less than half a century from the time of this coin's issue jokes to his brother Quintus about Tenedos' unsuccessful request to the Roman senate to be made a free city: "well then, the liberty of the Tenedians has been chopped by the Tenedian axe" (Letters to his brother Quintus, 2.9).