Numismatica Ars Classica
Auction 138 18-19 May 2023
View prices realized
► Sale information
Find similar lots
Lampsacus.
Stater circa 394-350, AV 8.45 g. Head of the hunter Aktaion l., with stag's horn above forehead. Rev. Forepart of Pegasus r. within incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos 33 e-h. Jameson 1434 (these dies). SNG France 1145. Boston MFA, 1597. Gulbenkian 964.
Extremely rare. A spectacular portrait of great beauty, work of a talented
master engraver, struck in high relief. Good extremely fine
Ex M&M sale 11, 1953, 63. From a Distinguished Swiss Collection.
Lampsacus was settled by colonists from Phocaea in 654/3 BC and became famous in antiquity for the quality of its wine and as the primary centre for the worship of the bawdy fertility deity Priapus. From an early date, the city had difficult relationships with Athenian leaders. In the second half of the sixth century BC, the city was attacked by Miltiades, the ambitious Athenian tyrant of the Thracian Chersonesus. The Lampsacenes successfully weathered the assault and even managed to capture Miltiades, but they were forced to restore him through the intervention of King Croesus of Lydia. After the incorporation of western Asia Minor into the Persian Empire, Lampsacus suffered the indignity of being granted to the exiled Athenian statesman Themistocles in c. 464 BC. The city was subsequently seized by the Athenian general Strombichades in 411 BC, during the ongoing Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), but in 405 BC, the Spartan general Lysander claimed it for Sparta. It may have been at this time that Lampsacus began to produce its famous series of gold staters to support the construction of a new Spartan fleet. Unlike most other Greek cities, Lampascus had access to its own gold mines and therefore had the ability to produce such coinage on a relatively large scale. This particular issue, which is currently known from only two specimens falls later in the series, after Lampascus was returned to Persian control in 387 BC. Despite the restoration of Persian influence over the city, Lampsacus continued to be a critical naval base and Persian ship construction there was probably underwritten by the city's gold coinage. In the 360s BC, when this issue was probably struck, the main Persian authority in the region, was the Rhodian mercenary commanders Memnon and Mentor of Rhodes, who served as satraps of Troas. Like contemporary Cyzicene electrum staters, Lampsacene gold staters regularly featured a multiplicity of obverse types, but whereas the Cyzicene coins consistently have an archaizing incise punchmark on the reverse, the issues of Lampsacus carry the forepart of Pegasus. This mythical creature served as the badge of the city from the time of its first archaic coinage. It continued to be used as the standard emblem of Lampsacus in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
Stater circa 394-350, AV 8.45 g. Head of the hunter Aktaion l., with stag's horn above forehead. Rev. Forepart of Pegasus r. within incuse square. Baldwin, Lampsakos 33 e-h. Jameson 1434 (these dies). SNG France 1145. Boston MFA, 1597. Gulbenkian 964.
Extremely rare. A spectacular portrait of great beauty, work of a talented
master engraver, struck in high relief. Good extremely fine
Ex M&M sale 11, 1953, 63. From a Distinguished Swiss Collection.
Lampsacus was settled by colonists from Phocaea in 654/3 BC and became famous in antiquity for the quality of its wine and as the primary centre for the worship of the bawdy fertility deity Priapus. From an early date, the city had difficult relationships with Athenian leaders. In the second half of the sixth century BC, the city was attacked by Miltiades, the ambitious Athenian tyrant of the Thracian Chersonesus. The Lampsacenes successfully weathered the assault and even managed to capture Miltiades, but they were forced to restore him through the intervention of King Croesus of Lydia. After the incorporation of western Asia Minor into the Persian Empire, Lampsacus suffered the indignity of being granted to the exiled Athenian statesman Themistocles in c. 464 BC. The city was subsequently seized by the Athenian general Strombichades in 411 BC, during the ongoing Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), but in 405 BC, the Spartan general Lysander claimed it for Sparta. It may have been at this time that Lampsacus began to produce its famous series of gold staters to support the construction of a new Spartan fleet. Unlike most other Greek cities, Lampascus had access to its own gold mines and therefore had the ability to produce such coinage on a relatively large scale. This particular issue, which is currently known from only two specimens falls later in the series, after Lampascus was returned to Persian control in 387 BC. Despite the restoration of Persian influence over the city, Lampsacus continued to be a critical naval base and Persian ship construction there was probably underwritten by the city's gold coinage. In the 360s BC, when this issue was probably struck, the main Persian authority in the region, was the Rhodian mercenary commanders Memnon and Mentor of Rhodes, who served as satraps of Troas. Like contemporary Cyzicene electrum staters, Lampsacene gold staters regularly featured a multiplicity of obverse types, but whereas the Cyzicene coins consistently have an archaizing incise punchmark on the reverse, the issues of Lampsacus carry the forepart of Pegasus. This mythical creature served as the badge of the city from the time of its first archaic coinage. It continued to be used as the standard emblem of Lampsacus in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.