Lot 4212

Description

Ionia, Ephesos (as Arsinoeia), (c.B.C. 290-281), silver octobol (5.41 g), Bloson, magistrate, obv. a veiled head of Arsinoe to right, rev. Bow and quiver, monogram and **[B]LOSW[N]* to left, **APSI* to right, bee to upper right area, (S.4379, cf.Svoronos 879 [octobol], SNG Cop. -, SNG Kayhan 279, BMC -, SNG Munich -, Mionnet -). Very fine with porosity, very rare.

Ex CNG Mail Electronic Sale 161, March 28, 2007 (lot 62). Lysimachos made himself master of Ephesos in 295 BC and shortly thereafter changed the city's name to Arsinoeia in honor of his wife, the daughter of Ptolemy I Soter. After the death of Lysimachos in 280 BC, Arsinoe married her half brother Ptolemy Keraunos and finally her full brother Ptolemy II Philadelphos. She became the first Ptolemaic ruler to enter the Egyptian temples as 'temple-sharing goddess,' and was revered by the later Ptolemies. This magistrate's name on this and the Kayhan example have the first letter partially obscured. Nevertheless, this name is recorded as a magistrate on the forepart of stag-palm tree coinage of Ephesos in the mid-late 4th century BC (see Waddington 1527 and Pixodarus pg. 204), so the reading here is almost certainly correct, probably naming a descendent or other family member of the earlier Bloson. (Comment by CNG).