Lot 1887

Description

Attica, Athens, (363-359 B.C.), AE 10, (1.48 grams), issue during the siege of Olynthos, obv. head of Athena to right wearing ivy crested helmet, rev. owl standing facing on a kernel of wheat, olive branch and pellet on either side, A left above, **Q* to left and H to right of owl's feet, (S.-, Kroll [The Athenian Agora - The Greek Coins], type 35 [p.25-6 and p.39], Sv. Pl.22, 93-96). Fine/very fine dark brown patina, very rare.

Robinson and Price in an article in the Num. Chron. in 1967 (p.1-6) 'The Emergency Coinage of Timotheus', described these coins as the issue minted by the Athenian commander Timotheos during his siege of Olynthos (emergency grain money in reference to the kernel of wheat) in the late 360's B.C. According to the pseudo-Aristotelian (Oikonomika 2,23.1), Timotheos ran out of money and issued bronze coins (probably tariffed at three obols), which he promised to redeem later in silver in order to provide his troops with ration money. The irregular nature of his coinage and the fact that it was struck far from Athens account for anomalies in the series. Six of the seven coins found at the Olynthos excavations belong to this variety. However Kroll notes that in the Athens Agora excavations nine more examples were found and a further three others acquired at Thebes (including this piece, p.26). Kroll believes that they are the remnants of the North Aegean coinage that was never redeemed in full and travelled home with the troops and rowers. Probably less than thirty examples survive of this a most interesting short term expediency coinage struck in a time of a financial crises. This important small coinage is possibly the first siege coins struck. They are also the first bronze coinage of Athens that were apparently issued so far from Athens, near Olynthus.