Greek Silver & Bronze

Lot 4414    Session 15 (7.30pm Friday)    Greek Silver & Bronze

Estimate $7,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $7,500

MACEDON, Terone, (c.475-465 B.C.), silver tetradrachm, (17.585 grams), obv. amphora with ribbing at the shoulders, across **P O*, dotted border, rev. quadripartite incuse square with design as a windmill type, (cf.S.1289-1290, Hardwick 'Terone' (Essays Price) (p.121, notes the issue and magistrates letters), Carradice, (BAR 343, Coinage & Administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires, 9th Oxford Symposium), 'Decadrachm Hoard' (p.4, Pl.II, 15 illustrates the example from this Hoard from the same dies, the only other known example). Surface knock and bump on the amphora, otherwise very fine and extremely rare, being the second known example of this type.

Sear notes on p.133 that the letters HE refer possibly to the Heracleia mint. However an atttribution that was rejected by Sallie Ford (p.4, BAR 343). She states about the Decadrachm Hoard that 'Terone is represented by only two tetradrachms but both are new varieties. The obverse has an amphora with inscription ll **G* on one piece and **P O* [or Q] on the other new example, [now clearly in this example and O, as our specimen comes from the same dies]. In fabric, style and weight these coins were close to Kraay #17 (BMC Terone 3) and Asyut Hoard 228-9, which have the letters HE flanking the amphora. The two coins in this hoard should join those pieces in Kraay's Group C. His suggestion (p.15) followed in Asyut, that the H E is an abreviation for the ethnic Heracleia parallel to T E standing for Terone, is now considered unlikely now that these new coins have come to light. The three different inscriptions are perhaps magistrate's names, as in the case of Abdera.' Hardwick (p.119-1134 and Pl.29) calls the coins staters and further follows this up in Studies in Greek Numismatics in memory of Martin Jessop Price in a paper 'The Coinage of Terone from the Fifth to the Fourth century' by noting the example from BAR 343 in his paper (p.125) comments on the reverse and in particular the example from the Decadrachm Hoard 'has incomplete impression of the squares' but is part of Group III. He (p.124) assigns it to Group III and dates Group III 490-480 B.C. He further adds (p.121) some of the coins in Group I and III of staters minted c.500-465 B.C., have a legend HE thought by Babelon to be a T replaced by a rough breathing and by Kraay to be the ethnic for the neighbouring state of Heracleia. But the appearance of II **G* and **P O* on coins dated 480-465 B.C., in CHVIII, 48 Elmah. 1984., shows that HE is a magistrate's name and that the ethnic was replaced on the obverse by names at this time, as we can see by the contemporay coins of Abdera.' Less than 50 of these large rare coins from Terone survive today. It is also interesting to note that the Archaeology Department of Sydney University excavated the site of the ancient city of Terone for nearly twenty years and found only a tetrobol and various later bronzes. No tetradrachms were found at the site of Terone.