cf. NAC Auction 146, lot 2044 (in vz: SFR 13.475 incl. commission) | Abkürzungen
Sybaris
28,00 mm
weight 8,51gr. | silver Ø 28mm.
obv. Bull standing left, looking back, VM in exergue rev. Similiar to obverse, but incuse standing right. no legend Sybaris was an important ancient Greek city situated on the coast of the Gulf of Taranto in modern Calabria, Italy. The city was founded around 720 BC by Achaean and Troezenian settlers and the Achaeans also went on to found the nearby great city of Kroton 10 years later. Sybaris amassed great wealth thanks to its fertile land and busy port so that it was known as the wealthiest colony of the Greek Archaic world. Sybaris had a huge population as a result of its fertile farming land and its policy of admitting aliens to its citizenry. It was the largest Greek city in Italy and may have had 300,000 inhabitants although others give a figure of 100,000. The circumference of the city was fifty stadia (9.7 km) and the area approximately 500 hectares. Sybaris was also a dominant power in the region and ruled over 4 tribes and 25 cities. Sybaris extended its dominion across the peninsula to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where it is thought to have founded its colonies Poseidonia, Laüs and Scidrus. Poseidonia was founded in approximately 600 BC, In the second half of the 7th century BC the Sybarites took over from the Oenotrians the sanctuary of Athena on the Timpone della Motta as their acropolis, located 15 km to the northwest, where they regularly celebrated large festivals. Its inhabitants became famous among the Greeks for their hedonism, feasts, and excesses, to the extent that "sybarite" and "sybaritic" have become bywords for opulence, luxury, and outrageous pleasure-seeking. Sybaris also ruled over smaller colonies throughout the area, and had an acropolis at Timpone della Motta near Francavilla Marittima about 10 km distant. The city of Sybaris was destroyed in about 510 BC by its neighbour Kroton and its population driven out, but its colonies in the area continued to exist. It was replaced by a new colony under Athenian leadership in 444/43 BC which became the city Thurioi built partially on top of the older city. Thurioi was also destroyed in 193 BC but the Romans built the city of Copia on the same grid as Thurioi, and parts of these cities are visible today.The first coins to be struck in Italy are of a unique and original form whose invention has been attributed to none other than Pythagoras, the Samian philosopher and mathematician with a reputation for being a skilled metal worker who migrated to Italy. Impressed in relief on one side and incuse or intaglio on the other, perhaps adopted from repousè work, these silver staters were struck on the Italic-Achaean standard unit of about 8.25 grams which on the authority of Aristotle was called nomos, meaning ′law or convention′. The unusual fabric of this piece follows a style peculiar to Greek southern Italy in the archaic period: A broad, thin flan, obverse depicted in relief, the reverse repeating the obverse motif but in negative relief, or incuse, and reversed. Creating such coins required a high degree of technical skill and quality control. The reasons for the popularity of this fabric are poorly understood.The bull of this prolific issue is probably the tauromorphic river-god of this Achao-Troezanian foundation which lay on the fertile plain near the mouth of the river Krathis.cf. NAC Auction 146, lot 2044 (in xf: SFR 13.475 incl. commission)
♦ Archaic coin of great beauty ♦
Sear 245 | BMC 1 | SNG.ANS.833 SNG.Copenhagen 1388 S&S Class B, pl. XLVIII, 4–8 | Gorini 2 | Dewing 406-407 SNG.Lloyd 449-450 | Gillet 215 | E. Spagnoli, La prima moneta in Magna Grecia. Il caso di Sibari, 2013, Phase B | HGC 1, 1231 SNG.München 1154 | Historia Numorum 1729 | Jameson 1873R very attractive specimen with wonderful toning xf-
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