Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 501. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOIOTIA, Thebes. Circa 395-338 BC. AR Stater (11.97 g). Andr(okleidas), magistrate. Struck circa 390-382 BC. Boiotian shield / Amphora; wreath above, AN-DR across field; all within incuse concave circle. Hepworth 3; Head, Boeotia p. 63; Myron Hoard pl. G, 32 (same rev. die); SNG Cop. 315 (same dies); Mionnet II p. 100, 16. Good VF, purple-grey tone, some surface granularity. Well centered on a large flan. ($500)

Ex Waddell FPL 55 (Spring 1992), no. 61.

For the role of Androkleidas as one of the leading Theban nationalists and his eventual exile and assasination in Athens see Hepworth, Epaminondas, pp. 38-39. One wonders if the conspicuously large flans encountered in almost the entire coinage of this magistrate have some special significance related to the closing stages of the power-struggle that was taking place in Thebes before 382 BC and which culminated in the Spartan intervention and seizure of the Kadmeia in that year.