167, Lot: 8. Estimate $500. Sold for $857. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CALABRIA, Tarentum. Circa 390-385 BC. AR Nomos (21mm, 7.88 g, 12h). Youth on horseback right / Phalanthos riding dolphin left, holding akrostolion. Fischer-Bossert group 28, 402a (V176/R311; this coin); HN Italy 870; Vlasto 360; SNG ANS 897 (same dies). VF, toned, scrape at bottom of obverse.

Ex Münzhandlung Basel 8 (22 March 1937), lot 22.

The identification of the figures on early Tarentine coinage will vary depending on the source referred to. There are two semi-mythological persons associated with the founding of the city. Taras, the son of Poseidon and a nymph, is the boy washed overboard in a storm and rescued by a dolphin. The site where he was brought ashore was named after him, while the actual city was founded by Phalanthos, a Spartan around 708 BC. Phalanthos was likely a historical person, the leader of a group of young Spartans denied citizenship due to doubtful parentage. The two foundation stories were merged, and Phalanthos becomes another son of Poseidon who arrived in Italy riding a dolphin. When the early coins of Tarentum depict a boy on a dolphin alone, it might be Taras or Phalanthos. When the boy holds an akrostolion or a rudder the figure is most likely Phalanthos as leader of the colonization fleet. The seated figure holding a spindle (symbol of an oikistes, or founder) or a kantharos is Phalanthos.