Facing Lion’s Head at Rhegion

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 30. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $5250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BRUTTIUM, Rhegion. Circa 445-435 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.60 g, 4h). Facing lion's head / RECIИ-OS (S retrograde), Iokastos (or Aristaios?) seated left, holding scepter in right hand, left hand on seat; all within laurel wreath. Herzfelder 32 (D20/R27); HN Italy 2483; SNG ANS 635-7 var. (ethnic); SNG Lloyd 676-8 var. (same); SNG Ashmolean 1582-3 var. (same); McClean 1860 (same dies). Good VF, lightly toned, minor smoothing, areas of roughness on reverse.

From the W.B. and R.E. Montgomery Collection.

The seated figure on the reverse of the early coins of Rhegion is shown either as a muscular young man or a mature bearded figure. He holds a staff and either a phiale or kantharos. Adjunct symbols are the dog, serpent, duck, crow, and grapes. He was first identified as Iokastos, the oikistes (founder) of Rhegion, by J.P. Six in NC 1898, pp. 281-5. Prior to that, the most popular candidate was Aristaios (or Agreus), son of Apollo and Kyrene (cf. Head, HN). Iokastos was one of six sons of Aiolos, ruler of the Aeolian islands, all of whom secured their own realms in Italy and Sicily. Iokastos held the region around Rhegion and died of a snakebite. Aristaios, born in Libya, discovered the silphium plant, and was the patron of beekeepers (mentioned by Virgil), shepherds, vintners and olive growers. He also protected Dionysos as a child, and was the lover of Eurydike, who died of a snakebite. While Iokastos has direct connections with Rhegion, the subsidiary imagery of youth and old age, kantharos, grapes, dog, and crow all point to a Dionysiac figure. The serpent seems to play a role in both legends. The direct and indirect connections between Aristaios and Dionysos may possibly indicate the existence of a cult of Aristaios at Rhegion. Note also the prominence of Apollo, father of Aristaeos, on later coins of Rhegion.