Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 1144. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $2800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOEOTIA, Tanagra. Early-mid 4th century BC. AR Stater (12.30 g). Boeotian shield / Forepart of horse right, laurel garland around its neck; T-A flanking head; all within incuse concave circle. BCD Boiotia 265; Head, Boeotia p. 52, pl. IV, 16 = BMC 29, pl. X, 4; Traité III 344. EF, minor scrape on obverse, short flan crack. Better than the BCD specimen.

Imhoof-Blumer, Münzkunde, p. 381 thinks that the garland may be celebrating a victory in a chariot race or other competition involving horses.

Tanagra

Situated southeast of the city of Thebes, Tanagra, or Homer’s Graia (Iliad 2.498), was the home of the poetess Korinna. At the turn of the fifth century BC, Tanagra was one of three mints (the others being Haliartos and Thebes) to issue a series of drachms and fractions with the Boeotian shield on the obverse and a mill-sail pattern punch on the reverse. After the Persian war, Tanagra appears to have aspired to the hegemony of Boeotia when it struck a large series of coinage. All of these issues continued the typical shield obverse, but the reverse had either a mill-sail punch or a four-spoked wheel, and included the legends T or T A.

In the late Classical period the city was known primarily for its mass-produced, mold-cast and fired terracotta figurines. The area around the town was the site of two famous battles. The first Battle of Tanagra occurred in 457 BC when Nikodemes of Sparta, regent for the underaged king Pleistoanax, marched his force into Boeotia to assist Thebes as that city put down a rebellion by Phokis. The Athenians and their allies, under the command of Myronides, took advantage of this situation and attacked the Spartans at Tanagra. Although the Spartans won the battle, many men were lost. It was around this time that Tanagra revived its coinage, removing the mint signature from the obverse, and changing the reverse type to a horse protome.

The second famous battle of Tanagra occurred during the Peloponnesian War. In 426 BC Athens sent a fleet to the island of Melos to coerce it into joining the Delian League. Unable to do so, the Athenians then turned their attention to Oropos, a town on the Boiotian coast. Upon landing, they marched toward Tanagra. There, they were joined by the main Athenian force which had been marching north from Athens. A combined army of Thebans and Tanagrans met the Athenians who were plundering the countryside near Tanagra, but were defeated. The Athenians failed to follow up their success, though, and returned instead to Athens.