Very Rare Attic Pentadrachm

CNG 85, Lot: 541. Estimate $30000. Sold for $24000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PTOLEMAIC KINGS of EGYPT. Berenike II, wife of Ptolemy III. Circa 244/3-221 BC. AV Pentadrachm (25mm, 21.38 g, 11h). Attic standard. Veiled and draped bust right / BAΣIΛIΣΣHΣ BEPENIKHΣ, cornucopia bound with fillet; stars flanking. Svoronos 978; SNG Copenhagen -; Boston MFA 2278 var. (E in field on rev.); de Luynes 3572. Near EF, underlying luster. Very rare.

This Attic-weight pentadrachm is from a large, multidenominational series of gold and silver coins in the name of Berenike featuring a veiled and draped female bust right on the obverse and a cornucopia bound with a fillet on the reverse. Depending on the issue, either stars or the pileioi of the Dioskouroi flank the cornucopia. The coins of this series raise a number of important numismatic and historical questions: what mint issued them, upon which weight standard were they struck, which Berenike does the series commemorate, and for what purpose were the coins issued?

Circa 310 BC, the Ptolemies reduced the weight of their tetradrachms from the Attic standard 17.2 grams to about 15.7 grams, and then, circa 290 BC, to 14.4-14.2 grams. This “Ptolemaic standard” allowed for the new coinage to conform to the already-existent Phoenician standard in the region. This Ptolemaic/Phoenician standard remained in use until the first century BC. The coins of the Berenike series, however, present a possible anomaly in this system, as the series apparently comprises denominations struck on both the Ptolemaic (large silver pentakaidekadrachms) and Attic (all other gold and smaller silver) standards. The series also conflicts with the traditional view that mints used only a single standard for any particular series. The answer to this problem lies in the historical context of the issue.

The series has traditionally been attributed to Berenike II, the daughter of Magas of Kyrene and wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes. In his book, Ptolemaic Coins: An Introduction for Collectors (Toronto: Kirk & Bentley, 1995), Hazard has proposed instead that it honored Berenike Syra, the sister of Ptolemy III and widow of the Seleukid king, Antiochos II Theos. Hazard argued (pp. 4-5) that the coins were struck in Syria from locally-acquired silver – no mention is made of the source for the gold – to pay the Ptolemaic army deployed there to press the claim of Berenike’s child to the Seleukid throne, though the two had been murdered in the interim, and that, as pay, these coins were carried back to Egypt by the soldiers. The use of the long-discontinued Attic standard, he argued, implies a provincial mint rather than Alexandreia. While Hazard’s placement of the series in an historical context is plausible, he assumed the entire series was struck on the Attic standard, which had been the traditional view since Svoronos’ time, so he does not address the question of the two standards.

A passage from Polyainos (8.50) provides a possible explanation. According to him, Ptolemy III continued to suppress the news regarding the death of his sister and his nephew – going so far as to forge letters in her name – until he had gained the nominal support of governors in the border territories of the Seleukid Empire – areas as far west as the Tarsos and as far east as the Euphrates. As funds would be required to consolidate their support, the Attic weight Berenike gold denominations would make perfect sense, since some of these areas still employed that weight standard, and gold would be a perfect diplomatic medium. The coinage struck on the Ptolemaic/Phoenician standard then, would have been meant for payment to those Ptolemaic forces or allies in the Levant, where such a weight system was already in place. Thus, it is possible that the concurrent issues of two different weight standards could have been struck at the Alexandreia mint. Given the city's size and central importance in the Ptolemaic Empire, the mint there could have easily handled the task. If such coins were struck at cities under Ptolemaic control in the Levant, however, the mints there could have easily produced fine style dies to rival Alexandreia's craftsmen. Whether the image represented is Berenike II or Berenike Syra is irrelevant, as the iconography and epigraphy could be interpreted to relate to both equally. Both weight standards served the same purpose – promoting the imperial designs of Ptolemy III against the Seleukid Empire in the Third Syrian War (246-241 BC).