The Poet Homer

253, Lot: 152. Estimate $100. Sold for $400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Kolophon. Circa 50 BC. Æ Hemiobol (18mm, 6.02 g, 12h). Pytheos, magistrate. Homer seated left, holding scroll in left hand, resting chin on right hand / Apollo standing right, holding kithara and phiale. Kinns 177; Milne, Colophon 179; SNG Copenhagen 186-7. VF, green patina, faint cleaning scratches. Excellent for the issue.

As the ancient poet Homer was believed to have been from Ionia, he figured quite prominently on the coinage of Smyrna, but is also seen, far less often, on this type from Kolophon. Strabo mentions specifically the issue of bronze coinage from Smyrna when, discussing the city, he says "there is also a library; and the 'Homereum', a quadrangular portico containing a shrine and wooden statue of Homer; for the Smyrnaeans also lay especial claim to the poet and indeed a bronze coin of theirs is called a Homereum" (Strabo, Geographica XIV, I.37, transl. by H.C. Jones, The Geography of Strabo, VI [Loeb, 1960], pp. 245-247).