288, Lot: 122. Estimate $200. Sold for $280. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BOEOTIA, Thebes. Circa 395-338 BC. AR Stater (20mm, 12.18 g). Arka-, magistrate. Struck circa 368-364 BC. Boeotian shield / Amphora with two ivy leaves on each handle; AP-KA across central field; all within concave circle. Hepworth 14; BCD Boiotia 537. VF.

The staters of the Boiotian Confederacy of the 4th century are well known to numismatists. These staters, struck on the Aiginetan standard, bear on the obverse the usual Boiotian shield and on the reverse an amphora, with the addition of magistrate names and, on occasion, vines hanging from the handles or extra symbols around the amphora. Although the coins do not bear the mark of an issuing city, Thebes, as hegemon of the Boiotian Confederacy, was most likely responsible for their issuance. In his study of the series, “The 4th Century BC Magistrate Coinage of the Boiotian Confederacy,” Numismatica Khronika (1998), R. Hepworth has identified 44 different magistrates and 97 separate varieties. The series begins in the early years of the 4th century and ends at the Battle of Khaironeia in 338 BC.