Monounios, King of Illyria

CNG 96, Lot: 100. Estimate $500. Sold for $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of ILLYRIA. Monounios. Circa 305/0-280/75 BC. AR Stater (20mm, 10.17 g, 1h). Dyrrhachion mint. Cow standing left, looking back at suckling calf standing right below; above, jawbone of boar right / Double stellate pattern, divided by line, in double linear square border; club to right; all within linear circle border. Gjongecaj Emission 2, 169 var. (obv. type right, same rev. die); Paškvan –; Maier 90; SNG Copenhagen –; BMC –. Good VF, irregular flan, off center on reverse. Extremely rare emission 2 stater.

Monounios, an Illyrian king in the late 4th – early 3rd centuries BC, was the first Illyrian king to issue coins in his own name. The Illyrians consisted of a number of tribes whose habitation extended from the coast to the mountainous inland area bordering on Paeonia. These tribes were not politically unified, but it seems that they were connected by a common culture and language, and were governed by hereditary kings and queens. Little of their language is known, and it was extinct by the 5th century AD, but enough fragments are attested to classify it as Indo-European. Although little is known of Monounios’ reign, his issue of coinage took place only after he had extended his influence to Dyrrhachion, and the coinage may have been connected with his intervention in Macedonian affairs. In 280 or 279, it is reported that Monounios unsuccessfully aided Ptolemy I Epigone, son of Lysimachos, against Ptolemy Keraunos. A bronze helmet has been found in Lake Ohrid, on the border between modern-day Macedon and Albania, with the Greek inscription ‘Of King Monounios’, apparently confirming the presence of his army in this conflict of Macedonian succession. Pompeius Trogus (24,4) describes a “Dardanian prince” who offered Ptolemy Keraunos help against the invading Celts in 279. It seems likely that this prince was Monounios, and either Monounios had Dardanian heritage (references to which are not preserved elsewhere), or the distinction between Illyrian and Dardanian was unclear to the author.

The cow / stellate pattern coins of Monounios have rarely appeared in the market. CoinArchives includes only two specimens sold in all the recorded auctions through 2011. In the catalogs of major public collections, there are three in the BM (BMC 1-3), three in Tübingen (SNG 1341 and 1508-9), two in Munich (SNG 468-9), two in Copenhagen (SNG 425 and 528), one in the Fitzwilliam (McClean 5075), one in Brussels (Hirsch 1174), and one in Venice (von Schlosser p. 66, 1). In addition to these published pieces, Maier also records four in Berlin, two in Paris (one of which may be Mionnet II 164), and one in Vienna. In the major private collections, there is one each in Jameson (no. 1112), Lockett (SNG 1642 = Pozzi 2943), and Weber (no. 2978).