New Magistrate for Series

CNG 97, Lot: 163. Estimate $2000. Sold for $4250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TROAS, Ilion. Circa 95-87 BC. AR Tetradrachm (31mm, 16.86 g, 12h). Metronaktos, son of [ ]olamantos. Helmeted head of Athena right / The Palladion: Athena Ilias standing right, holding distaff and filleted spear; monogram to left; to right, Tyche(?) standing left, holding cornucopia; AΘHNAΣ IΛIAΔOΣ at sides, MHTPΩNAKTOΣ TOY/[...]OΛAMANT[OΣ] in two lines in exergue. Cf. Bellinger T98 (same obv. die, different magistrate and symbol), otherwise unpublished. VF, toned, a few marks. Apparently unique with this magistrate (not mentioned in Leschhorn).

Founded in the seventh century BC by Aeolians on the site of ancient Troy, Ilion prospered and ultimately developed into a successful Hellenistic and Roman city. It possessed a famous temple of Athena (‘Ilias’) which was visited by King Xerxes of Persia and later by Alexander the Great. The Romans always had a high regard for Ilion because of the legend of Aeneas and the tradition that Rome's founders were of Trojan origin. With the collapse of Seleukid authority in Asia Minor in 189 BC, Ilion, in common with many other communities of western Asia Minor, celebrated its liberation from regal authority by issuing large and impressive tetradrachms. These honor the goddess Athena Ilias, whose helmeted head appears as the obverse type, while the reverse features her standing figure, probably the statue which stood within the sanctuary. The names appearing on these issues are not technically magistrates, but influential citizens who financed the coinage from their own wealth in return for recognition on the coins (see Bellinger, "The First Civic Tetradrachms of Ilium" in ANSMN VIII [1958], pp. 23-24). The patronymic form used on this coinage has a parallel in the earlier stephanophoric coinage of Magnesia ad Maeandrum (see Jones).