Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 34. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CALABRIA, Tarentum. Circa 334-331 BC. AV Sixth-Stater or Hekte (1.41 gm). Donative issue struck for Alexander the Molossian. [TAR]AS, laureate head of Apollo left; [SA] and dolphin before / Herakles fighting the Nemean lion; bow and quiver to left; Y-H below. Fischer-Bossert G14 (V11/R14); Vlasto 27 (same dies); SNG ANS 1034 (same dies). Good VF. ($2000)

Apollo was worshipped as the patron of colonists at Tarentum, and he was also the patron of the revered Pythagorean religious order at Tarentum which existed until the late fourth century. The reverse motif of Herakles fighting the Nemean lion was also used on contemporary silver diobols of Tarentum and its colony Herakleia, though the silver issues usually chose the "tondo" scene of a crouched Herakles wrestling the Nemean lion with a stranglehold (a design also used on the Syracusan gold 100 litrae issue of Dionysios I). When Alexander the Molossian tried to transfer the League of Italiote Greeks from Herakleia to the Lucanian city of Thourioi, the Tarentines broke off their alliance with Alexander, but other cities continued to support him in an effort to reduce Tarentine influence in southern Italy. It is possible that the reverse type of this coin refers to that dispute. This donative series, however, with its representations of deities with strong Tarentine ties and victory-related reverse types may have been a deliberate propaganda attempt to unite local sentiment against the Epeirote king.