Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 40. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $7000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CALABRIA, Tarentum. Circa 280 or 276/5 BC. AV Stater (8.59 gm). Attic standard. Struck during the hegemony of Pyrrhos of Epeiros. Laureate head of Zeus right; NK monogram behind / TARANTINWN , eagle standing left, wings open, on thunderbolt; AP monogram before, SWSI above left wing of eagle. Fischer-Bossert G38 (V34/R38); Vlasto 36 (same dies); SNG ANS -; Gulbenkian 44 (same dies). Good VF, exceptional large flan with all design elements showing. Very rare. (See color enlargement on plate 1.) ($7500)

The prestigious gold series issued by Pyrrhos (Vlasto 28-61) may well have been struck at the time of his invasion of Italy in 280 with 25,000 men and twenty elephants to assist Tarentum in their struggle against Rome. He defeated the Romans at Heraklea and marched close to Rome, but failed to impose peace. In 279 he won another "Pyrrhic" victory against Rome at Asculum, abandoned the Tarentines, and transferred his forces to Sicily, where he was responsible for another prestigious and highly original coinage at the mint of Syracuse (SNG ANS 826-861). In Sicily he met the Carthaginians, at that time allies of Rome, and almost expelled them from the island, but broke off the war and returned to Italy in 276, another possible occasion for his Tarentine gold. After the inconclusive battle against the Romans at Maleventum (soon to be called Beneventum) in 275, he returned to Epiros.