Triton XVIII, Lot: 13. Estimate $2000. Sold for $2500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PAPHLAGONIA, Amastris. Circa 285-250 BC. AR Stater (20mm, 9.64 g, 12h). Head of Mên right, wearing Phrygian cap decorated with laurel branch and star / Aphrodite seated left, holding in extended right hand Nike, who crowns her with wreath held in both hands, and cradling lotus-tipped scepter in left arm; rose to left, AMAΣTPEIΩN to right. Callataÿ, Premier 37 (D16/R15); RG 5; HGC 7, 356; SNG BM Black Sea 1304 (same dies); Boston MFA 1361 (same dies); Sunrise 148 (this coin). Good VF, attractively toned.

From the Sunrise Collection. Ex Halliwell Collection (Baldwin’s 68, 28 September 2010), lot 3414.

There is speculation that the obverse of this coin actually depicts Amastris, a niece of Darios III of Persia, who became a pawn in the complex dynastic quarrels that followed the death of Alexander. She had been given as wife to Alexander's general Krateros, but was dismissed when Krateros arranged a marriage for himself with the daughter of Antipater. Amastris then married Dionysos, tyrant of Herakleia, by whom she had three children before his death in 306 BC. In 302 BC, she married Lysimachos of Thrace, who soon acquired a more profitable alliance by wedding Arsinoë, the daughter of Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Amastris then retired to the territory of Herakleia, where she founded a new city named after herself. She was not destined to find peace, however; in 288 BC her two covetous sons had her drowned and seized her city for themselves.