Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 293. Estimate $15000.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $10000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BITHYNIA, Tium. 2nd century AD. Group of official lead weights representing 10, 5, two 2 and 1/2 minae. The weights are all in the form of medallions with thick rims and pierced suspension lugs. Includes the following:10 minae. Lead 21 x 12 cm. (4885 gm). IOVLHC DEMOV TIANWN AGAQH TVXH (Iulius or the Iiulii [wish] the city [or people] of Tium Good Fortune) within rim and around facing bust of Dionysus surrounded by vine tendrils; on lug, N over M / …..APEIANOC ……. TATHCE…..C….. O… on inner rim around facing bust of Zeus wearing himation / traces of inscription on outer rim edge / four round countermarks at end of pierced lug handle.5 minae. Lead 16.5 x 9.5 cm. (2710 gm). Illegible inscription within rim and around facing bust of Dionysus wearing himation / Illegible inscription within rim and around facing bust of Hermes with caduceus on right shoulder. Pierced lug handle.2 minae. Lead 12 x 8 cm. (1197 gm). Illegible inscription within rim around facing bust of Zeus wearing himation; sceptre to left / ….TVXH….. within rim and around facing bust of Hermes with caduceus on right shoulder / PITA…. on outer rim edge / two round countermarks at end of pierced lug handle.2 minae. Lead 12 x 7.5 cm. (1142 gm). Large bellied vessel before agonistic table, on which are two other vessels / Bearded head of Silenus facing, surrounded by five stylized prize wreaths. Pierced lug handle.1/2 mina. Lead 8 x 4.5 cm. (240 gm). …. TVXE……O…. within rim around sacrificial axe or pelekys (?) / Illegible inscription within rim around uncertain object. Pierced lug handle.For a comprehensive catalogue of Greek weights and weight standards see J. Forien de Rochesnard, Album des poid antique, Tome 2, La Greece antique; for general reading, B. Kisch, Scales and Weights, Yale 1966 pp. 147-150 and 219 and O. Dilke, Mathematics and Measurement, Calculations for trade and Commerce, British Museum Press, pp. 46-48. Generally well preserved and of considerable metrological and historical interest. Five (5) items in lot. ($15,000)

Greek weights for assessing value of precious metals are directly derived from the weights and weight standards of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, which had evolved from the 3rd millennium BC. By the 7th century BC a weight system had evolved in Greece where the talent = 60 minae; the minae = 50 staters; the stater = 2 drachmae; the drachmae = 6 obols, the basis upon which coins were later struck in electrum, gold, and silver on various weight standards. The mina from the Babylonian manah (mna in Greek and mina in Latin) could vary in weight from about 436 grams in the Attic-Euboic, or Solonian, weight standard, to about 630 grams in the Aeginetan, or Pheidonian, weight standard.Weights, like coins, were sacred instruments often decorated with depictions of gods and holy symbols, and are known to have been kept in temples were they served for weighing precious donations of pious visitors. Weights were also used in the market place and guaranteed by officials such as the agoranomos or metronomon, but from the Greek weights extant it is evident that there were a myriad of unreliable weight standards far removed from the uniform standard imposed by Rome in the late 3rd century AD. Bithynia became a Roman province in 74 BC, when King Nicomedes III died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. The limits of Bithynia were frequently varied, and it was commonly united for administrative purposes with the province of Pontus. This was the state of things in the time of Trajan, when the younger Pliny was appointed governor of the combined provinces (AD 103—105), a circumstance to which we are indebted for valuable information concerning the Roman provincial administration. By the 2nd century AD Tium was only a small town, but remembered as the birthplace of Philetaerus, the founder of the royal dynasty of Pergamum (Strabo xii, 542, 543 and 565). Tium was a typical provincial Greek city that benefited from being part of the Roman empire which Greeks like Strabo and Poseidonius profoundly admired as an earthly world-state comparable with a heavenly one, where local customs and languages were respected, including, obviously, weight standards and coins. The ruins of ancient Tius, Tium, Tios, or Tion are to be found on the Bithynian coast of the Euxine at the mouth of the Billaeus (Filiyas) River about 50 Km. north-east of Heraclea Pontica.