Very Rare Early Olynthos Tetradrachm

CNG 99, Lot: 65. Estimate $5000. Sold for $4800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MACEDON, Olynthos. Circa 500-450 BC. AR Tetradrachm (23.5mm, 17.30 g, 1h). Charioteer, holding kentron in right hand and reins in left, driving slow quadriga right; large pellet above / Eagle flying left within incuse square at center of larger, diagonally divided, incuse square. AMNG III/2, p. 141, 43; SNG ANS 463; SNG Lockett 1377; Boston MFA 612; Kraay & Hirmer 396; Kunstfreund 34 = Jameson 955. VF, find patina, typical compact flan, a few light marks under tone on reverse. Very rare.

Olynthos was located on the Chalkidian Peninsula, atop two low hills that are on a broad fertile plain near the head of the Gulf of Torone. One of the hills had been settled during the Neolithic Period, but had been abandoned during the Bronze Age. In the 7th century BC, the area was resettled by an unknown population that was cast out by the Bottiaians, who captured the city sometime in the 6th century BC(?). According to Herodotos (7.122), the city supplied troops and ships to Xerxes in 480 BC, during the Greco-Persian Wars. In 479 BC, the Persians suspected Olynthos was planning to revolt, and they burned the city, killed its Bottiaian inhabitants, and turned its territory over to the Chalkidians. After the wars, Olynthos joined the Delian League, but later revolted against Athenian rule in 432 BC along with other cities in the Chalkidike. Thereafter, Olynthos joined with many other Chalkidian settlements to form the Chalkidian League, in which it became the leading member. Although the coinage of Olynthos is best known for its issues struck for the League, the city did issue a very brief coinage as an independent polis. This coinage consisted of two issues of silver, an earlier one of anepigraphic tetradrachms, and a later one of tetrobols. The tetradrachm issue is tentatively attributed to Olynthos based on metrologic and typologic details that suggest a mint in the Chalkidike (see Asuyt 212 note). The issue has been traditionally dated to circa 500-480 BC, primarily based on the appearance of a tetradrachm in the Asyut Hoard. However, it is more likely that these would have been struck after the city became inhabited by the Chalkidians in 479 BC, as the reverse type is thought to be a reference to Chalkis, which has this form of eagle as its civic badge. This reduction in date still comports with the Asyut Hoard, which is thought to have been deposited circa 475-470 BC.