Archepolis, Son of Themistokles

CNG 99, Lot: 216. Estimate $1000. Sold for $2100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Magnesia ad Maeandrum. Archepolis. Circa 459 BC. AR Tetartemorion (6mm, 0.20 g, 6h). Diademed head right / Eagle flying right; monogram below; all within linear square border. CNG E-334, lot 85; CNG E-315, lot 81; CNG E-307, lot 55; CNG E-291, lot 95; Lanz 144, 240; Gorny & Mosch 160, lot 1519. Good VF, toned. Exceptional for issue and likely the finest known specimen of this rare series.

Ex Gorny & Mosch 199 (10 October 2011), lot 433.

Archepolis was the son of the Athenian Themistokles, who was perhaps the most important, and certainly one of the most powerful, political figures in early fifth century Athens. He persuaded the Athenians to use the newly found wealth from the silver mines of Laurion to build a navy, essential to their defeat of the Persians a short time later. Sometime in the early 460s BC, Themistokles was ostracized. He fled to Asia Minor, where he was well received by the Persian king, who made him the governor of Magnesia on the Maeander and granted him the income of three cities – Lampsakos, Magnesia, and Myos. Themistokles struck a small series of silver fractions at Magnesia, some of which bear a male head that has sometimes been identified as his portrait. After Themistokles’ death, Archepolis succeeded his father as governor, and he issued a similar series of silver fractions. These coins are part of the primary evidence of his otherwise little-known reign.