Pedigreed to 1882
Ex Godefroy and Bompois Collections

Triton XIX, Lot: 74. Estimate $10000. Sold for $10000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Ainos. Circa 457/6-456/5 BC. AR Tetradrachm (24mm, 16.34 g, 9h). Head of Hermes right, wearing petasos with pelleted rim / Goat standing right; AINI above; to right, ivy leaf within crescent facing right; all within incuse square. May, Ainos 52a (A30/P42) = AMNG II 272.9 (this coin); Boston MFA 774 = Warren 460 (same obv. die); Pozzi 1016 (same obv. die); Traité IV 1498, pl. 344, 8 (same obv. die). EF, deeply toned, a few metal flaws.

From the Friend of a Scholar Collection, purchased from Antika (Lyon), June 1987. Ex Schweizerische Kreditanstalt 4 (3 December 1985), lot 89; Colonel V. Godefroy Collection (cited in May); Platt (3 April 1933), lot 89; Ferdinand Bompois Collection (Hoffman, 16 January 1882), lot 573.

Ainos came rather late to currency production, striking its first tetradrachms only after the expulsion of the Persians from northern Greece following Xerxes’ defeat at Salamis. Its first period ended with the Athenian coinage decree of 449 BC, but the mint was in operation again by circa 435 BC, tapering off rapidly until disappearing with the conquest of the city by Philip of Macedon in 342 BC. Its uniform types throughout its history were Hermes and the goat, the latter the symbol of the pasture land that provided what prosperity Ainos had. Hermes was the patron deity of Ainos, dating from the time of the Trojan War. According to a poem by Kallimachos, the sculptor Epeios, who constructed the Trojan Horse, also made a wooden statue (ξοανον) of Hermes, which was washed out to sea and recovered by fishermen by the Hebros river. The fishermen, thinking it just a piece of driftwood, tried to burn it in their bonfire. When it failed to burn they took fright and threw it back into the sea, which promptly cast it back again. The natives accepted it as a relic of the gods, and erected the sanctuary of Hermes Perpheraios (the Wanderer) at the future site of Ainos. The later coins of Ainos showcase some of the finest numismatic art of the Greek world. Nevertheless, Ainos never became an important city or trading center. The climate might have had something to do with it; according to Athaneus, Ainos had two seasons, eight months of cold and four months of winter. At least the goats liked it.