Elegant and Artistic Bisaltai Oktadrachm

CNG 109, Lot: 75. Estimate $30000. Sold for $27500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, Bisaltai. Circa 475-465 BC. AR Oktadrachm (31mm, 27.91 g). Horse walking right, bridle held by nude warrior in background, walking right, wearing petasos and holding two spears, CIΣ-AL-TI-K-ΩИ around / Quadripartite incuse square. Peykov A3060 (second illustration); Topalov 33; HPM pl. XI, 6 var. (distribution of ethnic); AMNG III/2, 4 var. (same); HGC 3, 274. Near EF, toned, very minor porosity. Excellent detail for issue. Rare, and unusually artistic rendering of the horse, with its head raised rather than canted downward.

Ex UBS 72 (5 September 2007), lot 203; Triton X (9 January 2007), lot 126; Triton I (2 December 1997), lot 447.

The Bisaltai were a tribe of Pelasgian or Thracian origin and occupied the territory between the rivers Echedoros and Strymon, including the metalliferous mountains, which separate the territory of the Bisaltai from the territory of the Krestonioi and Mygonia on the west (Herodotos 7, 115). At the time of the invasion of Xerxes in 480 BC, the Bisaltai were governed by a Thracian ruler who was independent of Macedonian influence, and refused to assist the Great King of Persia when his army crossed Thrace to invade mainland Greece. At some point after the Persian retreat, Alexander I of Macedon, who was in the service of Persians as early as 492 BC, annexed the territory as far as the Strymon valley. Capturing its rich silver mines, he issued the first regal Macedonian coinage, which is indistinguishable from the Bisaltian but for the placing of his own name. The absence of Bisaltai oktadrachms in the Asyut hoard led Price and Waggoner to suggest a mintage date of circa 475-465 BC. This coinage was terminated about the same time as the disaster at Drabeskos in 465/4 BC, in which the Athenian colonists of Ennea Hodoi (later Amphipolis) were exterminated by the native Thracians, though it is unknown whether this coinage is directly related to the Bisaltai’s involvement in this conflict.