Achaiion, not Achilleion

448, Lot: 120. Estimate $100. Sold for $160. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TROAS, Achaiion. Late 4th-early 3rd centuries BC. Æ (9mm, 1.10 g, 12h). Crested helmet left / Civic monogram. Ellis-Evans, Coinage, Issue 1; SNG Ashmolean –; SNG Copenhagen 64 (Achilleion). Earthen dark green patina. VF.

See A. Ellis-Evans, “The Coinage and History of Achaiion in the Troad” in REA 119 (2017), for a comprehensive reassessment of the attribution of this coin, which had previously been attributed to Achilleion. Ellis-Evans’s multidisciplinary approach, strongly supported by recent archaeological evidence, persuasively argues that Herodotos’ identification of Achilleion as a polis was incorrectly interpreted by later authors; in fact, the site was little more than a fort used by Mytilene to challenge the Athenians at Sigeion, and was only occupied periodically. Also, in contrast to earlier scholars’ views that Achaiion was under constant domination by Tenedos, thus preventing an issue of coinage by the city, Ellis-Evans shows that the history of Achaiion mirrors that of other settlements in the Troad that were able to produce coinage on occasions when the power of Tenedos was diminished when it was challenged by its rivals in the region.