Ex Durulfé and Montagu Collections

CNG 112, Lot: 223. Estimate $2500. Sold for $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PAPHLAGONIA, Amastris. Circa 285-250 BC. AR Stater (22mm, 9.23 g, 1h). Head of Mên right, wearing Phrygian cap decorated with laurel branch and star / Aphrodite seated left, holding in extended right hand Nike, who crowns her with wreath, and cradling lotus-tipped scepter in left arm; rose to left. Callataÿ, Premier, Group 2, 28f (D14/R8 – this coin); RG 5; HGC 7, 356; SNG Dewing 2124 (same dies); SNG Copenhagen 422 (same obv. die). Old cabinet tone, slight granularity, minor scratch under tone on reverse. VF. Well centered.

From the Ancient Miniature Art Collection. Ex Peus 371 (24 April 2002), lot 139; Peus 368 (25 April 2001), lot 169; Gustave Durulfé Collection (Rollin et Feuardent, 9 May 1910), lot 487; Hyman Montagu Collection (Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 23 March 1890), lot 476.

There is speculation that the obverse of this coin actually depicts Amastris, a niece of Darios III of Persia, who became a pawn in the complex dynastic quarrels that followed the death of Alexander. She had been given as wife to Alexander's general Krateros, but was dismissed when Krateros arranged a marriage for himself with the daughter of Antipater. Amastris then married Dionysos, tyrant of Herakleia, by whom she had three children before his death in 306 BC. In 302 BC, she married Lysimachos of Thrace, who soon acquired a more profitable alliance by wedding Arsinoë, the daughter of Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. Amastris then retired to the territory of Herakleia, where she founded a new city named after herself. She was not destined to find peace, however; in 288 BC her two covetous sons had her drowned and seized her city for themselves.