Splendid and Well Centered Metapontion Nomos
LUCANIA, Metapontion. Circa 340-330 BC. AR Nomos (20mm, 7.88 g, 3h). Head of Persephone right, wearing grain ear wreath, triple-pendant earring, and necklace; [ΔI to left] / Ear of barley with seven grains and leaf to right; META upward and ant to left; to right, above leaf, cornucopia surmounted by two ears of barley, ΦI below leaf. Johnston Class D, 4.11–2 (same obv. die); HN Italy 1577; SNG ANS 516 (same obv. die). Toned over lustrous surfaces, traces of find patina. EF.
Ex Leu 79 (31 October 2000), lot 277.
Metapontion, originally named Sybaris, was an Achaian colony of very early foundation, though the precise details of its origin are shrouded in uncertainty. Following the destruction of its first foundation by the Samnites, it was refounded as Metapontion, early in the 7th century BC by settlers under the leadership of Leukippos, who was thereafter revered as the city founder. The great prosperity of the city — attested by the extent of its archaic silver coinage commencing in the mid 6th century BC — was based on agriculture. Situated on the Gulf of Tarentum, Metapontion occupied a plain of extraordinary fertility watered by the rivers Bradanos and Kasuentos. Its standard coin type is an ear of barley, a tribute to the source of Metapontine wealth.
