Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 37. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $2200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

BRUTTIUM, Rhegion. Circa 445-435 BC. AR Tetradrachm (17.25 gm). Facing lion's head / RECI-N-OS, Iocastos seated left holding staff in right hand, left hand resting on hip; all within laurel wreath. Herzfelder 30 (D18/R26); SNG ANS 635; SNG Lloyd 676; SNG Copenhagen 1928; McClean 1861 (same dies); HN Italy 2483. Good VF. ($3000)

The seated figure on the reverse of the early coins of Rhegion is shown either as a muscular young man or a mature bearded figure. He holds a staff and either a phiale or kantharos. Adjunct symbols are the dog, serpent, duck, crow, and grapes. He was first identified as Iokastos, the oikistes (founder) of Rhegion, by J.P. Six in NumChron (1898), pp. 281-285. Prior to that, the most popular candidate was Aristaeos or Agreus, son of Apollo and Kyrene (cf. Head, HN). Iokastos was one of six sons of Aiolos, ruler of the Aeolian islands, all of whom secured their own realms in Italy and Sicily. Iokastos held the region around Rhegion and died of a snakebite. Aristaeos, born in Libya, discovered the silphium plant, and was the patron of beekeepers (mentioned by Virgil), shepards, vintners and olive growers. He also protected Dionysos as a child, and was the lover of Eurydice, who died of a snakebite. While Iokastos has direct connections with Rhegion, the subsidiary imagery of youth and old age, kantharos, grapes, dog, and crow all point to a Dionysiac figure. The serpent seems to play a role in both legends. The direct and indirect connections between Aristaeos and Dionysos-Bacchus possibly indicate the existance of a cult of Aristaeos at Rhegion. Note also the prominence of Apollo, father of Aristaeos, on later coins of Rhegion.