Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 289. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $180. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Hieropolis-Kastabala. Circa 2nd-1st century BC. Æ 22mm (9.17 gm). Draped, veiled, and turreted bust of Tyche right; monogram and O behind / IEROPOLITWN TWN PROS TW PURAMW, river-god Pyramos swimming left, holding eagle in right hand. SNG Levante -; SNG Levante Suppl. 371 (this coin); SNG France 228; BMC Lycaonia -; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG von Aulock -. Good VF, attractive dark green patina. ($200)

Ex Giessener Münzhandlung 44 (3 April 1989), lot 436.

SECTION INTRO

CNG is pleased to offer the second part of an extensive Collection of coins of Cilicia selected from among those examples described and illustrated in Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Switzerland I Levante-Cilicia and Supplement. SNG Levante is one of the most comprehensive catalogues of Cilician coins and has greatly advanced our understanding of the region's numismatic past.

Since early antiquity, the Taurus mountains have been a gateway linking East and West through the mountain passes. Cilicia and its component regions, Cilicia Tracheia, Cilicia Pedias, Isauria, and Lykaonia assimilated cultural influences from all the peoples who traveled those routes, either as peaceful traders or conquering armies. As a result, Cilician coinage displayed an extraordinary vitality, taking cultural references from the native people of Asia Minor, from the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Persians, transmuting them into a unique amalgam combining the history and mythology of many peoples, which then influenced the coinage of others.

An example of this effect is the Tarsos staters of Mazaios with seated Baaltars. Ba'al, the Syro-Phoenician High God, becomes Baaltars, the High God of Tarsos, seated on his throne bearing a sceptre and holding the produce of the land; altogether very Greek in appearance. This representation became the seated Zeus seen on the subsequent tetradrachms of Alexander the Great, who had defeated Mazaios and later appointed him satrap of Babylon. We can also see Cilician influence on many of the small silver coins struck by the Samarians.

In the later Roman period this cross-fertilization of cultures produced some of the most remarkable and complex scenes of mythology and propaganda presented on Provincial coinage. An array of deities and heros, founders, emperors and famous individuals are on display. Cult worship at important temples, games and festivals are all promoted through the medium of the coinage. Most remarkably, for all the extensive publication of the coinage of Cilicia, new types are still to be found and old types re-interpreted.