Sale: CNG 67, Lot: 266. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 22 September 2004.  Sold For $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SICILY, Thermai (Himera). After 241 BC. Æ 26mm (7.86 gm). Turreted and veiled head of Tyche right; cornucopiae behind / The poet Tisias (Stesichoros) standing right, leaning on staff, reading book. Calciati I pg. 120, 18; SNG ANS -; SNG Morcom -. Near VF, dark green patina, some smoothing. Very rare. ($1000)

From the Tony Hardy Collection.

Among the men of Zankle (Messana) who, together with exiles of Syracuse, founded Himera in 648 BC, was the father of the poet Tisias, better known as Stesichoros ('choir leader', or 'choral master'). Tisias lived in Himera and there wrote most or all of his 26 books of lyric poetry. When the Carthaginians destroyed Himera in 409 BC, most of the survivors settled seven miles away at the Carthaginian-founded city of Thermai, so named for its hot baths. This coin shows a statue of Tisias leaning on a staff and reading from a book of his works. Though the residents of Thermai were distant both in time and location from the founders of Himera, they were proud of Tisias. Along with the Syracusan tyrant Agathokles (born at Thermai in circa 361), Tisias was their most famous citizen.