Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 218. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACO-MACEDONIAN TRIBES, The Bisaltai. 475-465 BC. AR Oktadrachm (28.65 gm). C-IS-A-L-T-I-K-WN, horseman, wearing chlamys and petasos, and holding two spears, leading horse right; EM monogram on horse's rump / Quadripartite incuse square. AMNG III 3; Raymond pl. II, 2; HPM pl. XI, 4; Traité pl. XLV, 2 var. (legend orientation); SNG ANS -; Gulbenkian 434 (same dies). Good VF, minor die rust. Good metal for issue. ($7500)

From the William and Louise Fielder Collection.

The Bisaltai were a tribe of Pelasgian or Thracian origin and occupied the territory between the rivers Echedoros and Strymon, including the metalliferous mountains which separate the territory of the Bisaltai from the territory of the Krestonioi and Mygonia on the west (Herodotos 7, 115). At the time of the invasion of Xerxes in 480 BC the Bisaltai were governed by a Thracian ruler who was independent of Macedonian influence, and refused to assist the Great King of Persia when his army crossed Thrace to invade mainland Greece. At some point after the Persian retreat, Alexander I of Macedon, who was in the service of Persians as early as 492 BC, annexed the territory as far as the Strymon valley. Capturing its rich silver-mines, he issued the first regal Macedonian coinage, which is indistinguishable from the Bisaltian but for the placing of his own name. The absence of Bisaltai oktadrachms in the Asyut hoard led Price and Waggoner to suggest a mintage date of circa 475-465 BC. This coinage was terminated after the disaster at Drabeskos in 465/4 BC, in which the Athenian colonists of Ennea Hodoi (later Amphipolis) were exterminated by the native Thracians.