Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 338. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $11000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MESSENIA, Messene. Circa 183-182 BC. AR Tetradrachm (16.66 gm, 4h). Sosikrates, magistrate. Wreathed head of Demeter right / MESSANIWN, Zeus Ithomatas striding right, brandishing thunderbolt in right hand, left arm outstretched over tall tripod; SWSIKRA between arm and tripod. Grandjean Series IX, 86 (D54/R71); BMC Peloponnesus pg. 110, 11 (same dies); SNG Copenhagen -; McClean 6712 (same obverse die). VF, attractively toned, light obverse die rust. Rare. ($10,000)

Ex Gorny & Mosch 107 (2 April 2001), lot 165; Charles Gillet Collection.

By 700 BC the Spartans had conquered Messenia and subjugated its population. Periodic revolts against Spartan rule enjoyed only limited success. Following the Boeotian victory over the Spartans at Leuktra in 371 BC, the Boeotian Confederacy determined to check Spartan power by establishing an independent and allied Messenian state in the Peloponnesos. Out of territory portioned off from the ancestral Messenian homeland, therefore, Epaminondas founded several cities; among these was Messene, re-founded in 369 BC to be the capital of this newly-constituted state. The heavily-fortified town was situated around the acropolis on Mt. Ithome, where temples to Demeter and Zeus were located. Its position and alliance, not only with Boeotia, but later the Arkadian League and the Macedonians, ensured the area's independence and a further erosion of Spartan influence.

Messene's entry into the pro-Macedonian Achaian League shortly before the First Macedonian War brought the city into contact and conflict with Rome. The arrangement between the Romans and the Achaian League in 196 BC was particularly precarious. Unhappy with the League's pro-Roman stance and its attempt to include Elis and Sparta among its members, in 183 BC Messene bolted. Attempting to recover the city, the League attacked, but the Messenians captured and killed its general, Philopoemon. For almost a year, Messene remained outside the League's power, until it was retaken by Philopoemon's successor, Lykortas, who put all of the town's leaders to death.

Based upon the style, fabric, and die axis, Grandjean dated this issue to the first half of the second century BC. The series was small and closely die-linked (three obverse and nine reverse dies), indicating a brief striking period. The types are localized (Demeter and Zeus had major shrines on Mt. Ithome), and unknown in other examples of League coinage. It is therefore highly probable that this coin was struck during the short-lived reassertion of Messene's independence from the Achaian League in 183-182 BC.