Finest of a Handful Known

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 158. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $2200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of MACEDON. Alexander III ‘the Great’. 336-323 BC. AR Drachm (4.10 g, 6h). Marathos mint. Struck late 3rd century BC. Head of Athena right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet / ALEXANDR[OU], Nike standing left, holding wreath in extended right hand, stylis cradled in left arm; monogram to outer left. Price -; BMC Phoenicia p. xlii, A = Babelon, Perses 1439 = Rouvier 781 = De Luynes 3164; Houghton 940 (Alexander I Balas); Triton IX, 800 (all struck from the same dies). Near EF, lightly toned, two small nicks on helmet. Extremely rare, and probably the finest of the handful known.

This issue of Marathos imitates the types of the gold staters of Alexander III of Macedon, and is struck in his name. Until recently, only two were known, the de Luynes (in Paris) and the Houghton coins. Traditionally, following Rouvier, this issue has been placed at the beginning of the coinage at Marathos (Houghton's attribution to Alexander I Balas was in error). The recent discovery of this type among a group of coins of Seleukos II, though, suggests a later date, circa 220s BC. It is possible that these drachms may have served as the contemporary fractional coinage to the extremely rare tetradrachm issues of Marathos which date to this same period (cf. BMC p. 119, 1). The tetradrachms were struck with the city's ethnic, though, so there may be no association between the two denominations. The fact that these drachms are struck in the name of Alexander and employ his gold stater types may hold the key, but at present the circumstances of issue remain a mystery.