A Butting Bull from Magna Graecia

[Ursus]

The coin

My first big purchase of 2024 is a lovely silver coin from Magna Graecia, showing all the artistic quality that classical pieces from this region are famous for. It has beautiful old cabinet toning that is a bit stronger on the obverse. Apparently, the coin was stored lying on the reverse for a long time. It is far from uncirculated: if I had to, I would grade it good fine. Nonetheless, it is an extremely attractive piece in hand:

Lucania, Thourioi, AR nomos, c. 400–350 BC. Obv: head of Athena r., wearing helmet decorated with Skylla holding oar (?) and pointing. Rev: ΘΟΥΡΙΩΝ; bull butting r.; in exergue, fish r. 21mm, 7.63g. Ref: HN Italy 1800; SNG ANS 1002–14. Ex Rhenumis 11, lot 10005; ex Fritz Taeger collection.

History and Iconography

The city of Thourioi (latinized: Thurium) was founded in 444 BC on the southern coast of Italy, close to or even at the site of the city of Sybaris, which had been destroyed in 510 BC following a lost war against the city of Kroton. Its early population consisted partly of former Sybarites, partly of recently arrived Athenian and Peloponnesian colonists.

These twofold roots are also visible in the iconography of Thourioi’s coins. Their obverse, on the one hand, shows Athena. This probably was a nod to the part of the population that had Athenian roots. The development of the Athena’s crest, which initially consisted of an olive wreath, deserves special attention. Towards the end of the 5th century BC, the wreath was replaced by a Scylla, a sea monster with a female upper body.

The continuity with Sybaris, on the other hand, is illustrated by the reverse of Thourioi’s coins. Here, we see the bull that already had been the emblem of Sybaris. It is not clear whether this animal must be read as an agricultural reference or as the depiction of a river god. The standing or walking bull on the early coins of Thourioi changed into the butting animal visible on my coin around 400 BC. This change might be a visual pun on the city’s name, which is related to the Greek adjective “thouros” (θοῦρος) that translates as “impetuous”, “rushing”, or “warlike”.

In Roman times, the city changed its name into Copia. In the Middle Ages, it was abandoned. Today, its ruins can be visited in the Sybaris Archaeological Park (picture from Wikipedia):

 

Provenance

My coin comes from the collection of the classicist Fritz Taeger (1894–1960) that contained over 1.400 pieces. The collection was sold as a whole in Rhenumis 11 in November 2013, my coin being lot 10005. Many of Taeger’s coins were grouped together in large lots and are currently offered by different dealers who appear to have acquired the respective lots. I bought this coin as well as two others (see here) from one of them.

Fritz Taeger was a pupil of the German historian Wilhelm Weber. He served in the First World War and got his PhD from Tübingen in 1920 with a thesis on the influence of Polybius on later classical writers. In 1926, he acquired the venia legendi from Freiburg with a second book on Thucydides. In 1930, Taeger became professor for classical history in Gießen but changed to a more prestigious chair in Marburg in 1935. Already in the Weimar Republic, Taeger sided with the political right. After 1933, he was quick to join different Nazi organizations and carved out a career for himself as an academic supporter of Hitler’s regime. After the Second World War, Taeger was nonetheless allowed to continue teaching. He resumed his old position at Marburg in 1948. The fact that Taeger published a rather celebrative study of ruler cults in Greek and Roman antiquity as late as 1957 makes me doubt that his political convictions had changed much.

I have mixed feelings about this provenance. On the one hand, Taeger is not a figure for whom I can muster much sympathy. On the other hand, he had good taste in coins and his collection was built before 1970, when the UNESCO treaty on the Ownership of Cultural Property was adopted. I guess I don’t have to tell anybody that the latter point is becoming more and more important.

Feel free to post your bulls and other Greek coins from Italy!

Edited January 27 by Ursus

[Curtis JJ]

Interesting coin and provenance! Quite appropriate today: this is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I was thinking of posting some materials later [EDIT: I just did]. WWII and the Holocaust left a major impact on the ancient coin world. Often in the Jewish dealers, scholars, and collectors who either fled the Nazis, or in some cases, were taken prisoner and even executed (e.g., Felix Schlessinger, the famous Berlin dealer). It's less frequent that we see the provenances illustrating those who were active in the Nazi regime, but important to document and remember nonetheless.

Of course, a great many coins and Jewish numismatic businesses were seized (e.g., Schlessinger's and Otto Helbing which became Karl Kress under the Nazi regime).

Many of the coins (and old numismatic books) are no doubt still floating around with provenances lost, but unfortunately there's very little documentation of the individual coins that were looted by the Nazis. (I've tried checking many times to see if I can find identifiable specimens, and continue to do so, but they usually aren't recorded in enough detail to match to single specimens.)

Here is a butting bull from Sicily, Syracuse under Hieron II.

It was in the Elvira Clain-Stefanelli (1914-2001) Collection. She and her husband, Vladimir Clain-Stefanelli (1914-1982) -- both of them important numismatic scholars and longtime curators/directors of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC) -- were imprisoned at Buchenwald Concentration Camp for about 1.5 years. (Not for being Jewish, but because Victor's passport was used by someone to flee Germany, making him some kind of "state enemy." They were Romanians and had been working in Germany in the early 1940s. After the war they came to the United States.)

Sicily, Syracuse AE Hemilitron (17mm, 3.98 g, 8h), temp. Hieron II, c. 275-215 BCE.
Obv: Wreathed head of Kore left.
Rev: Bull butting left; club over N above, IE below.
Ref: CNS 199; BAR Issue 59; HGC 2, 1497.
Prov: Ex Clain-Stefanelli Coll.

Edited January 27 by Curtis JJ

[kirispupis]

Beautiful coin and nice writeup!

I don't have many coins from Greek Italy, but I do have a few butting bulls.

Pisidia. Termessos Major
circa 71-36 BCE
Æ 15 mm, 2,34 g
Laureate head of Zeus right.
Rev: TEP Bull butting left
unpublished(?)

 

Ionia, Phygela
Circa 350-300 BCE
Æ 2.86g, 15mm, 12h
Sokrates, magistrate. Head of Artemis Munychia facing slightly to left
Bull butting to left against palm tree; ΦΥΓ above, ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ below.
SNG von Aulock 2150; SNG Copenhagen 1074; BMC 4-8. 

 

Phliasia, Phlious
Circa 400-350 BCE
AE 14.09mm 1.25g
Obverse: Bull butting left
Reverse: Large Φ surrounded by four pellets
BCD Peloponnesos 107
Ex BCD Collection
Ex 1985 Frank Kovacs

 

Thrace, Madytos
Circa 350 BCE
AE 8.57g, 19mm, 11h
Bull butting to left; fish above
ΜΑΔY, dog seated to right; grain ear to left
SNG Copenhagen 923-924 var. (grapes above bull); CN Type 8144; HGC 3.2, 1507

 

Thessaly, Pherai
Alexander (Tyrant, 369-359 BCE
 Æ Chalkous 13mm, 2.43g, 12h
Forepart of bull butting r.
R/ Forepart of horse r.
BCD Thessaly II 708.2; HGC 4, 584

 

Caria, Kaunos
c. 350-300 BCE
Æ 13mm, 1.66g, 12h
Bull butting r.
R/ Sphinx seated r.
Konuk pl. 50, B; SNG Copenhagen 182

 

Macedon, Aineia
Late 4th century BCE
Æ 16mm, 3.66 g, 9h
Head of Aeneas right, wearing Phrygian cap /
Bull butting right.
AMNG III/2, 8; HGC 3, 379
Ex G. Hirsch 296

 

Krannon, Thessaly
ca. 300 BCE
Ae Chalkous 14.3mm, 2.2gms
Obv: Rider wearing petasos on horseback left, L E below left
Rev: Bull butting right, trident above; KPAN in exergue
Ex-BCD Collection

 

Nikaia, Bithynia
300-100 BCE
AE 12mm 1,8g
Obv: Head of Dionysos with crown of ivy
Rev: bull butting. NIKAIEΩN above. Monogram(s)(?) below, mostly off flan
Waddington: Nikaia 1 var

 

Ionia. Magnesia ad Maeander circa 350-200 BC.
Æ 15 mm, 3,42 g
Warrior, holding couched lance, on horse rearing right /
Bull butting left; Aristeos son of --- in two lines in exergue; all within circular maeander pattern.
Newell, Five, p. 44, 12; SNG Copenhagen 826-40 var. (magistrate)

[Deinomenid]

Here's  one from the start of Thurium's coinage once it had removed the more straightforward  links with Sybaris. The dating is helped by the letter series "on a few issues belonging to a single well-defined group-namely those issues on which Athena wears a wreath round her helmet, and on which the letters A, B, Γ, E, or I are found either before Athena's brow or in the field of the reverse."

Wreath and  letter below on a  ~442BC didrachm.

 

Just re Sybaris,  it's hard too grasp  how huge and powerful it was in its prime,  beyond  words like sybaritic. Finlay noted that Syracuse was vast compared with Athens, but that it itself was dwarfed by Sybaris. "The present province of Cosenza, whose boundaries nearly coincide with those inferred for the Sybarite empire, has an area of c. 2,500 sq. miles.; compare Syracuse at the end of the sixth century, including Kamarina, C. 1,500 sq. miles.).

Also, just in case, there are forgers' dies of  Thurium  doing the rounds. They were apparently recently sold  by a central European auction house.

 

 

Edited January 27 by Deinomenid
spacing

[Curtisimo]

Great coin @Ursus. I bought several coins from the Taeger collection and I was happy with the quality of all of them. Below is one that made my Top 10 last year.

SICILY, Syracuse
Second Democracy, 466-406 B.C. 
AR Tetradrachm, struck ca. 460-440 BC
(25 mm, 17.08 g)
Obv.: Charioteer driving slow quadriga right, Nike above flying right, crowning horses, Pistrix (Sea serpent or ketos) in exergue
Rev.: Head of Arethusa facing right, ethnic before, four dolphins around. Minor smoothing present, though a lovely head of Arethusa with each strand of hair visible.
Ref.: Boehringer-546 (Obv. 276, Rev. 378); cf.SNG ANS-177.
Ex collection of German historian Fritz Taeger (1894-1960†), Rhenumis Auktion 11, lot 10015

[antwerpen2306]

beautiful coin, mine is not so beautiful

SNG ANS 906 , BMCItaly,7., 20 mm , 7,9 gr , as 7 uur, circa 420 – 400

[Phil Anthos]

3 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

Here's  one from the start of Thurium's coinage once it had removed the more straightforward  links with Sybaris. The dating is helped by the letter series "on a few issues belonging to a single well-defined group-namely those issues on which Athena wears a wreath round her helmet, and on which the letters A, B, Γ, E, or I are found either before Athena's brow or in the field of the reverse."

Wreath and  letter below on a  ~442BC didrachm.

 

Just re Sybaris,  it's hard too grasp  how huge and powerful it was in its prime,  beyond  words like sybaritic. Finlay noted that Syracuse was vast compared with Athens, but that it itself was dwarfed by Sybaris. "The present province of Cosenza, whose boundaries nearly coincide with those inferred for the Sybarite empire, has an area of c. 2,500 sq. miles.; compare Syracuse at the end of the sixth century, including Kamarina, C. 1,500 sq. miles.).

Also, just in case, there are forgers' dies of  Thurium  doing the rounds. They were apparently recently sold  by a central European auction house.

 

The beaded exergual line is interesting and not as nearly common as the solid line types.

Here's the 4th ancient coin I ever bought, back in 1988...

~ Peter 

[Ursus]

On 1/27/2024 at 6:47 PM, Curtis JJ said:

It's less frequent that we see the provenances illustrating those who were active in the Nazi regime, but important to document and remember nonetheless.

I think so, too, although I tend to be somewhat reluctant when it comes to adding coins with such provenances to my collection. Partly because I don't like their previous owners, partly because I don't want to buy what possibly has been Nazi plunder with all the legal and moral baggage attached to that.

Nonetheless, I own, for example, several coins from the Hildebrecht Hommel (1899–1996) collection. Hommel was another German classicist who, although to a somewhat lesser extent than Taeger, furthered his academic career by offering his services as a professorial mouthpiece to the Nazi regime.

This coin, on the other hand, was sold by Karl Kreß in 1942. Kreß had taken over the firm Helbing Nf. after the Jewish Hirsch family had been forced out of business by the Nazis. I did some research on Kreß a while ago and posted it elsewhere:

Gordian III, Roman Empire, antoninianus, 238–239 AD, Rome mint. Obv: IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AVG; bust of Gordian III, radiate and draped, r. Rev: VIRTVS AVG; Virtus standing l., leaning on shield and holding spear. 22mm, 5.00g. Ref: RIC IV Gordian III 6. Ex Otto Helbing Nachf., München, Auction 86 (11/15/1942), lot 1757; ex AMCC 2, lot 464.

Here are the old ticket and catalogue listing. I believe @Curtisimo owns a couple of coins from the same auction, which apparently was mostly a sale of stock that Kreß had taken over from the Hirsch family:

 

On 1/27/2024 at 7:11 PM, kirispupis said:

I don't have many coins from Greek Italy, but I do have a few butting bulls.

A nice herd you have there!

On 1/27/2024 at 7:21 PM, Deinomenid said:

Here's  one from the start of Thurium's coinage once it had removed the more straightforward  links with Sybaris.

Also, this coin still has the olive leaves on Athena's helmet and thus is closer to the representation of the goddess on Athenian tetradrachms. There is a theory that replacing the olive leaves with a Scylla represents the city somewhat distancing itself from Athens.

On 1/27/2024 at 10:49 PM, Phil Anthos said:

Here's the 4th ancient coin I ever bought, back in 1988...

That's a phenomenal fish on your example, Peter. Much more naturalistic than mine. I wonder whether somebody more knowledgeable could discern what species is depicted.

On 1/27/2024 at 8:17 PM, Curtisimo said:

I bought several coins from the Taeger collection and I was happy with the quality of all of them. Below is one that made my Top 10 last year.

I should have guessed that you didn't miss that auction, Curtis. Regardless of everything else, Taeger had a good eye for coins. Judging from the catalogue, he didn't just collect coins by grade but carefully looked for examples that show good style, are well-centered, and look pretty overall. Your coin is a good example.

Edited February 2 by Ursus

[Deinomenid]

2 hours ago, Ursus said:

I wonder whether somebody more knowledgeable could discern what species is depicted.

Not me, but Colin Kraay  in  "Archaic Greek Coinage" seems to  take it for  granted that it is a mullet - "In this aspect the bull may represent the spring Thuria from which the city took its name, for θουριος means rushing'; the mullet which nearly always appears in the exergue below the feet of the bull also suggests an aquatic connection..." and I've seen others say yes  it makes sense as a brackish, delicious fish (!).