THIS IS (a coin from) SPARTA! The most beautiful Greeks made some ugly coins

[Ryro]

I've been hunting a Spartan coin for a few years. But for how ugly they are I just hadn't been willing to bid as high as others. For whatever reason this beauty caught my eye and I nabbed it up at today's Leu auction:

LAKONIA. Lakedaimon (Sparta). Circa 35-31 BC. Dupondius (Bronze, 25 mm, 5.68 g, 10 h), Timandros, ephor. [E TIMA]NΔPOC Laureate head of Apollo to right. Rev. Λ-A Artemis standing front, head to left, holding patera in her right hand and spear in her left; at feet to left, hunting dog standing left; in field to right, monogram; all within wreath. BCD Peloponnesos 912-913. Grunauer XIX, Series 2. Rare. Very fine.

From an American collection and previously from an Australian collection, Leu Web Auction 10, 7-8 December 2019, 292.

As you may know, my coin isn't from Sparta's peak, cause Sparta didn't mint coins at their peak! Sparta deliberately used iron currency to make amassing wealth unwieldy, and remained on an iron currency standard all through Greece's golden age.

So, if you want Spartan currency from their heyday you might be a bit disappointed:

(Spartan $)

And here is one of my Spartan medals from a few years back:

So please share your Spartan coins, wins from Leu, thoughts or whatever dominate Athens!

[expat]

Congrats on your new acquisition. Lovely portrait and depiction on the reverse.

[Roman Collector]

That's pretty cool, @Ryro I have nothing from the area to show, but here's a coin I won from Leu in 2020 depicting something dominating Athens!

Crispina, AD 178-182.
Roman provincial Æ assarion, 4.48 g, 19 mm, 6 h)
Thrace, Philippopolis, AD 180-182.
Obv: ΚΡΙϹΠЄΙΝΑ ϹЄΒΑϹΤΗ, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΠΟΛΕ[ΙTΩN], Athena standing facing, head left, holding patera over altar in her right hand and spear in her left; to right, shield.
Refs: RPC IV.1 7627 (temporary); Varbanov 1132; Moushmov 5232; Mionnet --; BMC --; Wiczay --.

 

[Sulla80]

Congrats on your Spartan coin @Ryro! Here is the closest I can get to Sparta : a coin from Mantineia where the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian War was fought. Sparta and its allies defeated an army here led by Argos and Athens 418 BCE (more that 230 years before this coin was issued).

Achaia. Antigoneia (Mantinea). Achaian League circa 188-180 BC. Triobol-Hemidrachm AR
Laureate head of Zeus right / League monogram, A-N across field, monogram below, all within wreath.

Edited February 25 by Sulla80

[AncientOne]

Nice one Ryro!  Hard to find that one in a better condition.

 

Achaea. Laconia, Lacedaemon(Sparta). Claudius Æ25. Piloi of the Dioscuri.

Obv: TI KLAVDIOC KAICAP; laureate bust right.
Rev: EΠI ΛAKΩNOΣ; piloi of the Dioscuri; two stars above.
Magistrate Lacon
RPC 1115 var.

 

Achaea. Laconia, Lacedaemon(Sparta). Marcus Aurelius Æ20

Obv: ΙΜΠ Κ Μ ΑVΡΗ ΑΝΤΩ ΑVΓ / laureate-headed bust of Marcus Aurelius wearing cuirass and paludamentum, r.
Rev: ΛΑΚƐΔΑΙΜΟΝΙωΝ / Club.

 

Lykourgos (820 BC)  legendary lawgiver of Sparta.

Achaea. Laconia, Lacedaimon (Sparta). Circa 48-35 BC. Æ Hexachalkon

Obv: Bearded head of Lykourgos right; ΛYK-OYPΓOC around.
Rev: Club with handle ending in kerykeion; Λ-A across upper field, monogram-I and monogram across lower field.
BCD Peloponnesos 906 var.
7.8gm, 24mm.

[seth77]

1 hour ago, AncientOne said:

Nice one Ryro!  Hard to find that one in a better condition.

 

Achaea. Laconia, Lacedaemon(Sparta). Claudius Æ25. Piloi of the Dioscuri.

Obv: TI KLAVDIOC KAICAP; laureate bust right.
Rev: EΠI ΛAKΩNOΣ; piloi of the Dioscuri; two stars above.
Magistrate Lacon
RPC 1115 var.

Two cups of hot coffee from Sparta.

[Deinomenid]

On 2/24/2024 at 5:29 PM, Ryro said:

whatever dominate Athens!

Can't let this one  pass without a nod to Syracuse utterly destroying a huge Athenian army and navy (and with Spartan help), the last running battle of which dwarfed the above mainland battles so  I'll let the main man speak! -

"This was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in this war, or, in my opinion, in Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the victors, and most calamitous to the conquered. They were beaten at all points and altogether; all that they suffered was great; they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet, their army  - everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned home.

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (I.7.87)

The final battle for Syracuse in 414 was staggering for how many Athenians were defeated,  killed, and enslaved. Much as there is a lot to despise  about Athens (possibly not  a popular view!)  in that ~ period, and not just  if you were from Melos or looking at the mindset  behind the  first day of the Mytilenean debate,  it's hard  not  to  be slightly  affected by the vast scale  of their slaughter at the hands of Syracuse  and their Spartan general Gylippus. In September 414 many hundreds were killed just outside the city , and 6000 troops were surrendered by Demosthenes, and in the same moving battle Nicias lost maybe 20,000 men (plus up to 15,000 assorted auxiliaries, camp followers etc) in a huge slaughter. What makes it moving - aside from the abstract numbers  -is  you can still visit the quarries where the remaining Athenian  troops (possibly 7,000) were kept, abused, had rocks  hurled at them etc. The quarries are  vast, and some  have recent orange groves  in them  now as a sort of memorial.

 

"The prisoners in the quarries were at first hardly treated by the Syracusans. Crowded  without any roof to cover them, the heat of the sun and the stifling closeness of the air tormented them during the day, and then the nights which came on autumnal and chilly, made them ill by the violence of the change;  besides, as they had to do everything in the same place for want of room, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds or from the variation in the temperature, or from similar causes, were left heaped together one upon another, intolerable stenches arose; while hunger and thirst never ceased to afflict them, each man during eight months having only half a pint of water and a pint of corn given him daily. In short, no single suffering to be apprehended by men thrust into such a place was spared them.  For some seventy days they thus lived all together, after which all, except the Athenians and any Siceliots or Italiots who had joined in the expedition, were sold. The total number of prisoners taken it would be difficult to state exactly, but it could not have been less than seven thousand. 

This was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in this war, or, in my opinion, in Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the victors, and most calamitous to the conquered. They were beaten at all points and altogether; all that they suffered was great; they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet, their army—everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned home. Such were the events in Sicily."

 

Not my photos as  I think mine might be from technically off limit areas by accident -

These numbers for the battle EXCLUDE the huge losses from the destruction of their  fleet the same week. There's endless debate about which  coins precisely celebrate this victory but this is one is a highly likely candidate, based  on the dating and the probable naval significance of the reverse exergue. It's also double signed, though nothing relevant to the above can be read into that,  much as I torture the  information.

Silver Syracuse tetradrachm signed by the engravers Euth... and Phrygillos around 413-410.

Head of the nymph Arethusa on the left, hair raised and held by a cord. It is adorned with a necklace adorned with a lion's head,
Around it, four dolphins and the legend ΣYPAKOΣIΩN. Below, ΦPYΓIΛΛ/OΣ (artist's signature). R/. Winged Nike leading a quadriga and crowned with  victory. On the exergue, Scylla swimming to the right and holding a trident that points to a fish. Behind,  a dolphin swimming on the right. EYΘ (signature) below the baseline.