Nomos 19

MACEDON. Cassandraea. Caracalla, 198-217. (Bronze, 22 mm, 6.03 g, 7 h). M• AVP• AN-TONINVS Laureate head of Caracalla to right. Rev. COLO IV CASSA Zeus Ammon standing facing, with his head turned to right, holding, in his raised left hand, a bunch of grapes, high up, behind his head. Unpublished, save for a second example that appeared as Pecunem 23, 2014, 526. Unusually clear and well preserved. Some old cleaning marks, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.

From an old European collection formed beginning in the 1960s.

This piece is undoubtedly one of the best preserved coins of Cassandreia known: the city is particularly well known for the extremely poor preservation of the majority of its surviving examples. A major reason why so many coins from Cassandreia, its general area, and from other places in modern Greece, are in poor condition is that beginning in the 1960s the widespread use of chemical fertilizers changed the soil's chemical composition, drastically affecting the surfaces of all metal objects found within it. The reverse of this fine coin is spectacular in its way: we see here the cult statue of the god in the famous sanctuary of Zeus Ammon, which was located in what became the territory of the later city of Cassandreia, close to ancient Aphytis on the first leg of the Chalkidiki peninsula (now Kallithea, a cosmopolitan tourist site filled with night clubs where foreign girls with little clothing and less sense meet what are known as Palikari). Cassandreia, founded by Cassander in 316 BC to be his new capital, was on the site of ancient Potidea. Originally the city's sanctuary was dedicated to Dionysos and the Nymphs, but in 403 BC the cult of Zeus Ammon was imported by the Spartan general, Lysander. The sanctuary flourished during the Roman period; Zeus Ammon was the divine patron of Colonia Iulia Augusta Cassandrensis; the name that the colony, first founded by Brutus in 43 BC, was known after its re-foundation by Octavian shortly after Actium. The depiction of Zeus holding a bunch of Dionysos's grapes is particularly interesting, and almost certainly reflects the syncretistic spirit of the age: Zeus Ammon and Dionysos were no longer worshiped separately but as one.