Nomos 24

THRACE. Ainos. Circa 400-370 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 27 mm, 15.80 g, 1 h). Head of Hermes facing, wearing petasos and turned slightly to the left. Rev. AINION Goat standing right, feeding on ivy tendril twined round an amphora on a stand; all within a shallow incuse square. Nanteuil 711 = Traité II, 4, pl. CCCXLV, 17 = May, Ainos 370 (same dies). Very rare. Very attractively toned and struck in very high relief from an obverse die of exceptional beauty. Old slash on the neck and some flatness on the reverse, otherwise, extremely fine.

From a European collection, and those of P. Weiss, acquired from Tradart at TEFAF Maastricht in 2007, and of D. Bérend, acquired in the late 1970s.

This coin bears one of the finest of all the heads of Hermes to appear on the coinage of Ainos. In many ways, even wearing his petasus, he would have fit in perfectly with the Florentine aristocrats one sees in the Renaissance paintings of the 15th century: for example, Gozzoli's fresco of 1459-1460, the Procession of the Magi in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. There is a haughtiness here, but a deserved one.