Nomos 22

MACEDON. Dium. Time of Nero, 54-68. Hemiassarion (Bronze, 15.5 mm, 5.88 g, 12 h). Aryballos suspended from three chains and strigil; border of dots. Rev. COL DIENSIS Head of a bridled horse to right; border of dots. Kremydi-Sisialianou, Dion, pseudoautonomus, series 4, 5 and pl. 29, 9 (E4/O4 same dies) = RPC 1508A. The second known example. Extremely rare and most interesting for the history of athletics. Well-centered and with a lovely green patina. Nearly extremely fine.

From a European collection, ex Sternberg XXIX, 30 October 1995, 65.

This extremely rare coin was only known to Kremydi by a single example, which was found during the excavations of Dium, and is now in the museum there. This piece, the only other known example - and in better condition, was, unfortunately overlooked and did not appear in her corpus.
The identification, by Kremydi and the RPC, of the curved implement on the obverse of this coin as a sickle is quite erroneous: combined with the small, two-handled vessel hanging from chains, which simply has to be an oil aryballos, it must be a strigil, the scraper used by athletes to cleanse themselves of dirt and dust after exercising (they would rub themselves with oil first, then scrape the resulting paste off with the strigil).