Nomos 25

EPEIROS. Ambrakia. Circa 280 BC. Stater (Silver, 24 mm, 8.62 g, 6 h). Head of Athena to left, wearing Corinthian helmet with a neck flap and a pearl necklace; in the field to right, behind her neck, ear of grain shown horizontally to right. Rev. Α (but with a broken crossbar) Pegasos flying to right. BMC 62. Calciati 129. Ravel 192. Very rare. A splendid, toned coin, well-centered and struck on a broad flan. Extremely fine.

From a Swiss collection, ex Glendining 21 June 1972, 167 and Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, 26 July 1920, 61.

This is a very late example of a Corinthian-type stater, probably struck around the time Pyrrhus was rampaging in Magna Graecia and Sicily. What is truly extraordinary about it is that its fabric shows us that Athena is on the obverse and Pegasos is on the reverse! As is well-known, there has long been a controversy over what side of a Corinthian stater was the obverse: most rational observers believed it to be the side with Pegasos, with the helmeted head being the reverse; yet one eccentrically stubborn scholar based in the Ozarks believed the opposite! This late piece is the exception that proves the rule!