Nomos 37

AITOLIA, Aitolian League. Circa 250-225 BC. Stater (Silver, 23.5 mm, 10.23 g, 7 h). Head of Aitolos to right, wearing an oak wreath; under the truncation, here off the flan, ΦΙ. Rev. ΑΙ-ΤΩΛΩΝ Aitolis, nude except for chlamys under his left forearm, standing to left, resting his foot on a rock, with a causia strapped to his back, holding a sword under his left arm and a spear in his right hand. BCD Aitolia 447. BMC 11. Tsangari 771 a (this coin). An attractively toned example, with a strikingly realistic head on the obverse. Good very fine.

From a European collection, ex Myers 1, 18 November 1971, 144, Coin Galleries (Stack's), NumRev VI/5-6, 1965, E67, and Naville V, 18 June 1923, 1850 (bought by Baldwin's).

While the head on the obverse is normally identified as being that of Aitolos - the fact that he's wearing an oak wreath makes that quite rational - his features are so individual that they seem almost certainly those of a real person. But who? He looks remarkably like those heads found on some tetradrachms of Lysimachos, which ostensibly bear idealised portraits of Alexander but which just might be heads of Lysimachos himself. In any event, this is certainly the most exciting and dramatic of all the heads on the staters of the Aitolian League; he is related to the more typical head found on the previous lot, but his features are fuller and more mature.