★ Fleur De Coin ★

Kimmerian Bosporos, Pantikapaion AV Stater. Circa 325-310 BC. Head of bearded satyr to left, wearing ivy wreath / Griffin standing to left, head facing, holding spear in its mouth, forepaw raised, on grain ear; Π-Α-Ν around. SNG Stancomb 547; Anokhin 1021; MacDonald 54; SNG BM Black Sea 864 (same dies); Gulbenkian 587 = Locker-Lampson 123; cf. Kraay-Hirmer 440; HGC 7, 24. 9.13g, 23mm, 11h.

Fleur De Coin; a spectacular example of this ever-desirable type.

Ex William Stancomb Collection, Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XIX, 26 March 2020, lot 112 (sold for £70,000).

Pantikapaion, founded by Milesians in circa 575 BC, was a small hub of trade and crafts until it became the capital of the Kingdom of Bosporos in around 480 BC. The Bosporan Kingdom appears to have coalesced from a defensive league established to counter the threat of Skythian tribes to Greek cities in the area. Pantikapaion seems to have been the obvious choice for a capital due to its favourable geographical features: strategically located on a hill, it also commanded a harbour east of the city which could hold up to 30 ships, thus allowing the city to maintain a naval force. Pantikapaion became both powerful and wealthy under its first dynastic rulers the Archaianaktidai. Dubbed tyrants by Diodorus (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, 12.31.1) probably because of their aggressive policy of expansion, the Greek Geographer Strabo disputed this view and described them instead as ‘equitable’ (Strabo, Geographica , 7.4.4). The Archaianaktid dynasty was in 438 BC usurped by a Hellenised family of Thracians, the Spartokids, and by the time this issue was struck in c. 325-310 King Pairisades I (344-310) ruled over a Bosporan Kingdom that had grown from a local hegemony to a large Hellenistic kingdom, extending from the Tauroi to the Caucasus. Pairisades continued to expand Bosporan influence, eventually expanding the kingdom more than even his father had in the Bosporan Expansion Wars; he became king of the Sindoi through strategic marriage to his cousin Komosarye, annexed the city Tanais, and subdued many tribes around the Maeotic Swamp.

Pantikapaion was the only city in the Bosporan Kingdom to strike its own coinage until c. 450-425 BC, after which time mints can be found in other cities including Gorgippa and Phanagoria. Pantikapaion’s coinage was initially primarily silver in the fifth century, but as the city’s wealth and power grew, so did its coinage and golden staters such as the present example became a widely recognised product of the mint. The obverse figure, here described as a satyr, is identified by Sear (Greek Coins and their values,1978) as the god Pan, the connection being drawn no doubt from the city’s name, although it should be noted that the etymology of Pantikapaion is from a proto-Skythian language meaning ‘fish-path’ and makes no reference to the god.

The griffin on the reverse of this coin is notable as it bears the head of a horned lion rather than the typical eagle head. The reason for this seems little discussed in literature and rarely is the distinction even noted. The prevalence of lions on the Pantikapaion coinage is presumably the reason; the facing head of a lion can be seen on much of the silver coinage of this mint and is assumed to be a symbol of Apollo, specifically the Milesian cult of Apollo at the Delphinion and at Didyma (Zograf, Antichnye Monety, Materialy i Issledovania po Arkheologii SSSR 16, 1951). The Milesian connection to the almost mask-like facing lion makes it likely that the die engravers for these distinctive staters syncretised the lion and griffin for their own purpose of developing a unique type that celebrated the city of Pantikapaion and the primary source of its wealth – the grain upon which the griffin stands.