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Greek coins. Attica, Athens. Didrachm ca 475-465, AR 8.60g.

Currency:CHF Category:Coins & Paper Money / Coins: Ancient Start Price:20,000.00 CHF Estimated At:25,000.00 CHF
Greek coins. Attica, Athens. Didrachm ca 475-465, AR 8.60g.
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Greek coins. Attica, Athens. Didrachm ca. 475-465, AR 8.60g. Head of Athena r., wearing earring and crested Attic helmet decorated with three leaves over visor and spiral palmette on bowl. Rev. AQE Owl standing r., with closed wings and head facing; in upper l. field, two olive leaves, one within the incuse square and the other overlapping the frame. Svoronos pl. IX, 18 (this coin). Seltman 455a (this coin). Starr 80 (this coin). Extremely rare, among the finest, if not the finest, of the only ten specimens in private hands. Well struck in high relief with a wonderful old cabinet tone. Extremely fine. Ex Hirsch sale XXI, 1908, Consul Weber, 1649. From the Goekoop collection. The owl didrachms of Athens are now generally attributed to c.475-465 B.C., a period that found Athens under the influence of Cimon, son of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon. Though he had to battle opponents such as Themistocles and Pericles, Cimon was central to the rise of Athenian power in the 470s and 460s. Only two years after the Greeks defeated the Persians at Salamis in 480, Cimon played an instrumental role in forming the Delian League, by which Athens took the lead role in a combined Greek navy and treasury. Thucydides describes the league merely as a pretext for continuing hostilities with the Persians, and there can be no question that over time the Athenians abused their privilege as de facto leaders. Cimon led most of the league's naval operations from c.476 to 463, and if the current view of the dating for Athenian didrachms is correct, we can say they were issued when Cimon was at his peak of influence. Cimon had especially strong ties to Sparta, which did not please all Athenians, yet which seems to have allowed for comparatively peaceful co-relations. When in 475 a faction at Sparta proposed going to war against Athens to challenge its supremacy in the Delian League, the majority at Sparta opposed the idea, believing they could trust Cimon to deal fairly. But it was never smooth sailing between the cities, and in 465 it seems the Spartans would have invaded Attica had an earthquake and a rebellion by the helots not prevented it. Cimon's greatest victory ocurred at the end of the didrachm period, when in c.466 he defeated the Persians at sea and on land at the Eurymedon River, allowing cities as far east as Phaeselis to join the Delian League. But, the careers of politicians and generals in Athens were fickle, and in 461, not long after he forced the rebellious Thasians to surrender, Cimon was ostracized for ten years. He returned briefly to his beloved city before he died in its service during an expedition to eject the Persians from Cyprus, and thus recover Athenian control of the seas.