The Phillips Family Collection of Ancient Greek Coins

Foreword

Directors Foreword

This auction catalogue contains 254 superb Greek coins with pre-1970 provenances, which are being sold for the benefit of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University’s Museum of Art and Archaeology. The coins were the property of a very generous benefactor, who has decided to remain anonymous and to whom we are naturally enormously grateful.

The 254 specimens span many geographical areas of the Greek World, from Italy to Bactria and represent the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. However, there is a particular focus on Archaic and Classical coins from Italy and Sicily. These are famous for their artistic quality and beauty, as the three Sicilian decadrachms (nos. 94 - 96 in this catalogue) illustrate. Interestingly, this mirrors the Ashmolean’s own collection, where Italy and Sicily are also particularly well represented.

The money generated from the sale will endow the post of the curator of Greek coins at the Heberden Coin Room. This will ensure the long-term future of Greek numismatics at the University of Oxford, where the subject has a long and illustrious tradition. We are profoundly grateful not only to the anonymous benefactor but also to anyone supporting us through their bidding. Any surplus funds will be used to support research in Greek coinage.

The Heberden Coin Room currently houses approximately 50,000 Greek and Roman Provincial coins. The collection has its origins in the 17th Century, but owes its world class status to the incorporation in the 20th century of important collections belonging to Oxford Colleges and to a few key scholar-collectors such as J. G. Milne, Sir Arthur Evans and Sir Edward (Stanley) Robinson. Since the Coin Room’s foundation in 1922 and starting with J. G. Milne, a succession of distinguished curators has kept the collection in good order, incorporated new material and made it available to visitors. From the 1950s to the present, they have also worked on the publication of the Greek coins through the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum series, whilst the Roman Provincial (or Greek Imperial) coins are catalogued through the Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC) project, for which Oxford represents a ‘core collection’. Over the last ten years, the focus on has been on the digitisation of the collection. This not only allows for remote access through the Coin Room’s dedicated WebApp (https://hcr.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/) but also provides the highest level of object security.

The first important Greek numismatic scholar at Oxford was Percy Gardner, who was Professor of Classical Archaeology from 1887 onwards, before the creation of the Heberden Coin Room. Among those that followed, were Sir Arthur Evans, who made major contributions to the understanding of the Greek coinages of South Italy; Joseph Grafton Milne, whose name will forever be associated with the coins of Alexandria; Sir Edward (Stanley) Robinson, former Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum and founder of the Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum series; and Colin Kraay, whose Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (1974) remains the standard text book on the subject. More recently, Chris Howgego’s Ancient History from Coins (1995) was translated into six languages.

Teaching of Greek numismatics at Oxford is important internationally and can be traced back to the 1880s. Today, the curator of Greek coins teaches the subject on an undergraduate, graduate and doctoral level while, as numismatics is integrated into university teaching as a whole, generations of young Ancient Historians and Classical Archaeologists have been introduced to Greek coins in the Ashmolean, as an important source for their respective disciplines.

We are hugely grateful to all those who have made this sale possible and I would also like to extend sincere thanks to Noonans, especially Chris Webb and Bradley Hopper, for organising the sale and for producing such a splendid catalogue.

Dr Alexander Sturgis
Director
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology


The Phillips Family

Noonans are delighted to present for sale the Phillips Family Collection of Ancient Greek Coins. Formed over a period of some ninety years by father and son, the collection stands as a testament to the greatest achievements of classical numismatics. In the pages that follow, the reader will find coins that are both perfectly preserved and impeccably provenanced, with a clear preference for those pieces which capture the spirit of the classical age: coins which are sculptural, tactile, evocative.

It is the family’s request that their anonymity be retained, and thus the title used throughout is a pseudonym. In keeping with these wishes, it is possible to sketch only in very general terms the nature of the collection’s formation. The Phillips family first began to acquire classical coins during the inter-war period. Initially, the focus fell on the Roman bronze series, with specimens acquired in the main through the agencies of Herbert Seaby and Leonard Forrer, then of Spink. By 1941 an impressive collection had been assembled (that eventually sold through these rooms in 2017) and there were reduced opportunities to make significant new acquisitions.

At this point – two years into the Second World War – an interest in Greek numismatics, always lingering in the background [see lots 56, 155 and 175], came to the fore. The remaining war years provided a boon: prices were suppressed, whilst the withdrawal of Richard Cyril Lockett from the market cleared the way for others to acquire choice coins. With great enthusiasm the Collector threw himself at this new challenge; over the course of four years, he acquired the large balance of the collection presented below. Forrer of Spink played the major role during this period, while Seaby was diminished in significance, to be replaced, in time, by the third member of the London triumvirate: Baldwin.

It is of no small benefit to the numismatic community that the sale of this collection will serve to directly endow the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The coins listed below have, in their entirety, been donated to the Museum and are – at the recommendation of the Phillips family – being sold by the Museum. Funds raised will endow the post of the curator of Greek coins at the Heberden Coin Room, with any surplus will being used to support research in Greek coinage. The Heberden is the leading Coin Room in the world, and it is a happy coincidence that the Phillips family shares a personal affinity and affection for that place with this cataloguer. In the former case, this affiliation can be traced back to the mid-twentieth century, when the then Assistant Keeper of Coins, Colin M. Kraay, struck up a friendship with the Collector. The nature of their relationship is preserved in a number of letters retained by the family, and here I quote from one, dated 7 July 1961, which aptly demonstrates Kraay’s role as mentor: ‘it is always a pleasure to see you and to give you any help and advice that I can. There are all too few private Greek Collections such as yours in this country, and I do hope you will from time to time add a carefully chosen coin to it.’ The Collector and his son did indeed continue to add specimens according to criteria set out by Kraay: eye-appeal, rarity, and provenance.

This latter qualification is more important now than ever before; a precedent has been set for the ‘cultural repatriation’ of ancient coins deemed to have been illegally excavated and exported from their country of origin. Provenance has always commanded a commercial premium, and in recent years this has increased dramatically. We should expect this trend to continue in the long term. All of the coins within the Phillips Family Collection have provenance going back before November 1970 – the ‘magic date’ so to speak. Most can be traced back much further, to the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Represented below are the duplicates from major institutional collections and specimens from the finest private collections ever formed, including those of Bement, Benson, Bunbury, Prince Chachowsky, Collignon, Sir Arthur Evans, Lockett, Locker Lampson, Maddalena, Mathey, Montagu, Pozzi, Spencer-Churchill, Sir Ronald Storrs and Weber (both Sir Hermann and Consul) to name but a few.

Throughout the catalogue below the reader will also find numerous coins once housed in the cabinet of Professor William Harrison Woodward. Published by E.S.G. Robinson in 1928, the Woodward Collection offers the perspective of a self-described ‘amatore’ and explores the world of Greek numismatics in a fashion more romantic than systematic. The result is an assemblage neither comprehensive nor representative, but one with a special emphasis on the exceptional. Woodward’s Greek coins were purchased en bloc by Spink (the Roman coins having been sold in Lucerne in 1930) and Phillips bought heavily from these holdings, enjoying the opportunity to examine the coins in person on his frequent visits up to London. These purchases formed the nucleus of the collection offered here for sale; their outstanding quality set the tone for future acquisitions. It is also perhaps fair to say that Phillips inherited Woodward’s view that Greek coins were the ‘truest teachers … of beauty and the arts which interpret it’.

The magnificent Dekadrachm of Carthage [117] has been chosen to illustrate the front cover of the catalogue, not only for its exceptional aesthetic quality but also for sentimental reasons. The coin was given from father to son on Christmas Day 1963; a remarkable gift to find at the bottom of a stocking and one which has inspired a lifelong passion for Greek numismatics.

This catalogue has been several years in the making and as it reaches fruition this cataloguer is faced with mixed emotions. Overwhelming all others is a feeling of gratitude, both to the Phillips family for allowing me to help guide such a fantastic collection to market, but also to various colleagues. Dr Volker Heuchert at the Ashmolean has provided considerable help and advice throughout, serving in his newfound capacity of Deputy Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room as our principal point of contact within the Museum. Within our own coin department, Jim Brown has lent considerable support on matters of style, presentation and numismatics; Jim is one of the finest commercial numismatists of his generation and this catalogue is considerably better for his involvement. Elsewhere at Noonans I should also like to acknowledge Ian Kington, who has taken the fantastic images seen below, and Clair Perera, who expertly handled the design of the catalogue.

Naturally, I also feel a sense of anticipation for the day of sale and excitement at the numismatic research that the legacy will inspire. Alongside these there is also perhaps a tinge of regret. Having spent so much time with these coins, researching their provenance and admiring their qualities, I will be sad to see them go; they have become companions on my journey through the classical world. I have no doubt that each and every one will bring immense joy to its new owner.

B.T.H.


Magna Graecia (Artistic Reflections)

In the first instance there were two competing, and quite distinct, techniques employed amongst the coin producing cities of Magna Graecia. The first involved the production of small, dumpy coins struck with a type on the obverse only and a simple punch-mark on the reverse. This technique, distinctively Aegean in character, was introduced to Italy by refugees from Ionia who founded the city of Velia in c. 540 [lot 15]. The second technique produced the celebrated ‘incuse’ coinage: thin broad coins, stamped on one side with a design of charming archaic style and on the other with the same type in negative, so as to create the impression of repoussé work.

Of these two different methods the incuse proved to be by far the more successful, having the potential to create coins of great aesthetic quality. At Kaulonia the earliest coins, represented here by the Spencer-Churchill specimen [38], realised the fulfilment of this potential. Colin Kraay regarded the responsible die-sinker to be a ‘master’ of his art and the resulting Staters have a wonderful tactile quality. The result is so compelling that it invites us to ask if the striding Apollo is the artist’s own creation or, more tantalisingly, a depiction of a lost sculptural group. This question forms a recurring theme throughout the coinage of Magna Graecia. Roderick Williams saw the nymph head on the early fourth century coinage of Velia [16] as an attempt ‘to reproduce the features of an early cult statue’; while Stanley Robinson went further, relaying the possibility that we might find depicted on Locker Lampson’s stater of Heraklai [19] a lost work of celebrated fifth-century artist Myron, to whom the famed Diskobolos is attributed.

This discussion leads us, inevitably, to the late classical coinage of Kroton [39]. On the reverse we find Herakles at rest, in the aftermath of some great labour. The composition is imbued with plasticity, expertly foreshortened and set within a defined landscape. Surviving statuettes of a similar, but not identical, composition attest to the popularity of the ‘reclining Herakles’ genre in the classical world. Venerated as the Kroton’s founder, Herakles was no doubt the subject of numerous cult statues throughout the city and there seems every chance that one of them is preserved on this delightful coin. As Phyllis Lehman put it, ‘the rendering of the vigorous body, suggests the likelihood that this numismatic image reflects a statuary prototype’.

Looking at the classical period more broadly we find that an aesthetic thread which ties together the coinages struck across Magna Graecia. Jenkins termed this ‘a delicacy of style’ and it shows a clear Attic influence. Its origins can be traced back to the Athenian resettlement at the site of Sybaris in c. 440; the new foundation of Thurium adopted the obverse type of its mother city, the helmeted head of Athena [200]. At Thurium [34] the face is fuller, more idealised and without any trace of the archaising stiffness that defines the Late Standardised coinage of Athens. The mint was prolific, and its influence felt throughout the region. Evidence of this can be seen through both the adoption of the helmeted Athena type at the mints of Velia [17-18] and Herakleia [19], and by a wider emulation of style. Across the cities of south Italy we see a catalogue of female deities characterised by soft, fleshy features [21, 23, 35, 40, 45]. The most complete expression of this artistic approach is embodied by the Metapontum Stater from the Maddalena and Collignon cabinets [24]. The head of Demeter is modelled in a manner astonishingly tender and naturalistic; combined with the coin’s almost perfect state of preservation we have what has been rightly described as a ‘chef-d’œuvre de la glyptique ancienne’ (Feuardent).


Sicily (Artistic Reflections)

Chief amongst Sicily’s many numismatic treasures are the Dekadrachms signed by Kimon [94], perhaps the most celebrated of all ancient coins. Imposing and magnificent, the reverse offers a ‘masterpiece of miniature sculpture’ (Carradice and Price). Note the signature on Arethusa’s ampyx and on the dolphin below her neck. Its presence tells us two things; firstly, that the Greeks themselves saw coinage as art, as an appropriate forum for competition between the greatest sculptors of the day; and secondly that Kimon, who was quite clearly a genius, thought these dies satisfactory.

At nearby Naxos on the east coast we find a squatting reveller, neatly fitted to his circular frame [58]; the scene provides an exemplary demonstration of how to handle perspective, of capturing and conveying emotion in miniature. And at Selinus far in the West of Sicily we find a young river god stepping tentatively forward towards an altar [61]. The mood here is one of detached serenity. Jenkins saw ‘the exceptional fine rendering of the spare muscular forms’ as ‘recalling the famous bronze kouros preserved as Castelvetrano’. We might propose an alternative; that the composition invokes the very best of contemporary Attic vase painting.
On occasion, the mints on Sicily employed types which reflected contemporary political developments; a concept as novel then as it is obvious now. At Himera the appearance of a crab signals influence of the tyrant Theron of Akragas [53], while the numismatic badge of Messana [56, 57] became a mule chariot following the victory achieved by city’s tyrant, Anaxilas, in the mule-cart race at Olympia – or so Aristotle tells us.

In general, it was the horse-drawn, not the mule-drawn, chariot that dominated Sicilian coinage. Originally introduced at Syracuse, the type proved popular and spread widely across the island, being used at both Greek and Punic mints [116]. While the theme of aristocratic competition suggested by the racing chariot was certainly well suited to a Syracusan context, the city could claim no credit for its invention; like the use of Attic weight standard, it too was borrowed from the Chalkidiki during the late archaic period.

It was the inhabitants of Sicily who explored the full potential of this subject; it was they who pushed it, quite literally, to breaking point. What begins as a slow graceful procession [61, 65, 76] evolves throughout the course of the fifth century into a scene of frenetic energy, of churning hooves and chariots disintegrating under the strain [52, 89, 92]. The latter, when well balanced and competently executed, are amongst the most pleasing of all the designs to appear on Greek coinage; Price and Carradice summed it well when they remarked that ‘the chariot groups on most of the Syracusan coins of this period have exceptional artistic qualities’.
We should not, however, imagine that Syracuse had a monopoly on fine chariots, for the finest of all appeared at Katana [49]. Engraved and ostentatiously signed by Euainetos, we find a ‘highly sophisticated’ composition, exactly arranged to so as to relay a sense of the ‘centripetal forces which draw the quadriga around the turning post’ (Fischer-Bosster). The obverse die made by Euainetos for Katana was, in Charles Seltman’s words, ‘unrivalled’; as that author quipped, ‘some others were about as good - none better’.


The Ronald Storrs Collection

The Demanhur hoard is amongst the most significant Greek numismatic treasures ever found, both in terms of its scale – containing some 8,000 Tetradrachms – and its impact on scholarly understanding. Discovered in 1905 by local workmen in the the western region of Egypt’s Nile delta, the hoard remains a lynch-pin for the chronological and geographic attribution of Alexander the Great’s coinage. One cannot help but imagine the wonder experienced by the finders when the pickaxe swung, the container cracked and a stream of silver sprang forth. Did they know immediately the importance of what they had found? Perhaps not, but the swift arrival of international attention no doubt drove the point home.

Beginning in 1911 Edward Theodore Newell published a series of comprehensive essays detailing the discovery of the find, its contents and its dispersal. In the latter instance, Newell relates four persons, along with himself – for Newell was not only a gifted numismatist by also a prodigious collector – who came to possess the majority of the find: Étienne Bourgey, Azeez Khayat, Francis Munroe Endicott and Ronald Storrs.

Born on the 19th November 1881 to John Storrs, a Church of England priest, and Lucy Cockayne-Cust, Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs was educated at Charterhouse School and later Pemroke College, Cambridge. Following his graduation in 1903, having obtained a first class degree in Classics, Storrs took up a post in the Egyptian Civil Service, where he was initially assigned to the Ministry of Finance in Cairo. From this relatively lowly start, Storrs went on to have a most distinguished diplomatic career serving, in time, as Civil Governor in Cyprus and Northern Rhodesia. During the Great War, Storrs formed part of the Arab Bureau, helping to organise the Great Revolt; T.E. Lawrence later recalled him as ‘the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East’ with a great ‘love of music and letters, of sculpture, painting, of whatever was beautiful’.

Given Storrs’ interest in the Classical world – aside from his time at Cambridge, he had also spent a week at the British School at Athens in 1906, living atop the Acropolis – it should occasion little surprise that he came to collect Greek coins. The timely discovery of the Demanhur treasure provided both ample opportunity and a focus point for the new collection. In his pursuit of Alexander’s coinage, Storrs joined forces with the American diplomat Munroe Endicott; together they began acquiring coins systematically. Their reputation as keen buyers, along with their convenient proximity to those handling the treasure, allowed them ‘the first pick of perhaps about four-fifths of the entire hoard’ (Newell).

Storrs did not convert his great interest in Alexander’s coinage into published research. He did, however, find space to reminisce about his collecting habits in his memoirs; ‘From time to time the life savings of his [Alexander’s] veterans would be found beneath the soil of Egypt, buried in earthen amphorae; so that you can travel with his armies from the Ram’s head of Ammon in the West through the Rhodian Rose and the Phoenician inscriptions of Tyre and Sidon, up to Babylon and the gates of India’…’For some years I followed this fascinating trail, amassing some six hundred varieties of his Drachmas and his Tetradrachmas until, what with the complications of the cabinet and its trays, and the look of sick despair on the faces of friends to whom I attempted to show them, I abandoned the pursuit.’

Having lost his enthusiasm for numismatics Sir Ronald disposed of his collection through the offices of Messers A.H. Baldwin and Sons. The majority came to be held by the American Numismatic Society, supplementing their already large holdings of Demanhur coins; indeed, the Society was determined to acquire all of the Storrs coins and it was only for the delay of communications that a few specimens ‘got out’ to collectors. News reached America in late 1945 and an urgent cable was sent, to ‘request you [Roy Baldwin] defer disposition any Sir Ronalds Collection’. By then it was too late; a small number of pieces, including the most attractive examples, had already been made available to collectors. The largest parcel went to Major-General H.L. Haughton, whose collection was later sold at Sotheby’s in 1958. In the introduction to that catalogue we learn that at the time Haughton made his pick, the Storrs group was intact except for ‘a preliminary selection of just over twenty coins’. It is from this exclusive, early group that the Phillips parcel is formed. In other words, the coins below represent the first pick of perhaps the finest collection of Alexandrian coinage ever assembled in private hands.


Greece & The Islands (Artistic Reflections)

Before numismatics became a truly scientific discipline it was common for Greek coinages to be arranged according to stylistic observations. Issues were distributed into ‘Periods of Finest Art’ followed, inevitably, by ‘Periods of Decline’. In the case of Sicily this classification holds largely true, with the former title neatly covering the products of the fifth and early-fourth centuries. Turning to the Aegean, we find a slightly different arrangement; here a programme of numismatic excellence emerged later, in the middle decades of the fourth century.

The reasons for this are multitude, but it is possible to highlight two as primary; one political and the other artistic. Firstly, the collapse of the great imperial powers – Athens in the late fifth century, and then Sparta in the early fourth – led to a renaissance of civic identity. And secondly, many of the coinages produced during this period represent a direct response to the work of Sicilian masters who operated half a century earlier; without the latter, the former would simply not be possible.

Compare, for instance, the head of Persephone employed at Lokris Opuntii [189] to Euianetos’ masterpiece at Syracuse [96]; the lineage is clear to see. Likewise, it is easy to trace the spread of the ‘facing head’ motif from its development on Sicily during the later fifth century [93] through to its proliferation across the Mediterranean [39, 194, 225, 236, 248]. Of all the heads, those employed at Larissa are the most commonly encountered [182-4]. We should not, however, equate a lack of scarcity with a lack of artistic excellence; the series is one defined by its ‘exquisite beauty’ (Head). The nymph, with her radial hair and dreamy, pathos-filled expression, stays particularly close to its Syracusan model.

Moving to the Peloponnese we find evidence of a different network of artistic exchange. On the Staters of the Arcadian League [213] we encounter an image immediately familiar. From a compositional perspective the reclining figure of Pan is remarkably close to the image of Herakles employed on the Stater of Kroton discussed above [39]; so close, in fact, that it is hard to believe the two are not in some way related. The modelling is equally accomplished, full of what Seltman read as ‘dangerous energy’. Note, however, the differing position of the head. At Kroton, Herakles’ attention is applied sideways, towards the elevated cup; his expression is obscured, and the overall arrangement appears rather more suited to sculpture in the round, than to the flat surface of a coin. In contrast, the Arcadians have Pan’s gaze directed out of the coin to meet our own. The subject is now perfectly suited to the medium. The responsible artist clearly agreed, for he saw fit to sign his name on the rock below Pan; another legacy inherited from the fifth-century Sicilian masters.


Weight Standards

Throughout this catalogue note has been made of the weight standard employed for each coin. Numerous standards existed across the Greek world; some were distinct, while others aligned at various stages of their denominational structure. Recognising the standard used for each issue provides insight into how different issuers interacted in networks of exchange, alliance and imitation.

The regional use of common weight standards forms a reoccurring theme throughout our period. Often, metrological uniformity reflected the preeminence of a particular city state. In the case of Sicily, we find that it was Syracuse [65] who first adopted the Athenian weight standard, borrowing it from their trading partners in the Chalkidiki [129]; and that its spreading across the island went hand-in-hand with Syracuse’s rising political fortunes. A similar situation developed across the Greece. The coinages of Aegina are not represented in this catalogue, but one can get a sense of their commercial impact by following the adoption of
the eponymous weight standard from Thessaly [181, 189], through to Boeotia [192], the Peloponnese [208] and finally down to Naxos [217] and Crete [214].

The largest alignment of weight standards witnessed by the Greek world came in the wake of Alexander the Great’s campaign across Asia. The costs of conquest were immense. By the end of the fourth century Attic weight ‘Alexanders’ made up around half of all the coins circulating in the Mediterranean; they became the currency with which the most important international business of the day was conducted: the hiring of mercenaries. Within this context, Alexander’s Successors had little choice but to accept metrological continuity and for much of the third century the whole region from the Lower Danube [120] to Baktria [178-180] formed a single enormous economic zone.

There are other occasions when mints employed conspicuously diverse weight standards. Consider for a moment the Athenian Empire of the fifth century [200], its tyrannical control over the Aegean and the proclamation of the infamous Coinage, Weights and Measures Decree. Circulated to subject allies during the late fifth century, this brazenly imperial document ordered that “if anyone strikes silver coins in the cities or uses coins other than that of the Athenians…I will exact punishment and penalize him”.

And what was the impact of this decree on the coinages struck by those allies? At Ainos [121], as at Sinope [219-220] and at Kyzikos [230], minting not only continued unhindered, but it did so with the same local types and same non-Attic weight standards as before. The great Athenian Decree was impotent; the pathetic howl of a dying imperial beast. It is in instances such as these that the numismatic record truly blossoms as a historical source, challenging and complementing the contemporary documentary evidence.


Asia Minor (Artistic Reflections)

The collector of Ancient Greek coinage benefits enormously from the stylistic variation seen across the series. By tracking the use of a single numismatic emblem across the Mediterranean it is possible to get a sense of the Greeks’ broad capacity for high artistry. The Phillips Collection contains eleven coins which employ depictions of Zeus as the primary obverse type; eight of these are roughly contemporary with one another, belonging to the mid fourth century.

Beginning in Magna Graecia we find at Metapontum, on a Stater from the Collignon cabinet [26], an ornately bearded head of Zeus, more decorative than naturalistic. Note the heavy curls of the beard, neatly arranged into hook-like forms; an archaising feature which recalls statuary of the previous century. The depiction employed at nearby Lokroi Epizephyrioi is similar, but a little freer in its handling.

Contrast these images with that of idealised naturalism found at far-away Lampsakos [232]. Focus has shifted firmly to the visage, with the hair now a neatly arranged cap and the beard thin and wiry. The face is powerfully built, with a heavy brow and prominent cheek-bone; the eye, wide and deep-set, helps to convey a ‘serenity of expression’ (Jenkins). Agnes Baldwin ranked the obverse die used to strike this coin as ‘most perfect’ and ‘artistically one of the finest representations of a Zeus head on this scale among Greek coins’; high praise indeed.

A similar serenity is to be found in the Peloponnese. Charles Seltman regarded the coinage of the Elians struck at Olympia as the ‘the most uniformly beautiful coinage of the Greeks’; looking at the examples assembled by the Phillips Family [208-212], one can easily see why. Continuing our Jovial theme, we find amongst them a find a depiction of Zeus which displays all the signs of exceptional modelling and technical expertise [211]; the head is harsh, with sharp features and jagged hair. The result is a representation of Zeus in a guise otherworldly and inhuman.

The rare Staters struck under the Arcadian League at Megalopolis [213] stand hand-in-hand with those of Olympia and Lampsakos at the pinnacle of numismatic art. We have already considered the reverse composition; the obverse is equally compelling. Zeus’ head is large, fleshy and imbued with a sense of vitality, a ‘freedom and elaboration of treatment’ (Jenkins). The beard, with its thick, hook-shaped curls retains the same archaising character we noted at Metapontum. There is a temptation here to run with this stylistic observation, to take it as evidence of a statuary prototype. Whatever the truth of this, the classical touch certainly helps to bring balance to the image, to give it a sense of maturity, dignity and seriousness. We have here Zeus as divine patriarch, utterly supreme. The result is phenomenal. Barclay Head saw it as ‘the final and perfect expression of an almighty god’. In the hand, one fully realises the sense the ‘overwhelming impact’ that Jenkins observed. Very few numismatic items are truly captivating; this Stater is one of them. Little wonder that Philip of Macedon saw fit to copy it [137].