Cyrénaïque - Cyrène
Statère d’or - Cyrène (323-313) - Magistrat Polianthes.
Rarissime dans cette qualité - Parfaitement centré.
Exemplaire de la collection Roger Peyrefitte (1907-2000), vente Vinchon du 29 April 1974, N°130 et de la collection James et Sneja D. Velkov, vente Vinchon du 24 novembre 1994, N°162 et de la vente Sincona 10
du 27 mai 2013, N°210.
8.63g - Pozzi 3270 - SNG Delpierre 760 - BMC 118a - Naville pl. III, 87 (20 ex. connus, mêmes coins)
Superbe à FDC - CHOICE AU

When this stater was struck, Kyrene was under Ptolemaic rule, and the local administrator from 322 until 309/308 BC (except for a brief revolt in 312/313 BC) was a former trierarch of Alexander the Great named Ophellas who was sent to Cyrenaica by Ptolemy. He died betrayed by Agathokles of Syracuse, who had asked his help fight the Carthaginians, against the promise of any North African conquests being given to Kyrene. The obverse, which evokes the charioteer on the coins of Philip II of Macedon, could be in celebration of Ophellas’s military victories. The reverse is more simply an homage to the local oracular deity.