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Dichalkon
| Issuer | Orchomenos of Arcadia |
|---|---|
| Year | 370 BC - 340 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 5.54 g |
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| Obverse description | Poseidon seated left on rocks, depicted nude to the waist with a chlamys draped over his lower body, holding a trident upright in his right hand. The god is rendered in the vigorous, naturalistic style characteristic of Arcadian bronze coinage of the fourth century BC. The figure occupies the full field of the flan, with no visible legend on this side. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Zeus seated left on a throne, nude to the waist, holding an eagle in his outstretched right hand and a long sceptre in his left. A small figure, possibly an infant Hermes or a suppliant, crouches at his feet in the lower right field. The ethnic legend ΟΡΧΟΜΕΝΙΩΝ curves around the upper and lateral fields, identifying the issuing city of Orchomenos in Arcadia. |
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| Additional information |
Orchomenos in Arcadia — distinct from the better-known Boeotian city of the same name — issued bronze coinage during a period of acute political instability following the foundation of Megalopolis in 371 BC, when Theban-backed synoikism forcibly absorbed much of the region's smaller polis population. That Orchomenos continued striking its own civic bronze at all suggests it retained some degree of local autonomy, or at least the administrative machinery to assert it.
The BCD Peloponnesos collection, sold at Leu in 2004, remains the definitive reference point for attributing these bronzes — the specimen catalogued as #1575 providing the closest parallel for die identification.