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Dichalkon
| Issuer | Eresos |
|---|---|
| Year | 100 BC - 1 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Winged kerykeion (caduceus) depicted upright at center, with two intertwined serpents rising along the staff and a pair of wings spreading from the top. The civic ethnic ЄPЄCIΩN is arranged in two parts flanking the central device within a dotted border, identifying the issuing city of Eresos on the island of Lesbos. |
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| Reverse lettering | ЄPЄCI ΩN |
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| Additional information |
Eresos, on the southwestern coast of Lesbos, was the birthplace of Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor at the Peripatetic school, and of the philosopher Phanias. A small but self-governing polis through the Hellenistic period, it maintained its own bronze coinage well into the first century BC despite the growing weight of Roman administrative control over the Aegean. The dichalkon denomination itself — worth two chalkoi — occupied the lowest rung of practical exchange, suited to local market transactions rather than inter-regional trade.
SNG von Aulock 1736 draws from the collection systematically assembled by Hans von Aulock in the mid-twentieth century, now a standard reference for Asia Minor bronzes precisely because so many civic issues of this scale were ignored by earlier cataloguers.