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Drachm
| Issuer | Sikyon |
|---|---|
| Year | 500 BC - 450 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Reference(s) | BCD Peloponnesos#159, SNG Copenhagen#19 |
| Obverse description | Dove in flight to left, wings outstretched and fully spread, rendered in high relief with finely detailed feathering. The bird's head is turned slightly downward, with the tail feathers fanning outward beneath the body. The composition fills the flan dynamically, characteristic of the archaic Sikyonian coinage tradition in which the dove served as the city's principal civic emblem. |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Sikyon sat in the northeastern Peloponnese under the tyrant Cleisthenes — grandfather of the Athenian reformer — who reorganized the city's tribal structure and reportedly banned Homeric recitation to suppress pro-Argive sentiment. By the time this drachm was struck, the tyranny had long collapsed and Sikyon had settled into a quiet oligarchic existence within the Peloponnesian League. The city's coinage persisted on an archaic weight standard well into the classical period, resisting the broader Aeginetan and Attic realignments happening elsewhere in Greece.
BCD 159 places this piece among the earlier emissions of the series, before the fabric tightened in the later fifth century.