Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Hemiobol - Apollo
| Issuer | Massalia |
|---|---|
| Year | 300 BC - 50 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Bare head of Apollo facing left, rendered in the Hellenistic style with finely detailed curling locks of hair cascading around the face and nape of the neck. The youthful, idealized effigy is executed in high relief against a plain, unlettered field. A beaded border encircles the design. No legend is present on the obverse. The style reflects the local Massaliot interpretation of the Phocaean Greek artistic tradition. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A wheel of four spokes radiates from a central pellet, dividing the field into four quadrants within a linear border. In the lower two quadrants formed by the spokes, the Greek letters M and A are inscribed, serving as the civic abbreviation for Massalia. The design is a characteristic Massaliot type, combining the wheel motif with the city's monogram. The overall composition is contained within a raised rim on an irregularly shaped flan. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Massalia — modern Marseille — was a Phocaean Greek colony founded around 600 BC that maintained remarkable monetary independence throughout its history, continuing to strike its own silver coinage well into the Roman provincial period. These tiny fractions circulated alongside the city's better-known obols and drachms in a local economy that remained stubbornly Greek in character even as Rome absorbed the surrounding Gallic territories after 121 BC.
The date range spans over two and a half centuries, and attribution of individual specimens within that window remains contested among specialists.