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Hemisiglos - Hephaistoleos
| Issuer | Abydos (Troad) |
|---|---|
| Year | 350 BC - 325 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Eagle standing to left with wings folded, perched atop a thunderbolt rendered in stylised form, the talons firmly gripping the weapon. The composition is set within a plain circular field, flanked on the left by the abbreviated ethnic ΑΒΥ and on the right by the magistrate's name ΗΦΑΙΣΤΟΛΕΩΣ in Greek letters, reading downward. The eagle type is characteristic of Abydene coinage of this period and reflects strong Macedonian artistic influence. The execution is bold and confident, typical of late fourth-century Troad mint engraving. |
| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Abydos held a strategic stranglehold on the Hellespont crossing, and that geography made it perpetually contested — by Persia, by Athens, by Sparta, and eventually by Macedon. This hemisiglos falls squarely in the period when Philip II was tightening his grip on Thrace and the northern Aegean, and Abydos was navigating the increasingly uncomfortable position of a commercially vital city caught between collapsing Achaemenid authority and rising Macedonian power. The magistrate name Hephaistoleos recorded on this issue is one of the small administrative details that survive nowhere else.