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Stater
| Issuer | Thourioi |
|---|---|
| Year | 425 BC - 400 BC |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Helmeted head of Athena facing right, depicted in high relief in the classical Greek style. The goddess wears a crested Attic helmet adorned with a laurel wreath, its prominent forward-swept crest and cheek-guards rendered with fine engraving detail. The facial features are sensitively modelled, with a prominent profile characteristic of the early Thourian coinage. The field is plain, and the flan edge shows the typical irregular form of a hand-struck ancient Greek coin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A bull charging to the right in a dynamic butting pose, with the lowered head and raised left foreleg conveying vigorous movement, set upon a ground line. The animal is rendered in robust high relief with careful attention to musculature, characteristic of the accomplished die-engravers of Magna Graecia. A tunny fish appears in the lower right field below the ground line, serving as a civic symbol referencing the colony's maritime prosperity. The ethnic legend ΘΟΥΡΙΩΝ arches across the upper field above the bull, identifying the issuing city of Thourioi. |
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| Additional information |
Thourioi was a pan-Hellenic colony founded in 444/443 BC on the site of destroyed Sybaris in Magna Graecia, the settlement organized under Athenian sponsorship with Hippodamos of Miletos reportedly laying out the city plan. The silver stater series begun shortly after foundation drew on Athenian intellectual prestige — Herodotos is said to have died there as a citizen.
By the time this piece was struck, Thourioi had shifted its political alignment away from Athens following the disastrous Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC.