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Stater
| Issuer | Melos |
|---|---|
| Year | 425 BC - 415 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Apple (melon) depicted in high relief at center, shown in frontal view with clearly delineated segments radiating from a central axis, a short stem visible at the top. The design serves as a visual pun on the island's name, Melos, rendered in a bold archaic style characteristic of fifth-century BC Aegean coinage. The flan is broad and irregular, with the type centered within the plain field. No legend appears on this face. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Melos remained one of the few Aegean islands to resist Athenian alliance pressure during the early Peloponnesian War, a position that made its independent coinage politically loaded. The island's neutrality ended violently in 416 BC when Athens besieged and captured it, executing the men and enslaving the women and children — an event Thucydides recorded in the Melian Dialogue. Staters struck in the decade before that destruction are among the last coins this mint would ever produce.
The references here — Lockett, Jameson, McClean — all derive from early 20th-century private collections, suggesting this type passed through several major cabinets before modern cataloguing stabilized its attribution.