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Stater
| Issuer | Teos (Ionia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 478 BC - 465 BC |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Aeginetic drachm |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Griffin seated right upon a ground line, the creature's left forepaw raised in characteristic heraldic posture, its body rendered with careful archaic detail. To the right of the griffin stands a lotus flower with curling tendrils, serving as a subsidiary device in the field. The ethnic inscription THI appears in Greek characters, identifying the issuing city of Teos. The overall composition exemplifies the refined Archaic Ionian engraving style, with the griffin motif serving as the principal civic emblem of Teos throughout its early coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Teos had one reason to strike heavily in this period: the city was rebuilding its commercial network after the Persian Wars. The Ionian revolt and its brutal suppression — Teos was reportedly abandoned by much of its population, who fled to Abdera in Thrace rather than submit to Achaemenid control — left the city economically fractured. Coinage resumed as a deliberate assertion of civic recovery, not merely as a medium of exchange. The griffins that define Tean types became among the most recognizable devices in Aegean trade circuits precisely because the city pushed hard to reestablish itself in the decades following 479 BC.