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Stater - Apollas
| Issuer | Abdera |
|---|---|
| Year | 395 BC - 360 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 12.93 g |
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| Obverse description | Griffin springing to the right, depicted in high relief within a dotted border; the creature is shown with outstretched wings, powerful leonine haunches, and an open beak, rendered in the vigorous archaic-to-classical transitional style characteristic of Abderite coinage. A small spherical object appears beneath the griffin in the lower field. The composition fills the flan dynamically, with the griffin's wing feathers rendered in bold parallel strokes. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse description | Nude male figure, identified as Apollo, striding to the left in three-quarter view; he extends his right arm forward offering a patera, while his left arm holds a laurel branch over his shoulder. The figure is rendered with careful attention to musculature in the classical style. To the right of the figure, the Greek inscription ΕΠΙ ΑΠΟΛΛΑΔΟΣ is arranged vertically in the field, reading downward. A small symbol appears in the lower left field. |
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| Additional information |
Abdera, the Thracian coastal colony founded by refugees from Teos in the mid-sixth century BC, produced some of the most artistically ambitious coinage in the northern Aegean during the fifth and fourth centuries. The city operated a distinctive magistrate-naming system on its silver issues, rotating the name of a presiding official — here Apollas — alongside the ethnic, a practice that now gives modern scholars a rough chronological handle on an otherwise difficult sequence. May's die study remains the essential reference for sorting these issues, though the attribution of individual magistrates to specific decades within the 395–360 range is still debated.
Abdera was sacked by the Triballi around 376 BC, an event that almost certainly disrupted mint activity and may account for gaps in the die sequence around that point.