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Tetradrachm - Krates
| Issuer | Chios (Ionia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 380 BC - 350 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Sphinx seated left in profile, rendered in high relief with finely detailed feathering across the folded wing and scaled leonine body. The creature bears a human female head facing left, with carefully articulated facial features characteristic of the Classical Ionian style. To the left in the field stands a tall amphora with a bunch of grapes depicted above it, emblematic symbols associated with Chios and its celebrated wine trade. The composition fills the broad, slightly irregular flan with confident, sculptural modelling. The field around the devices is plain and unbordered. |
|---|---|
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Chios maintained unusual monetary independence throughout the fourth century, continuing to strike substantial silver coinage even as Persian satrapial authority tightened across Ionia. The magistrate name Krates appears on a small cluster of dies within this series, placing production somewhere in the middle decades of the century when the island was navigating the competing pressures of the Second Athenian League and Achaemenid overlordship — a tension that eventually contributed to the Social War of 357–355 BC.
The Pixodarus reference situates this piece within a die study that remains the primary scholarly tool for sequencing Chian tetradrachms of this period.