Asie Mineure - Lesbos - Mytilene. - Hecté (412-378). Exemplaire... Lot 48

Asie Mineure - Lesbos - Mytilene. - Hecté (412-378). Exemplaire de la vente Berk 190 du 29 mai 2014, N° 3. Le plus bel exemplaire connu - Parfaitement centré. Très rare, seulement 5 exemplaires recensés par Fr. Bodenstedt. 2.55g - Bodenstedt 78 Superbe – AU A bust which is very similar to the figure on the obverse can be found on slightly-later gold staters of Lampsacus, on which it is usually identified as Demeter, a venerated deity at that city. And it has been suggested that this coin could depict the lyric poetess Sappho, who was a native of Lesbos (active in the late 7th century BC). Anyhow, the three bunches of grapes which ornament her hairdo suggest that it is the ‘portrait’ of Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete: indeed, according to Hesiod, after being abandoned by Theseus - whom she had helped slay the Minotaur in the Labyrinth - Ariadne married Dionysus who had found in Naxos. This would make sense, considering how many numismatic types struck in Mytilene (a city founded in the eleventh century BC which still exists as capital city of the island of Lesbos - in North Aegean) depict the tutor of Dionysus, Silenos - god of winemaking and drunkenness. Wine from Lesbos was mentioned by Homer in the 7th century BC, and Eubulus in the 4th century BC evokes tax breaks which helped increase its popularity in Athens. As late as the 3rd century AD, Athenaeus of Naucratis wrote: “ I can name and praise the wines produced in other cities / and their names I do not forget / But none of them is compared to the wine of Lesbos” (Deipnosophistae A, 52d). The choice of reverse is less easily understood - starting with its identification. Fr. Bodenstedt believed that the lion was eating an antler. It has instead been suggested that the lion bites a curved sword (?????) or a sickle (‘harpa’) - as seen on electrum coins struck in Kysikos (Mysia) circa 450-330 BC. But it may be that those Cyzicene coins do in fact depict t