Lot 23
Macedonia, Mende. Silver Tetradrachm (17.19 g), ca. 460-425 BC. Dionysos, inebriated, reclining left on back of ass standing right; to right, magpie standing right on ivy. Reverse: MEN-Δ-A-IO-N, vine with five grape bunches; all within shallow incuse square. Noe 73; SNG ANS 340. Rare. Some minor porosity. Choice Very Fine. Estimated Value $3,500 - UP
The city of Mende was famous in antiquity for the wine that it exported. Thus it is not surprising that a large vine heavy with succulent grapes was chosen as the badge for the reverse of this tetradrachm, while the obverse the god of the vine, Dionysos or, perhaps, Selinos. The latter was a rustic deity and the father or grandfather of both the satyrs and the nymphs and spent most of his time completely drunk. Indeed, he was usually so drunk that he needed to be supported by satyrs or, as on this coin, by an ass. When the wine god Dionysos was born from the thigh of Zeus, Hermes placed the infant in the care of Silenos - after all, who else more suited to raising the god of wine than a drunken satyr - who became his tutor and was a prominent figure in the Dionysiac thiasos (retinue).The additional bird on this tetradrachm alludes to the early coinage of the city, which often featured an ass with a bird (commonly described as a crow, but now identified as a jay/magpie by J. Kagan) pecking at its rump. It also connects the tetradrachm through types to a contemporary fractional series featuring the bird on the reverse.
Ex NAC 123 (9 May 2021), 189; Stack's (3 December 1996), 485.
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