LEUCAS SILVER STATER – RARE EMISSION EX DEETZ COLLECTION SOLD IN 1946 – VF GREEK ACARNANIA COIN (Inv. 21247)

Sold

21247. ACARNANIA. LEUCAS. Ca. 89–85 BC.
Silver Stater, 7.90 g, 23 mm. Issue of magistrate Damylos.
Obv. Statue of Aphrodite Aineias right, holding aphlaston, stag in background to right, long scepter with dove in left field, all within laurel wreath. Rev. ΛEYKAΔIΩN ΔAMYΛOΣ, galley prow right with lion head ram.
F. de Callataÿ, “The late Hellenistic didrachms of Leukas: another case of Greek coinage for the Roman army,” in P. van Alfen, G. Bransbourg, and M. Amandry (eds.), FIDES. Contributions to Numismatics in Honor of Richard B. Witschonke (New York, 2015), no. 46 (O11/R6) (this specimen not listed); HGC 4, 857 (ca. 89–85 BC); SNG Copenhagen 381; BCD 315.4.
Ex Charles H. Deetz Collection, Stack’s 11/9/1946, lot 200.
VF, dark gray cabinet toning, a very rare variety with only one specimen on CoinArchives.

A sanctuary dedicated to Aphrodite Aineias (“of Aeneas”) was erected at Cape Leucatas on the island of Leucas to commemorate the tradition that the hero Aeneas had stopped there as he fled the destruction of Troy for a new home in Italy. As the Romans, who claimed descent from Aeneas, became increasingly important in the affairs of Greece in the second and first centuries BC, so did advertising the cult of Aphrodite Aineias for Leucas.