CHALCIDIAN LEAGUE SILVER TETRADRACHM – SUPERB AND RARE ISSUE OF MAGISTRATE TIMARCHUS – CHOICE XF STAR FINE STYLE NGC GRADED SILVER GREEK MACEDONIAN COIN (inv. 19095)

$13,750.00

16 (19095). MACEDONIA. CHALCIDIAN LEAGUE. Ca. 432-348 BC.
Silver tetradrachm, 14.38 g, 24 mm. Issue of Olynthus, Macedonia, ca 355 BC.
Obv. Laureate head of Apollo right. Rev. XAΛKIΔEON, elaborate cithara, ΔE control above, EΠI TIMAPXOY in exergue.
Robinson & Clement, Group Q, 98 (A64/P85); HGC 3, 500; SNG ANS 503 (same dies).
NGC graded CHOICE XF STAR, Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5, FINE STYLE, a coin with great visual appeal and rarity as there is only one other specimen in market records signed by magistrate Timarchus, out of the 12 magistrates recorded for this tetradrachm coinage.

In 432/1 BC, the 32 minor Greek cities of the Chalcidic Peninsula were encouraged by the Argead Macedonian king Perdiccas II to form the Chalcidian League, a federal state with its capital at Olynthus, that could more effectively resist the increasing inroads of Athens and serve as a buffer to his Macedonian kingdom. Member cities of the league shared a common citizenship, common laws, a common system of weights and measures, and even a common currency. The present coin represents the shared currency of the League, which consisted of silver coins struck to a local standard and regularly depicted the head of Apollo on the obverse and the god’s cithara on the reverse. Despite a rocky relationship with the Macedonian kings in the fourth century BC, the currency of the League influenced the weight standard used for the silver coinage of Philip II. Not long after the present coin was struck, the growing successes and ambitions of Philip II caused the Chalcidian League to break its relationship with him and form an unlikely alliance with Athens in 352 BC. This development led to the Olynthian War in 349-348 BC, a conflict which ended with the total destruction of Olynthus and the ruin of many other cities of the Chalcidic Peninsula. The Macedonian king had dissolved the Chalcidian League in blood.