Lucania, Heraclea
Nomos circa 415-400, AR 7.56 g. Wreathed head of Athena r., hair bound at nape of neck, against background of aegis. Rev. HERAKLEIΩN Heracles seated l. on rock draped with lion skin, holding one handled jug in r. hand and supporting himself on l. arm; below, club and shell resting against rock. Jameson 232 (these dies). Work 1. Van Keuren 1. AMB 104 (these dies). Gulbenkian 52 (this obverse die). Gillet 119 (this coin). SNG Lloyd 269 (these dies). SNG ANS 45 (these dies). Historia Numorum Italy 1362.
Extremely rare. An interesting portrait and a fascinating and finely detailed reverse
composition. Struck on a very broad flan and exceptionally complete for the issue.
Lovely old cabinet tone and very fine / good very fine

Ex Leu 30, 1982, 8 and NGSA 6, 2010, 9 sales. From the Charles Gillet collection.
This Nomos is among the oldest Heraclean issues. According to scholars, it is ascribable to a die-engraver from Taras. The coin bears an unusual representation of Athena: without helmet, but framed on the adorned background of the aegis (shield covered with goat-skin), surrounded by snakes. The reverse shows an equally unusual Heracles: the hero is not occupied in one of his amazing labours, instead he is caught at a moment of rest, reclining (this scheme was subsequently resumed by Croton on its later coins) on a rock draped with a lion-skin (the most characteristic attribute of the hero) and holding a chalice in his right hand. A club leans against the rock. The relationship between Heracles, wine, and the Dionysian world is known from various sources: myth (Heracles was at the service of the vine-dresser Sileus; Heracles and Folus), archaeology (the well-known drunken Heracles from Herculaneum, before 79 A.D.), and literature. The great lyric poet Stesichorus (VI Cent. B.C.), probably born in Metauro (a Locrese colony not far from the modern Gioia Tauro in Calabria), refers in song to the struggle between the Centauri and Heracles over a pitcher of wine, a gift of Dionysus to the centaur Folus: "He took the right cup – it was a bowl / gigantic (nine litres / or thereabouts). He lifted it / he gulped down the mixture offered him by Folus".