Islands off Ionia, Samos
Didrachm circa 520, AR 6.85 g. Forepart of bull r. Rev. Head of lion r. with open jaws, within dotted square. Traité I, 459 and pl. XI, 27. BMC 23. Barron pl. 5, 2.
Extremely rare. Perfectly struck in high relief and with a lovely dark tone. Extremely fine

Ex Triton VI, 2003, 395 and Nomos 3, 2011, 135 sales. From the Spina collection.
Samos is said to have been a great naval power in the Aegean already in the eight and seventh centuries BC, when its fleet participated in such semi-legendary conflicts as the Leleantine War and the Second Messenian War. This continued into the somewhat more historically solid sixth century BC, when the Samian tyrant Polykrates (c. 538-522 BC) constructed a naval empire in the eastern Aegean despite strong opposition from Lesbos and Sparta. In c. 525 BC, the Spartans, having had enough of Samian expansionism, sailed to Samos and besieged the city. The siege was lifted when Polykrates promised to pay a large indemnity. He made good on his payment, but only after the Spartans returned home did they realize that he had paid them in lead coins plated in precious metal rather than in authentic money. The wily Samian tyrant then offered his services to Cambyses, the Persian Great King, in support of the Persian invasion of Egypt. Unfortunately, he subsequently fell afoul of Oroetus, the Persian satrap of Lydia and was executed. This extremely rare didrachm was struck very shortly after the fall of Polykrates, in the brief period before the conquest of Samos by the Persians in 517 BC.