The joys of numismatic research

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 19:05:58 -0500, Reid Goldsborough
wrote:

Here's a pic of it, only a middling pic (too much glare, which
obscures some of the detail) -- I need to retake the pic at some
point:

http://rg.cointalk.org/misc/Archaic_Owl.html

I reshot the same coin, above, with the photo at the same URL, above.
Here's some more information about it, and the history behind it. But
first, let me correct one thing I wrote earlier about this coin. I
wrote that the coin was likely minted for the buildup of the Hellenic
navy when I should have written Athenian navy. Thanks for the
correction, Michael.

The coin is an Archaic Owl tetradrachm weighing 16.3g and was minted
in Athens c. 490-482 BC. It can be attributed as Sear 1842v., Seltman
Group Gi, Price and Waggoner Group IVg, Szego 3.

This was one of the first Owls, and it's also one of the finest styled
of the archaic Owls, with Athena having a relatively small head, long
neck, and fine overall features. Paul Szego described the styling of
this variety as "primitive" but "permeated with the sweet freshness of
archaic charm."

This coin in all likelihood was minted to build up the Athenian navy
in preparation for the anticipated Persian invasion, which would take
place in 480 BC. The Greek victory over the Persian fleet at the
Battle of Salamis would determine the subsequent course of Western
history, a epochal moment that the historian Victor Davis Hanson
called the supreme confrontation between East and West, between
despotism and individual freedoms. About Salamis, wrote Georg Hegel,
"The interests of the world's history hung trembling in the balance."

Afterward, the Greeks were able to continue their embryonic, and
unprecedented, experimentation with individualism and democracy. For
the next three and a half centuries, Greek ideals about constitutional
government, private property, free scientific enquiry, rationalism,
and separation between political and religious authority would
permeate lands from Italy to India, and via the Roman Empire, would
spread through Europe and on to us.

The Battle of Marathon of 490 BC is better known to us today because
of the heroics of a lone long-distance runner, but the Battle of
Salamis was far more momentous.

--

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