Nomos 16

ISLANDS OFF THRACE, Thasos. Circa 380 BC. Drachm (Gold, 13 mm, 2 h). Bearded head of Dionysos to right, wearing wreath of ivy leaves with berries at his forehead. Rev. ΘΑΣΙΟΝ Herakles, wearing lion's skin headdress and short, hunting chiton, kneeling right, shooting his bow; to right, Κ; all in linear frame within an incuse square. West pl. 4, 30 var. (same obverse die). Very rare. An attractive example, nicely centered. Usual die break at the upper edge of the reverse, otherwise, extremely fine.

From the Ravenel Collection, USA, and from the Prospero Collection, The New York Sale XXVII, 4 January 2012, 245, acquired from G. Müller prior to the late 1980s.

This lovely coin is commonly termed a hemidrachm: this is a misnomer. By weight it is a gold drachm or a hemistater. The statue of Herakles that served as the prototype for the reverse of this coin was found on Thasos in 1866: it is now in the museum in Istanbul.