Obolos 42

MACEDONIA OR THE NORTHERN AEGEAN AREA. Uncertain mint. Circa 480 BC. Obol (Silver, 8.5 mm, 0.98 g). Eagle with spread wings, alighting to right on, and tearing with his beak and talons, the belly of a supine hare. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. Apparently unpublished, but cf. Classical Numismatic Group 344, 11 February 2015, 126, Naumann 78, 2 June 2019, 134, and Nomos 37, 16 November 2025, 73. Very rare; lightly toned. Porous, otherwise, very fine.

There is some debate over what the animal being torn by the talons of the raptor that appears on the obverse of this coin actually is: a hare (or a lamb) or a stag. The hare recalls those being torn by eagles on the nearly contemporary, or slightly later, issues from Olympia (as, for example, the hemidrachm of the 460s that appeared as Leu Numismatics 90, 2004, 23, which was from the same dies as SNG Delepierre 2043); as for a stag, well, this is meant to be paralleled by those on the much earlier issues of Phanes from Ephesos (a nice idea but seriously far-fetched).

As for where this coin was struck, the verdict is still out. Both CNG and Naumann suggested their pieces came from western Asia Minor, but the number of strange items that have turned up from Macedonia and Thrace calls the Asian attribution into question.