350-250 BCE 11.16mm 1.22g
Obverse: ΠPOI, eagle standing right
Reverse: K-Y, oenochoe
SNG Turkey 9.2 223
Ex Gorny & Mosch Auction 170 (13 October 2008), lot 3214 (part)
Kyme was the largest of the Aeolian cities and was by legend founded by the Amazons. These weren’t the package delivering kind but instead were fierce female warriors. Historians, however, counter that the city was most likely populated by Greeks from Thessaly or Boeotia, since the dialects used in ancient times were nearly the same.
Although Kyme was a seaport, the contemporary Greeks wondered how they went so long without charging any taxes for their harbor. They also rarely had anything to do with the people further inland. The historian Ephoros, who hailed from Kyme, remarked that his fellow citizens sat idly for hundreds of years while things were happening elsewhere.
During Persian times, their harbor was the principal base for the Persian fleet.
Aristotle mentioned that there was a law at Kyme where, if a prosecutor presented a certain number of his relatives as witnesses, then the defendant was found guilty.
Almost nothing is written about Kyme from the time of Philip II and Alexander the Great. Most likely, when Alexander’s generals came around, Kyme did what it historically did and surrendered the city.
Traditional founding of Gargara by Aeolian Greeks. The city was originally established on a site closer to the coast, possibly by settlers from Kyme or other Aeolian cities.
Arsinoe II begs Lysimachos to let her have Herakleia Pontika. He eventually relents, and she installs Herakleides of Kyme, who becomes tyrant.