3rd century to 168 BCE
AE 14 mm, 3.79 g, 9 h
Turreted head of Tyche to right.
Rev. TOPIAITΩN around an uncertain symbol
Unpublished. Unique.
Roughly 2,200 years ago, in a land called Lycia, there lived a man named Alex.
Now, Alex was an enterprising young man, and had what he suspected was an amazing business idea to sell overpriced pottery out of a barn and trademark the name. But he wasn’t sure it would work. One day, while on a walk to think about it, he came across a frog.
“Hello!” said the frog.
Alex had never met a talking frog before. “Wow! I didn’t know frogs could talk!”
“Well,” said the frog, “I saw no reason not to. So here I am talking.”
That’s when Alex thought of a clever idea. He told the frog of his plans and asked whether it was a sound business proposal.
“I don’t see why not,” said the frog, so Alex put his plan into motion and, sure enough, he made a lot of money. Soon, he was the most eligible bachelor in town and he had his sights on someone he’d loved since childhood. He returned to the frog and asked whether he should make a proposal.
“I see no reason not to,” said the frog, so Alex married her and they were very successful. He became so popular and wealthy that he came to rule Toriaion. To thank the frog for his sound advice, he minted many bronze coins of Toriaion with the frog on the reverse.
However, his wealth was noticed by the Romans, who insisted Toriaion pay them an exorbitant amount. The town had many strong men, and Alex wondered whether they should revolt. He decided to ask the frog.
“I don’t see why not,” said the frog, so they revolted. The Romans then killed Alex, sold his wife and children into slavery, slaughtered everyone else, leveled the town, and melted all but one of the coins.
That coin had been placed on a rock for the frog, but of course the frog didn’t care about that, overpriced pottery, or the Romans, because he was just a frog. Yet it’s the only one left in existence, left as a reminder to not always take advice from a frog.
Like so many cities with extremely rare coinage, we know very little about Toriaion. In this case, this coin is the only known example from the city. There are a number of silver tetradrachms of Side, Perge, Aspendos, and Phaselis, branded with “TOP”, that have been attributed by Meadows to Toriaion, but this is the only coin actually minted by the city.
There does exist a stele that granted polis status to the city of Toriaion by the Attalid king Eumenes II. Before that, under Seleukid times, it was a katoikia – or non-polis. In a paper by Peter Thonemann, he suggests the remains of a fortess at Kale Tepesi may be the ancient Toriaion.
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