circa 350 BCE
Æ 11mm, 1,37g
Helmeted head of Athena (?) right /
Crab
cf. Imhoof-Blumer, Griechische Münzen (1890), 679
Telos is a small island in the Dodekanese that lies between Kos and Rhodes. Its coinage is extremely rare and I’d never heard of it until this one popped up.
According to local believe, Sappho was born on Telos and later moved to Lesbos, though this of course has been long disputed.
Like many of the Aegean Islands, its culture was ancient, enough so that colonists from here and Lindos on Rhodes founded the Sicilian city of Gela in the 7th century BCE.
During the Wars of the Diadochi, Telos was first under Seleukid control, then fell under the Ptolemies.