Ancient Coin Stories

Among the “dark areas” of ancient coinage, as far as I can tell, are the coins of the Bottiaians. They’re quite easy to obtain, though most widely known are those minted under Macedon. They did mint bronzes prior to Philip II, and are believed to have minted silver coins similar to (and perhaps minted in the same place) Potidaia.

I oriented it this way because I’m not sure the seller’s description of a “plow” is correct. It may be more of a tripod. Regardless, this is the only coin I’m aware of that mentions Spartolos by name. The tag that came with the coin mentioned “unique” and it may possibly be so.

Spartolos was the main city of the Bottiaians, and its believed all its coins were minted there. The city played a significant part in the Peloponnesian War, with Athens squaring off against the Chalkidian League there in 429 BCE (The Battle of Spartolos). While Athens initially had success, it was eventually routed.

Some time after that, Athens seems to have succeeded in joining it to the Delian League. At the Peace of Nikias in 421 BCE, Spartolos was declared neutral. In 381 BCE, when the Spartan force under Teleutias was defeated, many of the vanquished fled to Spartolos. It presumably suffered when Philip II defeated the Chalkidian League in 348 BCE, but must have recovered by the 2nd century BCE, when coins minted under the name of Macedon appeared.

If this is a tripod, it may suggest that the coin was minted around the time of Philip‘s campaign in 348 BCE. Tripods on bronzes often allude to Macedon, so the city may have surrendered to Philip. But again, I’m not sure it’s a tripod.

Bronze coins of Bottiaia are poorly studied. In fact, all the online sources I’ve looked at mention a single type, but there are clearly multiple. You can see here the Kithara is different and there are at least two denominations. Admittedly, there are sources I don’t have access to that may list more. I actually have a number of coins from Bottiaia, since they were prevalent in a lot I purchased recently.