circa 300-200 BCE
Æ 12mm, 1,41g
Obv: Apollo standing facing, holding arrow and bow.
Rev: Skyphos.
Unpublished in the standard references.
Anaphe is a small (15 square miles) island in the Cyclades that, like most of them, is quite gorgeous. It’s sparsely populated, so perhaps has escaped most of the mass tourism of the other islands.
It’s name comes from the Argonauts, who were shown it by Apollo in order to escape a lightning storm. The word is close to “he made it appear” in Greek. Others say the name comes from the lack of snakes, since it can also be interpreted as “no snakes”. Perhaps Apollo got rid of them too. My thinking is a bunch of sailors were wandering the Aegean when the island suddenly appeared on the horizon. They were very thankful to have some rest, and when they arrived they remarked ‘and hey, there’s no snakes either!’
Of course, Apollo is depicted on the obverse of this coin. In mythology, Apollo was gifted a golden bow by Hephaistos and used it to kill the monster Python.
Legend has it the island was first settled by Phoenicians at roughly the same time as Thera (now more widely known for the island where Thera was established – Santorini). Thera would continue to influence the city during classical and Hellenistic times, and their coinage was similar.