Obol Silver, 8.5 mm, 0.73 g, 1 h
Susa, struck under Aspesias, satrap of Susiana, circa 316-311 BCE
Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress.
Rev. AΛEΞANΔPO[Y] Zeus seated left on low throne, holding long scepter in his left hand and eagle standing right with closed wings in his right; to left, wreath; below throne, K above monogram of ΠΡ.
Price 3860
The following is everything we know about Aspesias: Antigonos left him as satrap of Susiana in 316 BCE.
That’s it. We can assume that when Seleukos took charge of the area in 311 BCE, that Aspesias was out of a job. Was he killed? Did he have a new calling as a televangelist? Perhaps he opened a bakery with the best muffins in the eastern satraps? We just don’t know.
We do know that he minted this little obol. It’s in rough condition for a coin, but decent condition for an obol. Despite being minted in vast numbers, most haven’t survived, simply because they weren’t worth as much so they weren’t hoarded. A large percentage of the ancient coins we have today were from such hoards.
Instead, people tended to drop them, because they were very small. Back then, obols were also placed in dead people’s mouths to pay for the ferry ride over the River Styx. The charge for such was one obol, though by Roman times inflation increased it to two. I do hope that my obol wasn’t pried off some dead body, though. That wouldn’t be cool.