Circa 400 BCE
AE 8.81mm 0.59g
Obverse: Bearded head of Silenos right
Reverse: ???, Dolphin leaping right
Attribution: SNG Von Aulock 1765
ex Gorny & Mosch auction 181
Pordosilene, which was not actually located on the island of Lesbos but on the mainland just next to it, has easily the strangest name from antiquity. It literally means ‘selinous fart’, or a fart of the goddess Selene.
Presumably there’s some story behind that that we’ve lost. Even Strabo mentioned this weird name in his time. Likely for this reason, the city was later renamed to Nasos, although during Roman times it reverted back to Proselene (without the word ‘fart’).
Aristotle strangely gave the location of the city as at the end of a road that divided the land into two parts – one with weasels and one without. Did the weasels know not to cross the road? They’re not exactly the easiest mammals to see, so how were they absolutely sure the other half didn’t have any weasels?
Whether Pordoselene was the same as Nasos is currently debated.