Sikyonia, Sikyon. Silver Stater (12.00 g), ca. 335-330 BC. ΣE below, chimaera prowling left; above, wreath. Reverse: Dove flying left; before, I; all within wreath. BCD Peloponnesos 219; SNG Copenhagen -. NGC grade Ch VF; Strike: 3/5, Surface: 3/5. Estimated Value $400 - UP
Although they are perhaps sometimes underestimated, the staters of Sikyon in the fourth century BC were some of the most important coins struck in the Peloponnesos. Without them, the Spartans could not have financed the conflicts with Athens leading up to and during the great Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). The Spartans famously refused to strike any coinage of their own during the Classical period except for iron coins that were useless outside of Lakedaimon and thus Sikyon became a proxy mint for Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Aigina with its widely recognized turtles was lost as a pro-Spartan mint when the Athenians expelled the Aiginetans from their island in 431 BC. While the dove refers to the local cult of Aphrodite, it remains unclear why the chimaera was chosen as the main obverse type for Sikyonian staters. It has been variously (and unconvincingly) suggested that the legend of Bellerophon (a Corinthian hero) slaying the beast in Lycia was somehow transferred to Sikyon or that the goat ( aigos ) head of the beast referred to Aigialeia, an old name of Sikyon.