Nola
Didrachm circa 400-385, AR 7.08 g. Head of nymph r., hair bound by large ribbon, wearing earring and necklace. Rev. NΩAIΩ[N] Man-headed bull walking l., crowned by Nike flying l. Sambon 806b. Weber 389 (this obverse die). de Luynes 193 (this reverse die). Gillet 24 (this coin). SNG ANS 553 (this obverse die). Rutter 34c (this coin). Historia Numorum Italy 605.
Very rare. Wonderful iridescent tone, minor marks and slightly off-centre
on reverse, otherwise good very fine

Ex Sambon-Canessa 9 May 1903, Maddalena, 201 (illustrated on pl. I, 20); Adolph Hess 28 April 1936, 268; Spink & Son 20, 1986, 24 and New York XXVII, 2012, Prospero, 8 sales. From the Charles Gillet collection.
Nola was a native Italic city of Campania that had absorbed much Greek culture through exposure to the important Greek colony of Neapolis. Nola was closely aligned with its neighbor and reportedly supplied 2,000 men to defend Neapolis against the Romans in 327 BC. However, these fled after the city was taken through trickery. Never forgetting the role that Nola had played in the defense of Neapolis, the Romans marched against the city in 313 BC, devastating its territory and forcing its surrender. This didrachm also reflects the influence of Neapolis on the coinage of the Campanian cities. Here the female head and man-faced bull crowned by Nike types are clearly derived from similar types struck at Neapolis in the fourth century BC. While the bound female head here was probably intended to depict Nola, the eponymous nymph of the city, it closely imitates a head thought to represent Parthenope on Neapolitan issues.