★ An Impressive Late Issue of Terina ★

Bruttium, Terina AR Stater. Circa 380 BC. Head of the nymph Terina right, wearing triple-pendant earring and pearl necklace; TEPINAIΩN before / Nike, wearing a long chiton and himation, sits left on a cippus shown in perspective, her feet crossed, the folds of her himation fall between her legs, draping the cippus; upon her outstretched right hand, held palm down, a dove alights; her left rests on the cippus. BMC 41; SNG ANS 852; SNG Lloyd 761; Holloway & Jenkins 84; Regling, Terina - (these dies unlisted); H. von Fritze & H. Gaebler, "Terina", Nomisma 1, 1907, 15pp, -, cf. pl. II, M/σσσ (these dies unlisted); Basel 242; Gulbenkian 154; Bendenoun, JDL Collection 2 (this coin); HN Italy 2629; HGC 1, 1756. 6.24g, 20mm, 6h.

Good Extremely Fine; magnificent old cabinet tone. Rare and almost certainly the finest specimen known of the issue struck from this die-pair.

This coin published in M.-M. Bendenoun, Coins of the Ancient World, A portrait of the JDL Collection (Geneva, 2009);
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex JDL Collection, Numismatica Ars Classica AG - Tradart SA, Auction 79, 20 October 2014, lot 1;
Ex Giessener Münzhandlung, Auction 50, 24 September 1990, lot 137.

Little is known of Terina; even its location is lost, though it is thought to have been in the vicinity of S. Eufemia Lamezia. The city was founded sometime before 460 BC by settlers from Kroton, probably after the Krotoniate defeat of Sybaris c.510. It was regarded as the burial place of the siren Ligeia, which suggests a more ancient settlement at this spot predating the Krotoniate colony. The city appears little in the histories of Magna Graecia, though we learn from an incidental note in Polyaenos’ Stratagems (2.10.1) that the city was engaged in war with Thourioi under Kleandridas a few years after 444/3 - proof that Terina was significant in both size and power. That it was an important centre of trade, culture and wealth is further attested by the quality, diversity and number of its coins, as well as by evidence that a citizen of Terina was victorious at Olympia in 392 (Olympionikai 376).

Diodorus (16.15.2) reports that Terina was conquered by the Bruttians in 356, noting that it was the first Greek city to fall to the rising power of that people. Though it was recovered from them by Alexander of Epeiros, after the king’s death it is likely that it quickly fell again under their dominion.

The present coin hails from the age of prosperity and power of Terina, and is directly influenced by the works on the coinage of both Olympia and Syracuse. The nymph Terina’s form is evidently inspired by Euainetos’ Arethusa, while the reverse is a direct evolution of the die dated c.410-405 which is signed by ‘P’ (Regling 43), and which Harlan J. Berk suggests as being a possible work of the master Polykrates. That die had been undoubtedly inspired by the coinage of Elis for the 87th Olympiad in 432 (Seltman 133), which in its turn was a celebration of the masterful Nike balustrade in the Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis.

The reverse die of the present piece, though unsigned, is by a hand far more skilled than Regling 43, and can be considered not only to rank on a par with the famed issue of the 87th Olympiad, but even to have surpassed it. The folds and pleats of Nike’s chiton convey a sense of delicacy and fluidity as is seldom seen in numismatic art, being most akin to those rendered on the Nike of Samothrace.