Aitolia, Aitolian League AR Tetradrachm. Circa 238-228 BC. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Aitolos holding spear and sword, seated to right on Macedonian shield which rests on three Gallic shields and a carnyx; [Α]ΙΤΩΛΩΝ to left, monogram and ZΗ to right. Tsangari 464f (this coin) = de Nanteuil 879 (this coin); Boston supplement 90 (same dies); Prospero 348 (same dies); McClean 5401, pl. 197, 2 (same obv. die); Scheu, F., Coinage Systems of Aetolia, NC 1960, monogram 1; HGC 4, 954. 16.89g, 30mm, 12h.

Good Extremely Fine; magnificent old cabinet tone. Rare, and very well preserved for the type.

This coin published in D.I. Tsangari. Corpus des monnaies d’or, d’argent et de bronze de la confédération étolienne (Athens, 2007);
This coin published in H. de Nanteuil, Collection de monnaies grecques (Paris, 1925);
Ex Long Valley River Collection, Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XX, 29 October 2020, lot 95;
Ex The Bru Sale, Auction 3, 6 May 2011, lot 34 (hammer: EUR 20,000);
Privately purchased from Tradart SA in 1990;
Ex Münzen und Medaillen AG Basel, Auction 72, 6 October 1987, lot 590;
Ex H. de Nanteuil de la Norville Collection;
Ex Dr. Eugen Merzbacher Nachf., 5 April 1910, lot 446.

The Aitolian League was conceived during the reign of Philip II by the cities of Aitolia for their mutual benefit and protection, and became a formidable rival to the Macedonian monarchs and the Achaean League. It occupied Delphi from 290 BC and gained territory steadily until, by the end of the 3rd century BC, it controlled the whole of central Greece outside Attica.

One of the earliest issues of the Aitolian League, the symbolism in the reverse type of this tetradrachm is specific and boastful: the Gallic arms on which Aitolos is seated reference the League's part in the defeat of the Celtic invasion of Greece in 279 BC, when the sanctuary at Delphi was threatened and after which sculptures were dedicated in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, while the single Macedonian shield has been noted as an allusion to an Aitolian victory over the Macedonians in 314 BC and their continued general opposition to the expansionist tendencies of the kingdom. It is ironic therefore, that the type chosen for the obverse is the head of Herakles wearing the lion skin, so obviously taken from the coinage of Alexander III 'the Great'.

A parallel issue to the present type was seen by Percy Gardner as being even more direct in referencing the Celtic invasion, as it features the letters ΛY on the Macedonian shield, and A on one of the Gallic shields on which Aitolos is seated. These letters, he postulated, stand "for the names of the warriors to whom the shields captured by the Aetolians had actually belonged" (Catalogue of Greek Coins in the British Museum: Thessaly to Aetolia, p. lvii). Cassandra left the Macedonian general Lyciscus in Aitolia while engaged in the Wars of the Diadochi, while the Gallic chief whom the Aitolians battled was one Acichorius, who succeeded Brennus in command of the Gallic forces.

Only a few years after this type was struck and by the end of the 220s, Greece was effectively split between two great alliances - the Aitolian League on the one hand formed by the Aitolian states, Athens, Elis and Sparta, and the Hellenic Symmachy on the other, which was principally controlled by Philip V of Macedon, and Epeiros, though it also included the Achaian League and Boiotia. The Social War (or the War of the Allies, as it was also known, but not to be confused with the Romano-Italic war of the same name), was fought from 220 BC to 217 BC between these two opposing powers.