Bit of show and tell:
My first Alexander type drachm, received a week or so ago:
KINGS of MACEDON. Antigonos I Monophthalmos, as Strategos of Asia, 323-305 BC., in name of Alexander III. AR Drachm. Kolophon mint. Struck circa 310-301 BC. (19mm, 4.27 g )
Obv. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin .
Rev. 'ΛΕΞ'Ν- "ΡΟΥ, Zeus Aëtophoros seated l., monogram, K, in l. field, crescent below throne.
(19mm, 4.27 g)
Ref. Price 1825.
Κολοφών was an ancient city in Ionia. Founded around the turn of the first millennium BC, it was likely one of the oldest of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. In Greek antiquity two sons of Codrus, King of Athens, established a colony there. It was the birthplace of the philosopher Xenophanes and the poets Antimachus and Mimnermus.
Colophon was the strongest of the Ionian cities and renowned both for its cavalry and for the inhabitants' luxurious lifestyle, until Gyges of Lydia conquered it in the 7th century BC. Colophon then went into decline and was eclipsed by neighbouring Ephesus and by the rising naval power of Ionia, Miletus.
After the death of Alexander the Great, Perdiccas expelled the Athenian settlers on Samos to Colophon, including the family of Epicurus, who joined them there after completing his military service.
In the 3rd century BC, it was destroyed by Lysimachus, during the same era when he nearly destroyed (and did depopulate by forced expulsion) the neighboring Ionian League city of Lebedos.
In Roman times, after Lysimachus' conquest, Colophon failed to recover (unlike Lebedos) and lost its importance; actually, the name was transferred to the site of the port village of Notium, and the latter name disappeared between the Peloponnesian War and the time of Cicero (late 5th century BC to 1st century BC).
Additionally, the city, as a major location on the Ionic mainland, was cited as a possible home or birthplace for Homer. In his True History, Lucian lists it as a possible birthplace along with the island of Khios and the city of Smyrna, though Lucian's Homer claims to be from Babylon.
Posted 11/02/2014 10:15 am
