CILICIA. Soloi. Circa 440-410 BC. Stater Amazon, nude to the waist, kneeling left and stringing her bow; wearing bonnet and with her gorytos at her hip; to right, facing head of satyr. Rev. ΣΟΛΕΩΝ Bunch of grapes; to right, fly; all within incuse square. Casabonne Type 2. SNG Levante 40. SNG Paris 128 10.71g 22.1mm My first purchase from Leu Numismatik and a type I've had my eye on for a few years. Decent dies are hard to come by at a reasonable price. The following is an excerpt from Nomos 1, lot 115, 2009 (the finest example I've seen.) "The word solecism, meaning a grammatical mistake or absurdity, was invented by the ancient Athenians to describe the Greek dialect spoken in Soloi, which they thought was a corrupt version of Attic. Perhaps the beautiful bunch of grapes on this coin gives us a hint as to why the people of Soloi made so many mistakes in speaking: Pliny records that much wine was produced in Cilicia and Soloi’s standard type of a bunch of grapes implies that some of it was certainly made here! The Amazons were a tribe of female warriors who supposedly originated in northern Asia Minor. They appear in a great number of Greek legends and were a favorite subject for ancient painting and sculpture (they supposedly removed their right breasts in order to be better able to throw javelins and draw their bows, but this is never shown in works of art and it seems prima facie unlikely). The engraver of this coin got out of the problem by showing the Amazon from behind, with only her left breast visible under her arm. Precisely why she appears on the coinage of Soloi is unknown and probably relates to a local myth." Source:https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=138679 -Michael
That's a really really nice example. So many are off center, poorly struck or suffer from very worn obverse dies. Excellent score!
I have Adrienne Mayor's book The Amazons somewhere but I can't find it right now. She has a chapter devoted to the myth of the Amazon Antiope and coins of Soloi. https://twitter.com/amayor/status/688432607873241088
