Featured A CT Collaboration: Paeonians & Celts

Nothing to add, but great collaborative writeups, @Sulla80 and @John Anthony!

 

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Wow - some great looking Paeonian Tetradrachms and an excellent post from @Curtisimo on Hellenistic influences on Paeonian art!

The "rearing horseman spearing something or someone" theme seems to have been fairly universally appreciated. This Black jasper scarabaeoid seal from the second half of the 5th century BC illustrates a "Persian horseman spearing a Greek foot soldier."

Public domain image via the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art.

and sometimes the tables were turned too....Constantius II 4th century AD
Constantius II (?), AE
Obv: D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right
Rev: FEL TEMP REPARATIO, soldier standing left, spearing bearded horseman, hair in two braids, who is reaching backwards.

 

@Sulla80 and @John Anthony --all very interesting. Thank you.
I had not realised how many different reverses appear to exist.

Here is mine



This one appealed to me because the warrior on the reverse appears to be in the very act of falling over.

 

I also found the Gaebler's 3 coins from AMNG surprising for the 3 different stages of attack - (first charge) (going down) (on the ground). Illustrated with coins from this thread (yours an earlier stage of engagement than mine):

 

Very informative post! I just happened to purchase a Paeonian tet the other day, paid $350, which I find more than fair. It looks like that mine shares the same obverse die as @eparch @kazuma78 !

Here's mine.

24mm, 12.4 grams

 

Fascinating gentlemen

 

This is a very late follow-up (!), but seeing as the second part of the sale of the Paeonia Hoard was only lightly mentioned, I thought I'd include an addendum. (I've shared this in a recent thread elsewhere referencing this discussion.)

Overall, the most spectacular examples may have appeared in Sotheby's, but I'd only call the Parke-Bernet sale the "lower end" in the same sense that Triton XV / BCD Thessaly II is the lower end and Nomos 4 / BCD Thessaly was the higher end. Strictly speaking, yes, but the coins are still higher end that one would find in a typical auction, and it's an essential reference for the types of coins included. (E.g., It included more than one Alexander III AV Distater, as well as many superb AV Staters of Philip II and Alexander III, and many spectacular Tetradrachms from the hoard.)


Here's my copy of the second part, with my annotations below (from my catalog collection page)



Paeonia Hoard II = Parke-Bernet Sale 2951, 9 Dec 1969, "The Extremely Important Greek Hoard (Being Coins in Gold and Silver of Northern Macedonia)."
278 Total Lots (incl. groups), weights given (0.01g) only for single-lots (die matches also seem to be noted), ~122 coins illustrated. 24 pp. + several pp. front mater incl. 2 pp. preface & Biblio + several pp. back matter + 8 Pl.
[Clain-Stefanelli 2362; Spring 503; Daehn 3271; Gengerke p. 193].
Prov: Acq. from Bryce Brown. Original PRL laid in. Hand priced in margins (red ink).
Notes: Coins from Paeonia 1968 Hoard (IGCH 410; CH I, 40), preceded by Paeonia Hoard I (Clain-Stefanelli 2363; Spring 833; Daehn 3293).


And here's my coin of that type.
My understanding is that most of these come from the hoard, and one of the two 1969 catalogs, but the vast majority were not illustrated or described with weights. I haven't checked the Sotheby's catalog yet, but I doubt mine is nice enough or from a scarce enough die to merit a single-lot and/or illustration. Still, these are really neat coins and I enjoy having one:



Greek (Late Classical/Early Hellenistic). Paeonian Kings, Patraos AR Tetradrachm (12.45g, 22mm, 12h). Paeonia, Astibos or Damastion mint, struck c. 340 - 315 BCE.
Obverse: Laureate head of youthful Apollo facing r.
Reverse: ΠATPAOY. Horseman right, spearing fallen enemy. M above.
Refereces: Paeonian Hoard I, 198 (same dies), 188 (obv die); HGC 3.1, 148. cf. SNG ANS 1032 (obv die; diff rev symbol); AMNG III/2, 4 var. (no M). See also CT 392714 (3 Feb 2022).
Provenance: Ex-Auctiones GmbH Auction 34 (Online, 22 Feb 2015), Lot 17.
Notes: Characteristically lower quality production compared to the Macedonians, to whom they paid tribute. Lightly toned. Depicts Paeonian cavalry who became an important part of the Macedonian Empire's military machine. The great mystery of these coins is why some of the fallen soldiers distinctly appear to be Macedonian. Is there some kind of rebellion against their overlords happening? Did the Macedonians take this coinage as an insult?


Further reading (and my notes):

Wright 2012 = NICHOLAS L. WRIGHT. 2012. “The Horseman and the Warrior: Paionia and Macedonia in the Fourth Century BC.” Numismatic Chronicle Vol. 172, pp. 1-26. [Available on JSTOR or on NW's Academia page.]

• Since Hugo Gaebler (1935) – later popularised by Irwin Merker (1965) – the typical interpretation is that the scene commemorates the famous event (preserved by Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, and later Plutarch) when Alexander III’s forces were attacked by Persian cavalry under Satropates upon crossing the Tigris, and Paeonian commander Ariston and his cavalry charged, finally decapitating the Persian commander and presenting the head to Alexander. Gaebler and Merker believed it depicts Ariston on horseback and Satropates fallen, wearing Persian garb.
• Wright disagrees. Macedonian clothing is described for some of the fallen soldiers, as are various other enemies, including northern / western European barbarians, including perhaps Gauls.
• Provenance. Page 10: The vast majority of examples with known provenance come from two (or three) hoards (with a few strays finds or single examples in others):
• the (Rážinci) Razinci Hoard, 1961 (IGCH 411, Bulgaria; Gerasimov, BIAB 26 (1963), p. 264), which included 1,208 examples;
• the Paeonia Hoard, 1968 (IGCH 410) in either FYROM ("the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM)) or Bulgaria, which included “perhaps 1,700-1,800 examples” of this type (not fully illustrated, but with some repetition of examples between the Sotheby’s and Parke-Bernet sales);
• It is so far unclear to me if any of the IGCH 411 examples (Razinci, 1961) were dispersed in the market; none are immediately apparent;
• A third hoard was mentioned in Merker [but not mentioned here in Wright's article] of a hoard of “Paionian coins with over 1,000 coins… found in the 19th century, has been dispersed without any adequate record.”