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An owl just arrived, but not the usual kind...
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<p>[QUOTE="zumbly, post: 4973099, member: 57495"]Great coin! I love the owls on these and they're still on my want list. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the Obolos auction earlier this month, there was a <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7396184" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7396184" rel="nofollow">Tarentine drachm</a> of a period later than yours that included a note regarding the types. It's possible, but I'm not sure I'm convinced: </p><p>"<i>The devices - the helmeted head of Athena on the obverse paired with the facing owl of the reverse - were borrowed from the coins of Athens, which at this time were still widely recognized for their weight and purity and thus used in trade. It perhaps seems unusual that a city that claimed descent from Sparta would use Athenian types, but by this time the Peloponnesian Wars were long over and Tarentum was striving to reclaim its former glory as a cultural center. What better way to do this than to claim as her own Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and her beloved all-seeing owl?</i>"</p><p>I haven't come across any other explanation, but note that Herakleia in Lucania, which struck the same Athena/Herakles diobols as Tarentum did, also started issuing drachms using Athena and her owl as types at around the same time (ie., Pyrrhic wars). I wouldn't be surprised at a connection there.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="zumbly, post: 4973099, member: 57495"]Great coin! I love the owls on these and they're still on my want list. In the Obolos auction earlier this month, there was a [URL='https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7396184']Tarentine drachm[/URL] of a period later than yours that included a note regarding the types. It's possible, but I'm not sure I'm convinced: "[I]The devices - the helmeted head of Athena on the obverse paired with the facing owl of the reverse - were borrowed from the coins of Athens, which at this time were still widely recognized for their weight and purity and thus used in trade. It perhaps seems unusual that a city that claimed descent from Sparta would use Athenian types, but by this time the Peloponnesian Wars were long over and Tarentum was striving to reclaim its former glory as a cultural center. What better way to do this than to claim as her own Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and her beloved all-seeing owl?[/I]" I haven't come across any other explanation, but note that Herakleia in Lucania, which struck the same Athena/Herakles diobols as Tarentum did, also started issuing drachms using Athena and her owl as types at around the same time (ie., Pyrrhic wars). I wouldn't be surprised at a connection there.[/QUOTE]
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An owl just arrived, but not the usual kind...
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