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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ancientnut, post: 2655474, member: 73212&quot;]My two other wins in the Goldberg auction (sure wish it had been 96, Doug!) are not from Magna Graecia. Distracted again…<img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie45" alt=":eggface:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>I have wanted a nice Cretan stater ever since I started collecting again. They are usually overstruck or from crude or worn dies. This is a dramatic type with which I am very satisfied. There is some porosity on both sides and only a portion of Herakles’ club is on the flan, but a dynamic, artistic representation of nude Herakles.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]588151[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Phaistos, Crete, AR stater, c 300-270 BC, 10.99 g. OBV: Herakles standing left, lion&#039;s skin draped over left arm, striking at Hydra with club held in right hand; between feet, crab / REV: ΦAIΣTΩN, bull standing right. Svoronos 59; Le Rider pl. XXIII, 22 (same dies); BMC 9, 12.</p><p>Purchased in Ira and Larry Goldberg Auction 96, 14 February 2017, lot 1679.</p><p>From the Hanbery Collection.</p><p>Ex Munzen &amp; Medaillen AG, 22-23 October 1984, lot 192.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>From the catalog:</p><p>“Despite the fact that the Cretan city of Phaistos was far removed from Lerna in the Peloponnesos, the obverse of this coin depicts Herakles engaged in the second of his twelve Labors - the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra. The Hydra was a monstrous swamp serpent with nine venomous heads and a terrible secret: When one of its heads was cut off two more would grow up in its place! Herakles would have been done for if not for his companion, Iolaos, who discovered that if the neck was cauterized with a torch after decapitation it would prevent new heads from appearing. Thus, Herakles would chop one head off while Iolaos stood by to sear the neck with a torch and in this way they killed the monster. Since this and the other Labors of Herakles were part of a larger plot by Hera to destroy him, she made the situation even more difficult by sending a giant crab to distract the hero while he struggled with the monster. It is interesting to note that while the engraver has been careful to include the detail of the crab on this coin there is no sign of poor Iolaos at all.</p><p>It is unclear whether the bull reverse should be interpreted as a representation of Herakles&#039; seventh Labor, the capture of the Cretan Bull. This animal was sent from the sea by Poseidon to test King Minos, who had promised to sacrifice anything that the god sent him. Thinking the bull too beautiful to kill, he sacrificed another bull in its place. This betrayal enraged Poseidon who caused the bull to rampage throughout Crete and beget the monstrous Minotaur on Pasiphaê, Minos&#039; queen. The destructive wandering of the Cretan Bull was only ended when it was carried off to mainland Greece by Herakles.”</p><p><br /></p><p>If anyone else won lots in Goldberg 96, please post them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, let’s see your coins of Crete![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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