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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 3666642, member: 57495&quot;]I won this cool little Greek bronze awhile ago, but only just got around to photographing it recently.&nbsp; I was attracted to it because the reverse&#039;s clear depiction of a fox - bushy tail, pointy ears and all.&nbsp; It&#039;s an animal I always thought was curiously underrepresented on ancient coins, and this rare type was one that I didn&#039;t even know existed, from a city I&#039;d never heard of before.&nbsp; Needless to say, I really wanted it. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie80" alt=":shame:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The coin was struck in Alopekonessos, which in Greek literally means &quot;fox island.&quot;&nbsp; Alopekonessos was an Aeolian colony located on the north-western coast of the Thracian Chersonese, and was so named after a tradition that held that an oracle had directed the colonists to settle at a spot where they first encountered a fox and her cub.&nbsp; While foxes were common in ancient Greece and Italy, they appear to have held a special significance for the tribes of Thrace.&nbsp; Bendis, the Thracian goddess of the hunt, was typically shown wearing a fox-skin cap (<i>alopekis</i>), and Herodotus noted that similar caps were worn by Thracian soldiers.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>For a time, the city of Alopekonessos was a possession of Athens, though the town seemingly did not impress Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator and statesman who visited it around 359 BC, while he was serving as a trierarch (commanding officer of a trireme), and who reported that it was &quot;a place swarming with robbers and pirates.&quot;&nbsp; Alas, it is not recorded if Demosthenes had anything to say about the foxes. </p><p><br /></p><p>If you have any fox coins, or any fun new additions to your animal menagerie, please feel free to share &#039;em!</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]986005[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>THRACE, Alopekonnesos</b></p><p>AE13. 2.33g, 13.5mm. THRACE, Alopekonnesos, circa 3rd-2nd centuries BC. HGC 3.2, 1307; Yarkin 59. O: Helmeted head of Athena to right. R: ΑΛΩ-ΠΕΚΟΝ, Fox standing to right; ear of grain before. Notes: Very Rare.</p><p><i>Ex Thrax Collection</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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