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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 2256527, member: 57495&quot;]Even as the Athenians were minting their famed silver Owl tetradrachms and seeing them used for trade and payment throughout the Greek world and beyond, their great military and political rivals, the Spartans, were using iron bars as money... apparently, those funny old Spartans just didn&#039;t care very much for coins. That collectors now place any kind of premium on coins that were struck in latter day Lakedaimon (a name by which Sparta was also known), a time far removed from its golden age, might hence be a little ironic.&nbsp; The old Spartans, as famous for their dry, &#039;laconic&#039; wit as their military prowess, would probably have had something succinct and impolite to say about it.</p><p><br /></p><p>My humble example of Spartan coinage was struck by Eurycles, a certain Spartan who was made hegemon by Augustus.&nbsp; His father had been executed by Mark Antony, and when Eurycles commanded a ship at the Battle of Actium in support of Octavian, it is said that he pursued a fleeing Antony more fervently than any others and drew close enough to yell taunts at him.</p><p><br /></p><p>Eurycles was subsequently rewarded with rule of Lakedaimon, which remained a free and autonomous city, its territories enlarged at the expense of cities that had not supported Octavian.&nbsp; Nevertheless, the glory days of Sparta were over.&nbsp; To the average Roman, Sparta was probably no more than a historical novelty.&nbsp; It was in fact something of a tourist attraction, its antique rites and ceremonies of centuries past revived and re-enacted for curious and perhaps appreciative foreign audiences, some of whom might have mused, &quot;so this is Sparta...&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]447317[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>LAKONIA, Lakedaimon (Sparta)</b></p><p>AE As</p><p>5.7g, 20.3mm</p><p>C. Julius Eurycles as hegemon, circa 31-7 BC</p><p>RPC 1103; BMC 63</p><p>O: Head of Zeus right.</p><p>R: Club; Λ-A/EΠI EY/PY-K(ΛE)/O-Σ in four lines across field; all within wreath.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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