IONIA, Miletos
AE13. 1.79g, 12.8mm
MINTED: IONIA, Miletos, circa 250-190 BC
REF: SNG Copenhagen 990 var. (magistrate's name)
OBVERSE: Laureate head of Apollo right.
REVERSE: Lion standing right, looking back; star above, magistrate's name below.
 
Grade/Notes:
Fine. Dark green patina with some hard earthen deposits.
 
Historical Notes:
Miletos was the largest and most important city of Ionia in western Asia Minor, and in the century before the rise of Athens, arguably the cultural center of the Greek world.  Situated at the mouth the river Maeander, it possessed four natural harbours and a rich, fertile valley hinterland.  Milesian colonists founded as many as 60 cities along the coast of the Black Sea while at home, Miletos frequently found itself in rivalry with the neighbouring Kingdom of Lydia.  Both Lydia and Miletos were eventually conquered by the Persians in the mid 6th century BC, and Miletos would remain under Achaemeneid domination until Xerxes I's defeat by the Greeks at the Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis in 480 BC.  Miletos was the birthplace of Thales of Miletos, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer who is regarded as the "Father of Western Philosophy."