Menu

Coin of the Month

January 2025: Another Coin Variety of Magistrate Δει( ) from Dardanos

The Coin of this Month is presented by Vladimir Stolba


Less than a year has passed since we presented a new variety of Dardanos coins to our readers as the Coin of the Month for April 2024. Now we are pleased to present another new variant from this city, featuring the same magistrate name Δει( ).

The previous coin was a small denomination, 9mm in diameter and weighing 1.52g, with typical images of a horseman with spear on the obverse and a rooster on the reverse (CN 55608). It stood out due to the hitherto unattested magistrate name Δει( ) placed under the horseman figure. This same name appears on the new variety presented here. However, this is a larger coin representing double the denomination of our previously published one. This also explains the ifferences in the reverse design. The rooster – a symbol of the famous cockfights held in the city – is shown not standing calmly but in a fighting stance with head extended forward. A grain ear serves as the ground line. The ethnic is presented in a more complete form: ΔΑΡΔΑ instead of ΔΑΡ. This type of reverse was previously known on other coin issues of the city.


As we previously suggested, it is possible that the abbreviation Δει( ) stands for a member of the city elite, Δεινοκλῆς, father of Apollodoros, one of Dardanos' θεωροί mentioned in an inscription from Samothrace dated around 66 BC (IG XII (8) 173 b, 12). Apart from Δεινοκράτης in a late fourth-century BC inscription from Gargara, this is the only known individual whose name begins with Δει( ) not only in Dardanos but in all of the Troad. The paleography of the magistrate's name with lunate epsilon does not contradict this identification.



View Coin



All Coins/Types of the month: