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Auction: 23007 - Ancient Coins Including the 'Kyrios' Collection of Greek Coins and featuring the 'Ostorius' Collection of Roman Gold
Lot: 100

The 'Kyrios' Collection | Ionia, Smyrna AR Tetradrachm, c.155-145 BC, turreted head of Tyche right, rev. SMYR-NAION within wreath, magistrates monogram below, 16.78g (Milne, Silver, (5a corr.; SNG Fitzwilliam 4575 (same dies); SNG Lockett 2849; Pozzi 2512; Boston MFA 1933 = Warren 1129), superb portrait, very finely detailed and well centred, lightly toned and in high relief, extremely fine

PROVENANCE

Spink 206, 2 December 2010, lot 1250, 'extremely fine' - £4,000


Tyche was the goddess of fate and fortune, good and bad. Her divine identity was really a personification of the word which could just be used as the noun for luck or chance. As a personification, she had a very slippery identity, but one which became increasingly popular and more tangible in the 4th century and the Hellenistic period. Cults to her popped up in most major Greek cities as she came to personify the very destiny of a city itself. Her popularity too was attested in literature, as she became a frequent character in Greek 'New' Comedy, albeit in an often in a malevolent role. In her role as the city goddess, she acquired her distinctive turreted crown. Statues of her as such became so popular that the sculptor Eutychides made a career of it at the end of the fourth century, enough to warrant an entry in Pliny.
Smyrna typified this type of engagement - Tyche even became the city's main cult alongside her counterpart Nemesis. One of the city's main gates was even called the agathe Tyche (literally the 'Good Luck' gate). The major cult statue to Tyche in the city was a famous sculpture by Boupalos, even receiving a mention by the travel writer Pausanias. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that a city which honoured the goddess of fortune so highly for them to venerate her on their coins.


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Sold for
£4,000

Starting price
£1800