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Auction: 23007 - Ancient Coins Including the 'Kyrios' Collection of Greek Coins and featuring the 'Ostorius' Collection of Roman Gold
Lot: 151

Sicily, Gela, AR Tetradrachm, 480-470 BC, charioteer driving quadriga right, Nike flying right above crowning horses, rev. GELAS forepart of man-headed bull right, 16.46g (Jenkins, Gela 181; SNG ANS 35; Boston MFA 234), well-centred, toned, magnificently rich in detail, slightly softened to inscription, near extremely fine

PROVENANCE

Purchased by a distinguished collector from Spink, 1961, with ticket

Listed as purchased by Spink from 'Laus. IX, 1960' by private treaty [Inventory number G. 18051]


"But why do I entertain you with stories of others?' said Achelous, 'Indeed, young man, I have often changed shape myself, though the number of shapes I can achieve is limited. Sometimes I am seen as I am now: sometimes I become a snake: or, again, the lead bull of the herd…"


Achelous is one of the most intriguing characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Book 8, Theseus takes shelter with the river god where Theseus' companions and the god discuss some of the most memorable metamorphoses in the book including Philemon's and Baucis' transformation into trees and the ever-hungry Erysichthon. There is, however, a final twist: Achelous himself is capable of metamorphosis as he reveals at the end of the book. We learn that he can transform himself into many forms including a man and a snake, however, it is his bull form which is his most important and famous. In the following book he goes on to narrate how he lost one of his horns in a fight with Hercules. Achelous in bull form is widely recognisable in Greek art oft appearing on Greek vases with his distinctive bearded old man's head oddly imposed onto bull's body.
It is within this context we have to view the rather odd depiction of the 'man headed bull' on this Tetradrachm. It is not unsurprising that the Greeks conceptualised the gods associated with rivers as capable of a metamorphosis. Rivers were seen as inherently changing entities - Heraclitus after all had remarked 'you cannot step in the same river twice'. Artistic representation of these gods thus had many forms, but perhaps the most enduring was the bull. Achelous was the archetype of this, the most famous river god of all. The representation of rivers on coins commonly became this 'man headed bull', the distinctive iconographic marker of rivers.
Gela proved no exception to this rule. In fact, the tauriform river gods were most commonly represented on coins in Sicily and Magna Graecia. The tauriform figures cannot be distinguished between one another - context and the legend are required to determine the river in question. In this case, Gela is proclaimed above identifying both the town and the river. Such a representation was especially apt for Gela, a town named after its major river.


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Sold for
£3,000

Starting price
£2800