CRETE. Lyttos. Circa 320-270 BC. Stater (Silver, 25 mm, 11.00 g, 12 h). Eagle flying left with leg below. Rev. ΛYTTI/ON Head of a boar to left; all within dotted square within incuse square. BMC 12. Le Rider pl. VII, 17 (same dies). Gillet 1026 (this coin). Svoronos, Crète, 36 and pl. XXI, 27 (same obverse die). A beautifully toned and very well centered example of vigorous style. Good very fine.


Lyttos was a major city in the foothills of the Lasithi mountains that Polybios considered to be the oldest polis in Crete (Polyb. 4.54.6). The town had close connections with Sparta and is almost universally called Lyktos in literary sources; however, its coins invariably provide the local spelling of the ethnic as Lyttos.