ISLANDS OFF TROAS, Tenedos. Circa 100-70 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 32 mm, 13.63 g, 12 h). Janiform head of a laureate and bearded male to left and a diademed female to right. Rev. TENEΔIΩN Large labrys; to lower left, monogram of TE and grape; to lower right, Dionysos standing left, holding grape in his right hand and thyrsos in his left; all within laurel wreath. Callataÿ, Tenedos, 2 (this coin, D2/R1a). Well struck and clear, and with an exceptional pedigree. Cleaning scratches and the reverse somewhat double struck, otherwise, nearly extremely fine.


The island of Tenedos guarded the entrance to the Hellespont and traditionally served as an important waypoint for every ship sailing to or from the Propontis and the Black Sea. As such, it was not only an important landmark, but of great strategic importance to any major naval power in the region. Unsurprisingly, Tenedos had close ties to the Athenians, who used the island as a stronghold to protect their vital supply routes to the Black Sea; however, with the dwindling might of Athenian naval power, the Tenedians became subject to the Hellenistic monarchies in the 3rd to 1st centuries BC, being controlled first by the Seleukids, then the Attalids and eventually by Mithradates VI Eupator. As de Callataÿ has shown, it is during the latter's long reign that the impressive Tenedian stephanophoric tetradrachms were struck in the first decades of the 1st century BC. Although the exact background of the issue is unclear, we know from Plutarch that the Pontic King used the island as a naval base in the Third Mithradatic War (73-63 BC). However, Lucullus defeated the Pontic fleet in 72 BC, sinking and capturing 32 warships and an unknown number of transport vessels (Plut. Luc. 3). It seems that Tenedos subsequently lost its autonomy and was incorporated into the polis of Alexandria on the nearby mainland (Paus. 10.14.4).

In early February 54 BC, Cicero refers to a Tenedian embassy requesting, unsuccessfully, from the Senate to be made a libera civitas in a letter to his brother Quintus, saying that 'Tenediorum igitur libertas securi Tenedia praecisa est' ('Well then, the liberty of the Tenedians has been chopped by the Tenedian axe.' Cic. Q. fr. 2.9). Clearly this is a reference to the Tenedian labrys shown on the reverse of our coin, which was, according to the local foundation myth, used by the eponymous hero Tennes to chop the mooring ropes to his father's ship when the latter tried to land on the island to reconcile with his son. In fact, when Pausanias talks about this myth, he explicitely concludes: ἐπὶ τούτῳ μὲν ἐς τοὺς ἀρνουμένους στερεῶς λέγεσθαι καθέστηκεν ὡς ὁ δεῖνα ὅστις δὴ Τενεδίῳ πελέκει τόδε τι ἀποκόψειεν. ('For this reason a by-word has arisen, which is used of those who make a stern refusal: So and so has cut whatever it may be with an axe of Tenedos.' Paus. 10.14.4).