ATTICA. Athens. Circa 364-362 BC. Token (Bronze, 11 mm, 1.46 g, 11 h), emergency issue struck under Timotheos. Head of Athena to left, wearing crested Attic helmet. Rev. [A]ΘΗ Owl standing facing on barley grain between two pellets; all within olive wreath. HGC 4, -. Kroll 35. K. Sheedy: The Emergency Coinage of Timotheus (364-362 B.C.), in: U. Wartenberg and M. Amandry (eds.), ΚΑΙΡΟΣ, Contributions to Numismatics in Honor of Basil Demetriadi, New York 2015, p. 211, fig. 1. K. Sheedy, D. Gore & M. Ponting: The Bronze Issues of the Athenian General Timotheus: Evaluating the Evidence of Polyaenus’s Stratagemata, in: AJN 27 (2015), pl. 6, 1-4. Very rare and historically interesting. Some deposits and struck slightly off center, otherwise, fine.


This curious issue was struck by the Athenian statesman and general, Timotheos, during his campaigns in the Chalkidike. According to Pseudo-Aristotle (Oec. 2.2.23), Timotheos ran out of silver and began producing bronze tokens in order to pay his soldiers, promising local merchants that the tokens could be exchanged for proper silver later (see also Polyaenus 3.10.1). While these tokens look like coins, Timotheos did not possess the right to strike actual coins, and the types were carefully altered to distinguish them from the official Athenian coinage (thus, Athena is looking left, and her helmet is not decorated with olive leaves). The Athenians were still allied with Perdikkas III of Macedon at the time, and it is possible these tokens were struck to be the equivalent of the latter's silver triobols.