PHRYGIA. Apameia. Pseudo-autonomous issue. Tetrassarion (Bronze, 27 mm, 12.72 g, 7 h), circa 240-260 AD. KЄΛAINOC Heroically nude bust of the hero Kelainos to right, drapery on left shoulder and wearing tainia. Rev. AΠAMЄΩN Aphrodite pudica, nude, standing facing, head to right. BMC 117. SNG Copenhagen -. SNG Leypold -. SNG München -. SNG von Aulock -. Extremely rare, possibly the second known example. About very fine.


Strabon reports that Antiochos I Soter, who founded Apameia Kibotos in honor of his mother Apame, populated his new residential city with settlers from the nearby old Phrygian city of Kelainai. The Apameans never forgot their heritage and still hailed, as this coin shows, the hero Kelainos as their ancestor some 500 years later.