MYSIA. Kyzikos. Circa 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.09 g, 1 h). Silenos, nude and bearded, kneeling right, holding kantharos in his right hand and pouring wine from a large amphora held with his left on his left leg; below, tunny to right. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 100. Boston MFA 1505-6 = Warren 1462-3. Gulbenkian 643. Jameson 1416. SNG Paris 318-9. Von Fritze I, 172 and pl. V, 20. Very rare and beautifully preserved, with an unusually well centered and complete obverse. About extremely fine.


This unusually vivid Dionysiac scene shows Silenos crouching on the tunny, balancing an amphora on his raised leg as he pours wine into a drinking cup.The subject must have been particularly appropriate at Kyzikos, where the cult of Dionysos is independently attested: Athenaeus records that 'in Cyzicus there is set up a bull-shaped statue of him' (Deipnosophistae XI.476a). Silenos, the habitual companion of Dionysos and embodiment of wine-fueled revelry, therefore had a resonance at Kyzikos that went beyond his familiar mythological role.