TROAS. Ilium. Crispina. Diassarion (Bronze, 27 mm, 9.69 g, 7 h). KPICΠЄINA CЄBACTH Draped bust of Crispina to right. Rev. ΔAPΔANOC IΛIEΩN Dardanos seated left, chlamys draped over his left arm, holding scepter in his left hand and laying his right arm around young female figure (Bateia) leaning against him and holding a vine-branch (?). Bellinger pl. 9, T202 (same dies). BMC 71 = RPC IV online 133.1 var. (differing reverse legend arrangement). Extremely rare and of great mythological interest. The obverse somewhat rough, otherwise, good very fine.

Dardanos was a son of Zeus who founded the city of Dardanos, thus becoming the ancestor of the Troyan Dardanians and the eponym of the Dardanelles, the strait between the Thracian Chersonese and Asia Minor. The woman Dardanos is laying his arm around on this coin must be his second wife Bateia, the mother of Ilion's eponymous hero Ilos - the coin thus boasts Ilium's illustrious heritage, but it also connects the city to its Roman overlords, as Vergil's Aeneas learns through a dream that Elektra, the mother of his ancestor Dardanos, had been the wife of Corythus, the king of the Etruscan city of Tarquinia, and the prince hence of Italian origin (Verg. Aen. 3.163ff).