MACEDON, Dikaia. Circa 500-450 BC. AR Attic Tetradrachm (16.86 gm). Cow standing right on dotted ground line, licking hoof on raised right hind leg, sea swallow above; eight pointed star in exergue / Octopus within square incuse. Boston MFA 542 = Traité pg. 1125, 1586 (same dies). Good VF. Extremely Rare, apparently only the second known specimen. $40,000.
CNR XXVII, June 2002, lot 11.
The Macedonian city of Dikaia - not to be confused with the Thracian city of the same name - was an Eretrian colony located on the Thermaic gulf. For its tetradrachms, known only from a handful of examples, Dikaia adopted the cow and octopus designs of its mother city, sometimes with the addition of an ethnic.
We have been able to locate only one sales record for a Dikaia tetradrachm, a variant of the present type, which sold in Bank Leu 28 (1981), lot 66, for 63,000 Swiss Francs. The only previously known example of our type is the Boston specimen.