From the Rosen Collection
CALABRIA, Tarentum. Circa 510-500 BC. AR Nomos (24mm, 7.66 g, 12h). Phalanthos riding dolphin right, extending left hand, right hand resting on dolphin’s back; TARAS (retrograde) to left, scallop shell below, dot-and-cable border around / Incuse of obverse type; [T]ARA[Σ] to right, radiate border around. Fischer-Bossert Group 1, 9e (V6/R8) = Rosen Sale 432 (this coin); Vlasto 63 (same dies); HN Italy 826; Kraay & Hirmer 294; de Luynes 260 (same dies). Good VF, toned, small area of flat strike, a couple insignificant die breaks on obverse. Very rare early issue, the first featuring the dolphin rider on both sides.
From the JP Collection. Ex Johnathan P. Rosen Collection (Münzen und Medaillen AG 72, 6 October 1987), lot 432; Numismatic Fine Arts XIV (29 November 1984), lot 6.
As noted in the NFA sale, “This very early stater belongs to only the second issue of coinage at Tarentum.... According to a late antique commentator, a statue of this subject stood in the Tarentine Agora (Probus on Vergil, Georgics 2.197), though we do not know whether it inspired the coinage, or followed it. On the identity of the dolphin rider–Phalanthos, the historical founder, or Taras, the local river god?–see R. R. Holloway, Art and Coinage in Magna Graecia (1978), p. 35 and note 1.”
