171, Lot: 28. Estimate $100. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

IONIA, Smyrna. Circa 75-50 BC. Æ 24mm (8.37 g). Dionysios, magistrate. Laureate head of Apollo right / Homer seated left, holding scroll. Hunter II p. 360, 12; cf. SNG Copenhagen 1208-15 (magistrate). VF, green patina.

Strabo mentions specifically this issue of bronze coinage from Smyrna when, discussing the city, he says "there is also a library; and the 'Homereum', a quadrangular portico containing a shrine and wooden statue of Homer; for the Smyrnaeans also lay especial claim to the poet and indeed a bronze coin of theirs is called a “Homereum" (Strabo, Geographica XIV, I.37, transl. by H.C. Jones, The Geography of Strabo, VI [Loeb, 1960], pp. 245-247).