Unique Gortyna Gold

Triton XIX, Lot: 2042. Estimate $20000. Sold for $32500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CRETE, Gortyna. Circa 330-270 BC. AV Hemistater (16mm, 4.18 g, 12h). Europa seated half-right in tree, lifting her veil with her right hand, her left resting on branch to left; to left, eagle standing left, head right, on branch / Bull butting right; ΓOPTY-NΩN above and below; all within circular border of dots. Unpublished, but cf. Svoronos, Numismatique 105–6 for silver didrachms with the same obverse type and a similar reverse. Good VF, slight die shift and tiny deposits on reverse. Unique.

From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Classical Numismatic Group Inventory 728168 (October 2001).

While the myth of Europa as one of Zeus’ numerous trysts is well-known and has been the subject of literature and art since at least the fifth century BC, certain portions of the entire episode received more attention than others. What occurred when Zeus brought Europa to Crete is one such part. According to the later authors Theophrastos (371-ca. 287 BC) and Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), Zeus consummated his abduction of Europa in a plane-tree (ἡ πλάτανος), an event commemorated on a series of silver and bronze issues from the Cretan city of Gortyna, the site of that event.

According to the traditional account, Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, the sister of Kadmos, the legendary founder of Corinth, and Kilix, for whom Cilicia was named, and was a descendant of Io, one of Zeus’ numerous other mortal female trysts. Europa, too, attracted the eye of Zeus, who, transforming himself into a white bull, seduced the young girl, carrying her across the Aegean Sea to the region of Gortyna on Crete, where she was made the first queen of Crete. Gortyna’s special involvement in this myth – it was claimed the plane-tree was still extant centuries after the event – made its depiction on the civic coinage an important reminder of the city’s role in Crete’s early history.