PAMPHYLIA, Side. Circa 200-190 BC. AR Tetradrachm (28mm, 16.78 gm). Head of Athena right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet; c/m: bow in bow-case with
PER-GA around / Nike advancing left, holding wreath; pomegranate to left,
DE-H (magistrate) across fields. For coin: cf. SNG France 684; BMC Lycia pg. 294, 30B; cf. SNG Copenhagen 397. For c/m: Bauslaugh, "Cistophoric Countermarks and the Monetary System of Eumenes II," in NumChron 1990, pg. 42. Coin VF, c/m Good VF.
The PER-GA counterstamp was applied in Pergamon. Other bow and bow-case counterstamps on Alexander-type tetradrachms and Side tetradrachms, with different legends, have been attributed to Ephesus, Adramyttium, Sardes, Tralles, Laodicea, and Apamea. Price has linked these counterstamps to the introduction of the cistophoric coinage circa 180 BC, and suggested that the application of these counterstamps permitted the circulation of Attic weight coins in the years following the reform. Bauslaugh, however, believes a more preferrable explanation is that these coins were part of the indemnity payment by Antiochos III to Eumenes II following the Peace of Apamaea, and that the countermarks were applied as the coinage was subsequently dispersed to the cities of the Pergamene kingdom.
