This hecte of Phocaea used to be one of the rarest pieces in the expansive series of Phocaean electrum coinage. When it sold at Triton in 2002, this particular coin was one of only four known specimens of the type. Barry Feirstein’s example, sold through NAC in 2007, the second to sell after this coin, fetched nearly $15,000. However, a large group discovered about 2011 brought more specimens to the market, perhaps as many as twenty, but the type is still quite rare.

Its prominent depiction of a goat head makes it relatively anomalous among the Phocaean electrum hectes. Though many Phocaean hectes depict animals, a goat head is rare. Not many ancient coins depict goats, with most of the goat coins emanating from the region of Thrace (now northeastern Greece & southern Bulgaria), a mountainous climate where goats thrived. Around the same time as this hecte (5th century BC), the city of Aenus struck coins in all denominations with a head of Hermes on the obverse and a full-bodied standing goat on the reverse. Certain smaller-scale tribal coinage of Thracian peoples like the Mygdones and Krestones also feature a full-bodied goat. But this coin of Phocaea is relatively rare in its focused depiction of just the head of the animal.

This coin was either struck during or shortly after Phocaea’s membership in the Delian League, the Athenian-led “alliance” that was in practice more of an imperial tributary system. In the center of Athens, on the Acropolis itself, was inscribed in white marble a list of all the cities and regions that were part of the Athenian empire, which masqueraded as the egalitarian and alliance-based Delian League. Phocaea, like most cities under Athenian hegemony, originally joined the Delian League of its own free will after the Greek coalition’s defeat of Xerxes and the Persians in 479 BC. But eventually, the Phocaeans grew tired of paying 2 talents of silver every year to the Athenian treasury and successfully revolted in 412 BC, while Athens was preoccupied by its titanic and ill-fated struggle with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.

Above: Another electrum hecte of Phocaea, offered for sale by Miller Ancients. Phocaea tended to include more animals on their electrum hectes, such as the goat above and this ram here. Other cities like Mytilene tended more towards images of humans or gods.