All who love ancient coins know the iconic design of the mid-mass Athenian owls (440-404 BC), but the New Style owls struck in the second and first centuries BC are much scarcer and more valuable. They possess a level of artistic refinement emblematic of the Hellenistic Age, boasting a more graceful Athena than the mid-mass types.

Above: New Style tetradrachm of Athens of excellent early style purchased by Miller Ancients, December 2022, and later sold for $2,200. The coin is dated to 156/5 BC, only several years before Athens came under Roman rule (146 BC).

Hellenistic Athens was not the powerful metropolis of the Classical Age, but it still functioned an important regional center and emporium of Greek culture. The Roman Republic fought several wars with Macedon, Athens’ technical governing authority, from in 197 BC. After the final Macedonian defeat in 148 BC, Rome annexed the kingdom, which in theory included Athens and most of Greece. But the Greeks refused to submit to Roman domination, as they had with the Persians centuries earlier.

A later New Style tetradrachm of Athens, struck 128/7 BC. One can observe the decline in the level of artistry as time went on; this coin was struck about 20 years after Roman conquest. The style would grow even simpler in the first century BC.

They formed the Achaean League for common defense, which the typically independent-minded Athenians did not join. The League was defeated and Greece was to be ruled by the Romans until the Middle Ages (if you count the Byzantines as Romans, which one should). Athens was given remarkable independence and self-governing status under the Romans, who over time grew more and more of an affinity for Greek culture and learning. The city remained a vibrant center of Classical philosophy even into the Christian period, until 529, when Justinian closed the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens. The event is widely seen to be one of the key symbolic moments in the end of the ancient world.