STATE

Issue: 340-328 BC,  D/ laureate head of Apollo right,  R/ charioteer on chariot r., holding whip in right hand and reins in left. Under the horses' legs a Nike in flight  to. with crown, Mint of Pella, Bibl. ref. The Rider 357;  Metal: AV, gr. 8.56, Diameter: mm. 18.52. qSPL.

PROVENANCE
Bolaffi, Turin;
private collection, Rome.

Below are two extracts from the "Expert Appendix to the Bolaffi Quality Certificate" no. 544 of 13/05/2021” attached to this lot:



… The first certain historical sources relating to the Macedonians start from the 5th century BC. and qualify them as a community organized on a monarchical basis, tending to relate more and more with the Hellenic world under the impulse of the reigning dynasty which appreciated its superior level of civilization and culture.
In 359 BC. a member of this dynasty, who lived for a long time at a young age in the Greek city of Thebes where he had developed high-level political and military qualities, ascended the throne with the name of Philip II. He knew the endemic state of discord, when not of open conflict, which perennially agitated the Greek world and developed the plan to take advantage of it to expand the borders of his kingdom. Therefore he dedicated the first years to giving order and military strength to the state, instituting compulsory military service and organizing the army into phalanxes, the famous Macedonian phalanxes, surpassed in strength and compactness only by the Roman legions. Once the preparation phase was over, Philip II began his work of conquest, which in the following two decades led him to de facto reign over the whole of Greece, through repeated military campaigns in which, with consummate political skill, he never intervened on his own initiative, but only after having succeeded in arousing the request now of one, now of the other warring faction. The "philipics" of Demosthenes date back to this period, passionate and vehement orations with which the democratic politician addressed the Athenians to warn them about the true intentions of the Macedonian king.
The respect that Philip II showed towards the autonomous institutions of the Greeks aimed at gaining their trust to build a great alliance destined to attack the Persian Empire, a work to which he dedicated the last years of his life, interrupted tragically by an attack in 336 BC.
He was succeeded, at the age of twenty, by his son Alexander III, who, from a young age, had given proof of extraordinary courage and great ingenuity, stimulated and enriched by a series of illustrious tutors, including the philosopher Aristotle. …


… it should come as no surprise that the coinage to the name of both kings, Philip and Alexander, continued for a long time even after the death of each of them, an unequivocal sign of the fact that their successors did not consider themselves up to being able to put their name on coins and, indeed, recalled that of Philip or of Alexander to claim his political legacy, real or presumed to be. …

The present lot cannot be exported from Italy.