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Founded in about 655 BC by Ionians from Andros, Stageira was well situated on the eastern coast of the Chalcidice, only a few miles from inland gold and silver mines. It seems to have produced coins only in the Archaic period, and in addition to the type offered here [which evolved over perhaps a thirty-year period], the city issued staters as early as 530 BC. that show a standing boar. We may perhaps add to these a group of staters depicting flowers arranged in a circular pattern that is sometimes interrupted by a standing boar. Its coinage ended seemingly due to the Persian invasion or the subsequent rule of Athens through the Delian League.
This remarkable piece, from an early phase of production, shows a lion attacking a boar – a playful adaptation of the lion-bull issues of Acanthus, a prominent city located about 15 miles down the eastern coast of the Chalcidice. Scione, another city on the Chalcidice, took a similar tack by issuing coins in this period that showed a lion attacking a stag. For a comparatively small town, Stageira was witness to some important events in Greek history, including the march of the Persian King Xerxes in 480 BC and the domination of the Chalcidice by the Delian League. Herodotus describes how the great army of Xerxes marched along the southern coast of Macedon, passing Stagirus en route to Acanthus, along the way forcing Greeks into the service of his army and navy; since Stageira was a coastal city, its men likely would have served in the king’s fleet. To the ancient Greeks, Stageira was along the path of Xerxes’ march, which in the time of Herodotus was still revered as holy ground [The Persian Wars, VII.115].
After two generations of indirect Athenian rule through the Delian League, the people of Stageira sided with Sparta in 424 BC and successfully revolted against Athens. The next major events in the history of Stageira involve the kings of Macedon, for Amyntas III [393-370/69 BC] befriended a distinguished local physician, Nicomachus, whose son Aristotle [born in Stageira about 384 BC] was destined to become the most accomplished pupil of Plato, and one of the world’s most renowned philosophers. Even so, Nicomachus’ friendship with Amyntas did not prevent that king’s son and successor, Philip II, from razing Stageira to the ground in 349 BC during his campaign to claim the Chalcidice during the Olynthian War. But the city was reborn, Plutarch [Alexander 7.1-2] tells us, when Philip convinced Aristotle to come to his court to tutor his son Alexander, offering as an inducement a promise to rebuild Stageira and to welcome back its people who were in exile or who had been consigned into slavery.
This remarkable piece, from an early phase of production, shows a lion attacking a boar – a playful adaptation of the lion-bull issues of Acanthus, a prominent city located about 15 miles down the eastern coast of the Chalcidice. Scione, another city on the Chalcidice, took a similar tack by issuing coins in this period that showed a lion attacking a stag. For a comparatively small town, Stageira was witness to some important events in Greek history, including the march of the Persian King Xerxes in 480 BC and the domination of the Chalcidice by the Delian League. Herodotus describes how the great army of Xerxes marched along the southern coast of Macedon, passing Stagirus en route to Acanthus, along the way forcing Greeks into the service of his army and navy; since Stageira was a coastal city, its men likely would have served in the king’s fleet. To the ancient Greeks, Stageira was along the path of Xerxes’ march, which in the time of Herodotus was still revered as holy ground [The Persian Wars, VII.115].
After two generations of indirect Athenian rule through the Delian League, the people of Stageira sided with Sparta in 424 BC and successfully revolted against Athens. The next major events in the history of Stageira involve the kings of Macedon, for Amyntas III [393-370/69 BC] befriended a distinguished local physician, Nicomachus, whose son Aristotle [born in Stageira about 384 BC] was destined to become the most accomplished pupil of Plato, and one of the world’s most renowned philosophers. Even so, Nicomachus’ friendship with Amyntas did not prevent that king’s son and successor, Philip II, from razing Stageira to the ground in 349 BC during his campaign to claim the Chalcidice during the Olynthian War. But the city was reborn, Plutarch [Alexander 7.1-2] tells us, when Philip convinced Aristotle to come to his court to tutor his son Alexander, offering as an inducement a promise to rebuild Stageira and to welcome back its people who were in exile or who had been consigned into slavery.