English : The coinage of Olympia, Greece. Circa 432-c.421, from the 87 th Olympiad.

Stater (Silver, 12.09 g 7), late 420s, signed by Da…

Δ Α. Eagle standing right, wings spread, holding, with his beak, the neck of a snake whose head rises up to strike left at the eagle’s head; the remainder of the snake’s body passes round the eagles neck and down to the ground where it is grasped by the eagle’s talons and ends in a coil below the eagle’s tail; to left and right, in small letters; above, countermark of an owl left with facing head.

Ϝ Α (digamma-alfa, first two letters of Elis in local dialect: ϜΑΛΙΣ, walis). Thunderbolt, with wings above and volutes below; all within a circular border of pellets.

From the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, NFA VIII, 6 June 1980, 178, and of E.P. Warren (the reference to the Greenwell collection in the NFA catalogue seems to be an error). This is one of the most noble and life-like eagles to appear on the coinage of Olympia. Its battle with the snake is portrayed in an extremely dramatic manner: the snake is doomed since the eagle is just about to break its neck, but his head, raised up above the eagle’s, is poised to strike. The reverse is also uncommonly well made with the thunderbolt, the letters, and the encircling border of pearls perfectly placed. The engraver who cut the dies for this piece was justly proud of them, and in a first at Olympia, added his signature, DA, to the obverse die (these letters reappear on the reverse of the magnificent Zeus issue of 416; (see lot 62, below). The owl countermark was ascribed by Seltman to Tegea. Another example, possibly from the same punch, appears on a hemidrachm, lot 60, below. LEU90, 58.