Description:
This ancient coin was minted in the city of Anactorium, located at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf in the western Greek region of Acarnania along the Ionian Sea. Anactorium, along with other settlements in the region, were founded by the Corinthians in the 7th century BC and over time became the Acarnanian confederacy.
This 4th to 3rd century BC coin features Pegasus, the pure white mythological flying horse who first set foot on Earth at Corinth. With the help of Athena, who presented him with a golden bridle, a young Corinthian nobleman named Bellerophon captured Pegasus while he paused to drink from a spring. He then tamed Pegasus so he could ride on its back and defeat both the Chimera and the Amazons, tasks which would otherwise have been impossible for a mortal. Pegasus was also mortal and because of his faithful service, on the last day of his life, Zeus, the king of the gods, transformed him into a constellation.
On the reverse of this coin, Athena is wearing a Corinthian helmet with a thymiaterion incense burner to the right in the background. Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom, peace, warfare, strategy, handicrafts and reason. An armed warrior goddess, Athena appears in Greek mythology as a helper of many heroes, including Odysseus, Jason and Hercules. In Classical Greek myths she never consorts with a lover, earning the title Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin", hence the name of her most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.
