THESSALY, Larissa. Silver drachm, ca. 356-342 BC

THESSALY, Larissa. Silver drachm, ca. 356-342 BC; 18 mm, 6.13 g. Head of the nymph Larissa half-left, wearing ampyx, her luxuriant hair flowing in loose curls; dotted border. ✧ Rev. ΛΑΡΙΣ-ΑΙΩΝ • Horse grazing right with head lowered, linear ground line below; beneath, ethnic in retrograde. BCD Thessaly 316 ff.; Lorber 2000, Phase L-III; HGC 4, 453. Struck in exceptionally fine classical style, lightly iridescent cabinet tone; minor flan flaws on reverse, otherwise a sharply detailed and well-centred example. Ex Émile Bourgey auction, 21 January 1992, lot 66.

Minted in the decades before Philip II absorbed Thessaly, these Larissan drachms replaced the heavier staters of the fifth century and quickly became the everyday silver of the fertile Peneios plain. The facing-three-quarter portrait is among the earliest high-classical experiments with depth and movement in Greek die-engraving, while the peacefully grazing horse alludes to the region’s celebrated cavalry and stock-breeding economy. Hoards from Velestino to the Chalkidike show that such pieces travelled widely, circulating beside Macedonian issues until Alexander’s conquests shifted the monetary centre of gravity northward.