Aitolian League in Aitolia 211BC Spear Jawbone Calydonian Boar Greek Coin i53308

Item: i53308

Authentic Ancient

Greek coin of

Aitolia
Bronze 17mm (3.83 grams) Struck circa 220-205 B.C.
Reference: Sear 2322 var.; HGC 4, 957
Laureate head of Aitolos or Apollo right.
AITΩ / ΛΩN above and beneath 
spear-head and jaw-bone of the Calydonian boar right; ΔΩ
in central field; bunch of grapes to 
left.
 
The warlike people of this district produced no coinage until the 3rd Century 
B.C., when 
the Gallic invasion of Greece occasioned the inauguration of a 
Federal currency.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, 

Authenticity.

The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters of
Greek mythology
that had to be overcome by 
heroes of the Olympian age. Sent by
Artemis
to ravage the region of
Calydon
in
Aetolia
because its king failed to honor her in 
his rites to the gods, it was killed in the Calydonian Hunt, in which 
many male heroes took part, but also a powerful woman,
Atalanta
, who won its hide by first wounding it 
with an arrow. This outraged some of the men, with tragic results.
Strabo
was under the impression that the 
Calydonian Boar was an offspring of the
Crommyonian Sow
vanquished by
Theseus
.

Importance in Greek mythology and art

The Calydonian Boar is one of the
chthonic
monsters in Greek mythology, each set 
in a specific locale. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in
Aetolia
, it met its end in the Calydonian 
Hunt, in which all the heroes of the new age pressed to take part, with the 
exception of Heracles
, who vanquished his own Goddess-sent
Erymanthian Boar
separately. Since the mythic 
event drew together numerous heroes—among whom were many who were venerated as 
progenitors of their local ruling houses among tribal groups of
Hellenes
into Classical times—the Calydonian 
Boar hunt offered a natural subject in classical art, for it was redolent with 
the web of myth that gathered around its protagonists on other occasions, around 
their half-divine descent and their offspring. Like the quest for the
Golden Fleece
(Argonautica) 
or the Trojan War
that took place the following 
generation, the Calydonian Hunt is one of the nodes in which much Greek myth 
comes together.

Both Homer
and
Hesiod
and their listeners were aware of the 
details of this myth, but no surviving complete account exists: some
papyrus
fragments found at
Oxyrhynchus
are all that survive of
Stesichorus
‘ telling; the myth repertory called

Bibliotheke
(“The Library”) contains the 
gist of the tale, and before that was compiled the Roman poet Ovid told the 
story in some colorful detail in his
Metamorphoses
.

Hunt

King Oeneus
(“wine man”) of
Calydon
, an ancient city of west-central
Greece
north of the
Gulf of Patras
, held annual harvest sacrifices 
to the gods on the sacred hill. One year the king forgot to include Great “Artemis 
of the Golden Throne” in his offerings Insulted, Artemis, the “Lady of the Bow”, 
loosed the biggest, most ferocious boar imaginable on the countryside of 
Calydon. It rampaged throughout the countryside, destroying vineyards and crops, 
forcing people to take refuge inside the city walls (Ovid), where they began to 
starve.

Oeneus sent messengers out to look for the best hunters in Greece, offering 
them the boar’s pelt and tusks as a prize.

Among those who responded were some of the
Argonauts
, Oeneus’ own son
Meleager
, and, remarkably for the Hunt’s 
eventual success, one woman— the huntress
Atalanta
, the “indomitable”, who had been 
suckled by Artemis as a she-bear and raised as a huntress, a proxy for Artemis 
herself (Kerenyi; Ruck and Staples). Artemis appears to have been divided in her 
motives, for it was also said that she had sent the young huntress because she 
knew her presence would be a source of division, and so it was: many of the men, 
led by Kepheus and Ankaios, refused to hunt alongside a woman. It was the 
smitten Meleager who convinced them. Nonetheless it was Atalanta who first 
succeeded in wounding the boar with an arrow, although Meleager finished it off, 
and offered the prize to Atalanta, who had drawn first blood. But the sons of 
Thestios, who considered it disgraceful that a woman should get the trophy where 
men were involved, took the skin from her, saying that it was properly theirs by 
right of birth, if Meleagros chose not to accept it. Outraged by this, Meleagros 
slew the sons of Thestios and again gave the skin to Atalanta (Bibliotheke). 
Meleager’s mother, sister of Meleager’s slain uncles, took the fatal brand from 
the chest where she had kept it (see
Meleager
) and threw it once more on the fire; 
as it was consumed, Meleager died on the spot, as the Fates had foretold. Thus 
Artemis achieved her revenge against King Oeneus.

Peleus accidentally killed his host Eurytion. 
In the course of the hunt and its aftermath, many of the hunters turned upon one 
another, contesting the spoils, and so the Goddess continued to be revenged (Kerenyi, 
114): “But the goddess again made a great stir of anger and crying battle, over 
the head of the boar and the bristling boar’s hide, between
Kouretes
and the high-hearted
Aitolians
” (Homer,
Iliad
, ix.543).

The boar’s hide that was preserved in the Temple of
Athena Alae
at
Tegea
in
Laconia
was reputedly that of the Calydonian 
Boar, “rotted by age and by now altogether without bristles” by the time
Pausanias
saw it in the second century CE. He 
noted that the tusks had been taken to Rome as booty from the defeated allies of
Mark Anthony
by
Augustus
; “one of the tusks of the Calydonian 
boar has been broken”, Pausanias reports, “but the remaining one, having a 
circumference of about half a fathom, was dedicated in the Emperor’s gardens, in 
a shrine of Dionysos”. The Calydonian Hunt was the theme of the temple’s main 
pediment.

Aetolus  was, in
Greek mythology
, a son of
Endymion
, grandson of
Deucalion
, and a
Naiad

nymph
, or
Iphianassa
. According to
Pausanias
, his mother was called
Asterodia
,
Chromia
, or
Hyperippe
. He was married to
Pronoe
, by whom he had two sons,
Pleuron
and
Calydon
. His brothers were
Paeon
,
Epeius
, and others His father compelled him and 
his two brothers Paeon and Epeius to decide by a contest at
Olympia
as to which of them was to succeed him 
in his kingdom of Elis
. Epeius gained the victory, and occupied 
the throne after his father, and on his demise he was succeeded by Aetolus. 
During the funeral games which were celebrated in honor of
Azan
, he ran with his chariot over
Apis
, the son of
Jason
or
Salmoneus
, and killed him, whereupon he was 
expelled by the sons of Apis. The kingdom then passed to
Eleius
, son of his sister
Eurycyda
. After leaving
Peloponnesus
, he went to the country of the
Curetes
, between the
Achelous
and the
Corinthian
gulf, where he slew
Dorus
,
Laodocus
, and
Polypoetes
, the sons of
Apollo
and
Phthia
, and gave to the country the name of
Aetolia
. This story is only a mythical account 
of the colonization of Aetolia.

The Aetolian League (also transliterated as Aitolian 
League) was a confederation of tribal communities and cities in
ancient Greece
centered on
Aetolia
in central Greece. It was established, 
probably during the early Hellenistic era, in opposition to
Macedon
and the
Achaean League
. Two annual meetings were held 
in
Thermika
and Panaetolika. It occupied
Delphi
from
290 BC
and gained territory steadily until, by 
the end of the 3rd century BC, it controlled the whole of central Greece outside
Attica
. At its height, the league’s territory 
included Locris
,
Malis
, Dolopes, part of
Thessaly
,
Phocis
, and
Acarnania
. In the latter part of its power, 
certain
Mediterranean
city-states joined the Aitolian 
League such as Kydonia
on

Crete
.
 

 Origins of the 
League

It is uncertain when the League was founded. It has been suggested that it 
may have been founded by

Epaminondas
. Grainger believes it was founded 
much later – around the time of the rise of
Philip II of Macedon
. After Philip’s victory of
Naupaktos
<!– Aetolia was granted
Chaeronea
which the Aetolians garrisoned – a 
level of organization that suggests some formal government rather than the loose 
alliance of earlier times.

 Alliance with Rome

The league was the first Greek ally of the

Roman Republic
, siding with the Romans during 
the
First Macedonian War
, and helping to defeat
Philip V of Macedon
at the
Battle of Cynoscephalae
in
197 BC
, during the
Second Macedonian War
. However, it grew 
increasingly hostile to Roman involvement in Greek affairs and only a few years 
later sided with
Antiochus III
, the anti-Roman king of the
Seleucid Empire
, during the
Roman-Syrian War
. The defeat of Antiochus in
189 BC
robbed the league of its principal 
foreign ally and made it impossible to stand alone in continued opposition to 
Rome. The league was forced to sign a peace treaty with Rome that made it a 
subject ally of the republic. Although it continued to exist in name, the power 
of the league was broken by the treaty and it never again constituted a 
significant political or military force.

 A Pirate State?

The Aetolian League acquired a reputation for piracy and brigandage. Though 
there is some recognition that Polybius was to an extent following an Achaean 
bias in his portrayal of the League thus, many modern historians have accepted 
this portrayal as in the main justified. For example, Walbank is explicit in 
seeing the Aetolians as systematically using piracy to supplement their income 
because of the meager resources of their region 
while Will simply assumes the truth of the charge. Grainger devotes a whole 
chapter to examining Aetolian involvement in piracy along with the charges that 
the Aetolians were temple robbers. He finds it hard to credit that Aetolia was 
involved in piracy given that Aetolia lacked a fleet of even the basic sort. 
Further by contrast with more general historians, those that have made specific 
studies of piracy and brigandage barely mention Aetolia. He lists the times that 
the Aetolians were accused of temple robbery and argues that the weight of these 
accusations should take into account that these are usually made by political 
opponents of the League and refer to occasions that were already some way in the 
past when the accusations were made.