Ave!

Troas, Gergis, Sibyl with Sphinx reverse!

Æ; 9mm/1.0gm    Struck ca. 4th Cent. BC

Con/ Dark brown patina with earthen highlights and a very sharp image of the sphinx; struck slightly off center on the obverse, otherwise, Very Fine

Obv/ Laureate head of the Sibyl Herophile facing slightly right.

Rev/ Sphinx seated right, ΓΕΡ before.

Ref/ SNG Ashmolean 1147; SNG Copenhagen 338. 

Seller's Note/ Herophile was the daughter of Apollo, or of Zeus and Lamia, or of Ketophagos and an Idaic nymph. According to Kerenyi she was the oldest and one of the most famous of all sibyls. She lived at the time when Troy was destroyed and she was the priestess of the Smintheum, the sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus. There she had predicted the destruction of Troy.

Troas, Gergis was an ancient city located Anatolia, modern Turkey.