Macedon. Chalkidian League. Olynthos circa 383-382 BC. Tetradrachm

Macedon. Chalkidian League. Olynthos circa 383-382 BC.
Tetradrachm AR

24 mm, 14,32 g

Laureate head of Apollo to right / ΧΑΛΚΙΔΕΩΝ around kithara with seven strings.



Minor flan flaw to rev., attractive deep cabinet tone over lustrous metal; Good Very Fine.

Robinson & Clement Group H, 27a (A22/P24); SNG ANS 474 (same dies); HGC 3.1, 498.

The growing influence and expansionist aims of the Chalkidian League led by Olynthos in 382 BC led to calls from Amyntas of Macedon, as well as the cities of Akanthos and Apollonia (who anticipated imminent conquest by the League), for Spartan intervention to check the League's power. Sparta, keen to reassert its presence in northern Greece, consented and a force of 10,000 was mobilised and dispatched against the League.

After several years of protracted but indecisive warfare, Olynthos agreed to dissolve the Chalkidian League. However, this dissolution appears to have been little more than a token formality, since in the following year the League appears among the members of the Athenian naval confederacy, and twenty years later Demosthenes reported the power of the League as being much greater than before the Spartan expedition.


Pleasant Tetradrachm of Olynthos