Sikyonia, Sikyon, ca. 431-400 BC, AR Drachm

Dove with raised wings alighting left, Σ below, E above tail feathers.
Dove flying with open wings left within olive wreath.

HGC 5, 206; BCD Peloponnesos 174 (same obv. die); BCD Peloponnesos 175 (same rev. die); BMC 26 ff.; SNG Cop. 34; Traité 764.

(18 mm, 5.63 g, 10h).

This coin was struck from the first obverse die used to strike Sikyon drachms at the start of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) in which Sikyon allied with Sparta and others against the growing hegemony of Athens. The war was waged for a generation, exhausting the participants on both sides before Athens finally succumbed. Sikyon provided much of the coinage used by the Peloponnesian allies. Worn as it now is, this coin would have circulated through much of the period of the war, a tangible connection to this period of epic conflict.