Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (14.2019)

Tom XIV

Kraków 2019

NOTAE NUMISMÄT1CAE
ZAPISKI NUMIZMATYCZNE

EMANUEL PETAC
Senior Researcher
The Numismatic Department of the Library of the Romanian Academy
AUREL VILCU
Senior Researcher
“Vasile Parvan” Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy
About the Diobols Hoard of Apollonia Pontica
and Mesembria Discovered in 1911 in Constanta
(Ancient Tomis)
ABSTRACT: In 1937 two diobols (from Apollonia Pontica and Mesembria)
were offered to the numismatic collection of the Romanian Academy. The Inventory
of the Numismatic Department of the Library of the Romanian Academy states
that they came from a hoard containing 30 40 similar coins discovered in 1911 in
Constanta (ancient Tomis), and specifying the exact location (inside the ancient city).
In 193 8, two similar diobols were offered by a collector to the Alexander St. Georges
Museum in Bucharest (today to be found in the collection of the “Vasile Parvan”
Institute of Archaeology in Bucharest). The same Inventory from the Romanian
Academy shows that another 12 diobols from Apollonia (of the same type) were
bought for the collection of the Romanian Academy from M.C. Soutzu in 1921,
and belong to the same hoard.
There is an entire horizon of coin hoards containing diobols from Apollonia
Pontica and Mesembria in Dobruja (a historical region encompassing NE Bulgaria
and SE Romania), none of which are mixed with Macedonian coins. It is probable
that most of them, including Constanta 1911, were buried because of the war between
the Macedonian king, Philippus II, and the Scythian king, Ateas, a conflict which
indirectly affected Dobruja and more directly Tomis in 339 BC.
KEY WORDS: Apollonia, Mesembria, Philippus II, Ateas, Tomis