MYSIA. Kyzikos. Approximately 450-330 BC. Stater (Electrum, 20 mm, 16.09 g, 1 h). Silenos, nude and bearded, kneeling right, holding kantharos in his right hand and pouring wine from a large amphora hero with his left on his left leg; below, tunny to right. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square. BMC 100. Boston MFA 1505-6 = Warren 1462-3. Gulbenkian 643. Jameson 1416. SNG Paris 318-9. By Fritze I, 172 and pl. V, 20. Very rare and beautiful preserved, with an unusually well centered and complete obverse. About extremely fine. This unusually vivid Dionysiac scene shows Silenos crouching on the tunny, balancing an amphora on his raised leg as he pours wine into a drinking cup.The subject must have been especially appropriate at Kyzikos, where the cult of Dionysysos is independently attested: Athenaeus records that 'in Cyzicus there is set up a bull-shaped statue of him' (Deipnosophistae XI.476a). Silenos, the habitual companion of Dionysos and embodiment of wine-fueled revelry, therefore had a resonance at Kyzikos that went beyond his familiar mythological role. This lot cannot be shipped to a US address.