Boiōnē. Überlegungen zur Münzprägung, Lokalisierung und Geschichte eines Polichnion in der Umgebung von Kyme

Abstract

This contribution seeks to identify the location of the small town of Boione in Aeolis, which is known only from its coins, by investigating the iconography, the legends, and the manufacturing techniques of this small bronze coinage from the 4th c. BC. Although H. Engelmann has placed Boione in the territory of Phokaia, a more detailed analysis of the coins shows that it was in fact a neighbouring city of the Aeolian town of Larisa. In the same way as this polichnion, Boione should therefore be located on a small river named Boionites, which was itself named after the area surrounding its spring and finally flowed into the river Hermos. As a consequence, the town must have been located on the upper reaches of this river, but seems to have been overshadowed by its more prominent neighbour Larisa in the 4th c. BC when the coins bearing its name were minted. Both of these small towns were evidently absorbed into the territory of Kyme already in the early Hellenistic period, thus losing their independence.