Leukas, Akarnania (hippocamp coll)

[b]Leukas, Akarnania (hippocamp coll.; 320-290/80 BC.) AR Stater[/b] [u]Obv[/u]: Pegasos, flying right; Λ monogram below. [u]Rev[/u]: Helmeted head of Athena (Aphrodite?), facing left; Λ monogram and hippocamp in right field. [u]Attribution[/u]: SNG Cop. 361; Calciati Pegasi II, 424, 118; Imhoof-Blumer, 126, 34 [u]Provenance[/u]: ex. M&M GmbH 23 (#261), 10.18.07; ex. BCD Coll. [u]Weight[/u]: 8.33 gm [u]Maximal Diameter[/u]: 21.51 mm [u]Axis[/u]: 3 [u]Notes[/u]: The myth about Sappho's suicide at Cape Leukas is related to other myths linking the island to the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, and to Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey. The German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld, having performed excavations at various locations of Leukas, proposed that Leukas was Homer's Ithaca, and the palace of Odysseus was located west of Nidri off the south coast of Lefkada. There exist several passages in the Odyssey suggesting that Lefkada is the real model for Homeric Ithaca. The most notable of these passages describes Ithaca as an island reachable on foot, which is the case for Leukas, that is connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway (although analysis by geographers and hydrographers has concluded that the causeway is a more recent product of silting in the natural channel between the island and mainland and that in Homer's day Leukas was indeed an island). GK269