ISLANDS off IONIA, Chios. Autonomous issue. 2nd-mid-3rd century AD.
Æ 3 Assaria  30mm,  Sphinx crouching right, left forepaw raised; at feet,
prow of galley right.  Rev:  Apollo, holding phiale and Dionysos, holding
cantharus and thyrsus, standing facing, lighted altar between.

SNG Copenhagen 1665;  SNG von Aulock 2285;

VF, dark patina

The sphinx served as the badge of Chios. Of Egyptian or Mesopotamian origin, the Sphinx, or “strangler” was a winged hybrid monster with the body of a lioness and a female head. She figured prominently in one of the myths connected with Oedipus, and the the aphorism “riddle of the Sphinx” came to define any seemingly unanswerable question.