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Description: Greek Bronze Coin of Syracuse in Sicily. Under Dionysos I. Æ Tetras, Circa 435- 415 B.C.

Obverse: Head of Arethusa head to Right, Dolphin behind, [Σ]YPA before.

Reverse: Octopus.

Mint: Syracuse, Sicily

Size: 15 mm

Weight: 3.14 g

Ref: HGC 2, 1428

Inventory: 57.7

Condition: aVF, Well worn Nice example of this very interesting type.  Use the Picture as your judge as grading is subjective.

Notes:

Syracuse was the most important ancient city on the island of Sicily. The city is located in the southeast corner of the island of Sicily, next to the Gulf of Syracuse beside the Ionian Sea. The city was a founded around 734 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth and Tenea, led by the oecist (colonizer) Archias. The settlement of Syracuse was a planned event, as a strong central leader, Arkhias the aristocrat, laid out how property would be divided up for the settlers, as well as plans for how the streets of the settlement should be arranged, and how wide they should be. The nucleus of the ancient city was the small island of Ortygia. The settlers found the land fertile and the native tribes to be reasonably well-disposed to their presence.

The city grew and prospered, and for some time stood as the most powerful Greek city-state anywhere in the Mediterranean. Syracuse was at times allied with Sparta and Corinth and exerted influence over the entirety of Magna Graecia, of which it was the most important city. Described by Cicero as "the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all", it equaled Athens in size during the fifth century BC. The growing power and size of Syracuse made unavoidable the various clashes and wars that were then fought against the Carthaginians and others through 5th to 3rd centuries B.C. under the rule of a variety of leaders from Gelo (of Gela), Dionysius I (the Elder), Dionysius II (the Younger), Timoleon, Agathocles, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Hiero II. It then later became part of the Roman Republic and Byzantine Empire.

A First period of coinage began around the middle of the sixth century BC in the Dorian colonies, Syracuse, Gela, Agrigentum, etc. The weight standard here was not the Aeginetic but the Euboïc-Attic, which was soon universally adopted throughout the island, even by those Chalcidian colonies which had begun to coin on the supposed Aeginetic standard. The change to the Attic standard took place at Naxos some time after B.C. 498, at Zankle between B.C. 493 and 480, and at Himera in B.C. 482.

The original population of Sicily possessed, however, a weight standard of their own, based on the pound or litra of bronze. To this weight of bronze corresponded a silver litra of 13.5 grs. Even during the earliest period of the Aeginetic standard Zancle struck silver coins of this weight, and as it happened to be exactly 1/5 of the Attic drachm, it was readily adopted by those Greek cities which used the Euboïc-Attic standard, as an additional denomination slightly heavier than their own obol, from which they took care to distinguish it by giving it a different type, or by a mark of value. Thus at Syracuse the litra was marked with a sepia and the obol with a wheel. .

The coins struck in Sicily during this first period exhibit all the characteristic peculiarities of archaic art, but they are far more advanced, both in style and execution, than the contemporary coins either of Magna Graecia or of Greece proper.

A Second Period (480-413 B.C>) of Sicilian coinage starts with the great victory of the Greeks over the Carthaginians at Himera in B.C. 480 which was the prelude to a long interval of peace and prosperity all over Sicily. The coins of this epoch, which are plentiful throughout the island, are of great variety and interest. In style they exhibit a continuous advance upon the methods of archaic art, and a nearer and nearer approach to the highest point of excellence ever reached in the art of die-engraving. The whole period between B.C. 480 and the failure of the Athenian expedition in B.C. 413 may therefore be appropriately called the Period of Transition. Greek art and civilization had already thoroughly penetrated the inland Sikel towns such as Abacaenum, Enna, Galaria, Morgantina, &c., and were now making their way even into the non-Hellenic cities in the western portion of the island, e.g. Segesta and Eryx, ancient cities of the Elymi, and Motya and Panormus, strongholds of Carthage.

A Third Period (413-346 BC.) of coinage followed the defeat of the Atheniansand included an extraordinary outburst of artistic activity on the part of the great Sicilian cities, especially Syracuse. Syracuse and Agrigentum now issued their magnificent dekadrachms. The following names of engravers, among others, occur on coins of this period: at Syracuse, Euainetos, Kimon, Eukleidas, Parmenidas; at Agrigentum, Myr...; at Camarina, Exakestidas; at Himera, Mai...; at Messana, Kimon, Anan (?)...; at Naxus, Prokles; and at Catana, Herakleidas, Choirion) and Prokles.

One of the most striking peculiarities of Sicilian coins is the frequency with which personifications of Rivers and Nymphs are met with. Thus on coins of Himera the type is that of the Nymph of the warm springs; on a coin of Naxos we see the head of a river Assinos (probably the same as the Akesines); at Catana we get a full-face head of the river Amenanos; at Gela and Agrigentum we see the rivers of those towns, the Gelas and the Akragas; while at Camarina the head of the Hipparis appears. On the coins of Selinus the rivers Hypsas and Selinos are represented as offering sacrifice. In the archaic period the Sicilian rivers usually take the form of a man-headed bull, but in the transitional and fine periods they more often assume the human form, and appear as youths with short bulls’ horns over their foreheads. Among the nymphs represented on Sicilian coins are Himera, Arethusa, Kyane (?), Kamarina, and Eurymedusa.

It was probably at the beginning of this period that gold and bronze coins were first struck in Sicily, at any rate in considerable quantities. At the time of Dion’s expedition electrum was also introduced, and at Syracuse a large bronze litra was issued, the size of which shows that it was intended as real money and not as a token of artificial value.

The Carthaginian invasion at the close of the fifth century spread ruin through the island and put an end to the coinage almost everywhere. Syracuse alone of all the Greek silver-coining cities continued the uninterrupted issue of her beautiful tetradrachms and dekadrachms, and it was these which served as models for the Siculo-Punic currency of the Carthaginian towns.

Excerpts taken from Head Hist. Num., and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia