100 Litrai

This issue belongs to the coinage of Agathokles, tyrant of Syracuse who in 304 BC crowned himself king — the first ruler in the Greek west to adopt the royal title, a direct response to the Successors carving up Alexander's empire. The denomination itself reflects his ambitions: a heavy gold piece struck at a weight standard deliberately echoing Macedonian practice, positioning Syracuse as a peer power rather than a provincial city-state.

Agathokles had taken the war directly to Carthage in 310 BC, landing in North Africa — an audacious gamble that no Sicilian ruler had attempted. The gold coinage of his reign was almost certainly linked to financing that campaign and its aftermath.