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15 Litrai - Hicetas II
| Issuer | Syracuse |
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| Year | 287 BC - 278 BC |
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| Currency | Litra |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of Kore (Persephone) facing left, her hair bound with a wreath of grain ears, adorned with a single-pendant earring and a beaded necklace. The portrait is rendered in the refined late Syracusan style, with delicate modelling of the facial features. A bee appears to the right of the head, serving as a subsidiary symbol in the field. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Hicetas II seized power in Syracuse around 288 BC after the collapse of Agathocles' dynasty, ruling as a strategos rather than king — a careful political distinction that shaped the city's coinage policy during his tenure. The 15 litrai denomination places this piece within a weight standard calibrated against the Syracusan litra system rather than the Attic didrachm, a deliberate choice that maintained local monetary identity during a period of sustained pressure from Carthaginian forces in western Sicily.
Hicetas was ultimately executed by the Syracusans themselves in 278 BC, the same year Pyrrhus of Epirus arrived in Sicily, rendering this entire coinage series confined to roughly a decade of turbulent civic history.