8 Litrai

This issue falls in the immediate aftermath of the Roman disaster at Lake Trasimene and coincides with Hieronymus replacing his grandfather Hiero II as ruler of Syracuse — a political rupture that ended decades of Roman alliance. Hieronymus almost immediately opened negotiations with Carthage, and coinage of this moment reflects that reorientation. The "var." qualifications across all three standard references suggest this specific die pairing sits outside the documented sequences, placing it among the less catalogued products of what was already a short and chaotic reign of perhaps fourteen months before Hieronymus was assassinated.