Dekadrachm

The dating of this issue places it squarely within the reign of Hieronymus, the teenage grandson of Hieron II who abandoned Syracuse's long-standing alliance with Rome almost immediately upon taking power in 215 BC, throwing his lot in with Carthage following Hannibal's catastrophic defeat of Roman forces at Lake Trasimene and then Cannae. His reign lasted less than thirteen months before he was assassinated, triggering a violent factional struggle that ultimately brought Roman siege engines to the walls of Syracuse under Marcellus in 214 BC.

The gold fabric itself is unusual for Syracusan civic coinage, which had been predominantly silver throughout the preceding century of Deinomenid and then Hieronian output.