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Didrachm
| Issuer | Neapolis (Campania) |
|---|---|
| Year | 420 BC - 400 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Head of a nymph facing right, her hair elaborately dressed and bound with a broad diadem or sphendone, with loose wavy locks falling at the neck. The rendering is in the refined late archaic to early classical Greek style, with delicate facial features, a straight nose, and a slightly parted lip. The hair is rendered with fine, flowing incised lines. The field is plain, with no inscription or legend on this face. |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
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| Additional information |
Neapolis — modern Naples — was founded as a Cumaean colony, itself refounded with heavy Athenian involvement around 470 BC, and its early silver coinage shows that Hellenic influence with unusual fidelity. The didrachm series referenced here, struck during a period of intensifying Samnite pressure on the Campanian coast, represents some of the earliest autonomous coinage from the city before it fell under Roman alliance in 326 BC.
The HN Italy 552 classification places this squarely among the archaic-to-classical transitional issues, where Neapolitan dies show a marked stylistic debt to Syracusan engraving — not coincidentally, given the trading relationships between the two cities in this period.