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Didrachm
| Issuer | Segesta |
|---|---|
| Year | 440 BC - 416 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | Hound standing to right in profile, rendered in fine archaic relief with careful attention to musculature and form; the animal is depicted alert, with head slightly raised, tail extended, and all four legs clearly defined. The figure occupies the central field of the flan with no legend or border present, characteristic of early Segestian coinage. |
|---|---|
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| Mint | Segesta |
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| Additional information |
Segesta was an Elymian city on the northwestern coast of Sicily — not Greek, but deeply Hellenized, and locked in a generations-long territorial dispute with the neighboring Greek city of Selinus. The didrachms struck during this period are products of that tension: Segesta needed coinage credible enough to hire Greek mercenaries and conduct diplomacy with Athens, whose catastrophic Sicilian Expedition of 415–413 BC was partly triggered by Segestane appeals for military intervention against Selinus.
The dies were almost certainly cut by itinerant Greek engravers, a common arrangement for non-Greek Sicilian mints lacking resident specialists.