Gela's didrachms from this decade sit at one of the most consequential moments in Sicilian history. The city was among the Greek colonies that repelled the Carthaginian invasion at Himera in 480 BC — a battle fought, according to tradition, on the same day as Salamis. The victory decisively checked Phoenician expansion in Sicily for generations and generated the kind of civic confidence that typically translated into ambitious coinage programs.
Jenkins' classification of this type within his 1970 corpus on Geloan coinage places it among the earlier die sequences, suggesting production closer to the 480 end of the range.
Gela's didrachms from this decade sit at one of the most consequential moments in Sicilian history. The city was among the Greek colonies that repelled the Carthaginian invasion at Himera in 480 BC — a battle fought, according to tradition, on the same day as Salamis. The victory decisively checked Phoenician expansion in Sicily for generations and generated the kind of civic confidence that typically translated into ambitious coinage programs.
Jenkins' classification of this type within his 1970 corpus on Geloan coinage places it among the earlier die sequences, suggesting production closer to the 480 end of the range.