Hemilitra / Hexonkia

Naxos was the oldest Greek colony in Sicily, founded by Chalcidian settlers around 734 BC, and its coinage reflects a city that punched well above its size. This tiny fractional piece dates to the period following the expulsion of Ducetius and the restoration of Naxian autonomy in 461 BC — a brief window of civic revival before the city was razed by Dionysius I of Syracuse in 403 BC, its population enslaved or dispersed. The mint never reopened. Every coin from this series is therefore a terminal document of a destroyed polis.