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Litra
| Issuer | Aitna |
|---|---|
| Year | 460 BC - 450 BC |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Bald, bearded head of Silenos facing right, rendered in archaic Sicilian style with finely engraved flowing beard and characteristic snub-nosed, grotesque physiognomy. The head is crowned with an ivy wreath, the leaves rendered in low relief encircling the brow. Long, wavy hair falls behind the neck, and the portrait fills most of the flan, set against a plain field within a beaded border. |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Reverse lettering | ΑΙΤΝΑΙ |
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| Additional information |
Aitna was not a native Sicilian city but a political fabrication — founded in 476 BC by Hieron I of Syracuse, who resettled the population of Katane and installed his son Deinomenes as ruler over a new colony populated largely by Peloponnesian mercenaries. The city's coinage was correspondingly short-lived. When Hieron died in 467 BC, the expelled Kataneans returned and drove out the Aitnaioi, who relocated to Inessa. Most Aitna coinage dates to this narrow window, making any surviving piece a product of a dynastic experiment that collapsed within a single generation.