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Onkia
| Issuer | Syracuse (Sicily) |
|---|---|
| Year | 410 BC - 301 BC |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Round (irregular) |
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| Obverse description | Head of Arethusa facing left, rendered in fine archaic-to-classical style, her hair elaborately dressed and bound with a wreath of reeds or grain, with loose locks cascading behind the neck; she wears a simple pendant earring. A dotted border frames the flan's edge. The legend ΣYPAKOΣY appears in the left field in Greek characters, arranged vertically alongside the portrait. |
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| Mint | Syracuse, Sicily |
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| Additional information |
Syracuse's bronze fractional coinage of this period was a direct consequence of the city's near-total exhaustion of silver during the Athenian siege of 415–413 BC and the subsequent decades of near-continuous warfare against Carthage. Bronze filled a civic need that silver could no longer reliably serve at small denominations. The onkia, one-twelfth of a litra, sat at the absolute floor of the denomination system.
CNS 31 places this type within the extensive Syracusan bronze corpus catalogued by Jenkins and others — a series notorious for die-link complexity and chronological disputes that remain unresolved.