Silver 5 Asses Hippocamp and Cerberus

Luca — ancient Lucca in northwestern Etruria — produced this didrachm-weight issue during a period when the region was absorbing intensifying Roman pressure following the Latin War. The pairing of a sea-horse with the three-headed guardian of the underworld on a single coin is iconographically unusual even by Etruscan standards, where Greek mythological borrowing was common but rarely this eclectic in combination. Sambon catalogued it among the rarest of the Etruscan silver series, and Vecchi's later classification confirmed its status as a distinct local type rather than a derivative of any coastal Campanian issue.